Buildings are where the majority people in modern societies spend most of their time, whether in homes, commercial buildings, industrial facilities or retail complexes. The design and construction of buildings require a large investment of time, money and other resources. Then they require additional resources for running costs and maintenance. Bad design can greatly increase energy consumption over the whole lifetime of the building. Fortunately, good building design can greatly reduce energy consumption during construction and ongoing throughout a building's life. - Description added by: David Lockie

Renewable and alternative energy sources are set to play an increasingly important role in providing the electricity, heat, cooling and fuels that society needs. There is a wide range of energy sources such as solar (both photovoltaic and solar thermal), wind, bio-fuels and biomass, hydro-electric, geothermal and heat pumps. - Description added by: David Lockie

Food is essential to human existence and it is an integral part of a low carbon economy. Food miles, artificial fertilizers, organic production, mono cultures, food vs. fuel and industrialization are all issues for consideration in the wider context of ‘low carbon food’. Growing food increasingly relies on agro-industry using machinery, pesticides, artificial fertilizers and even genetic modification.

Even simple food crops now have significant embedded carbon factor, and the carbon cost of agriculture is further increased by factors such as clearing of natural habitats to make room for farming (and the subsequent loss of biodiversity), the use of mono cultures that damage the land (and cause future reliance on technologically-driven agriculture) and transportation of the produce. On the other hand, agriculture can also provide bio-fuels and biomass which are sure to play a part in the future energy mix. - Description added by: David Lockie

Utilities are services that include the supply of gas, electricity, water, and sewerage. The term utilities may also be used to describe the companies that supply such services. Low carbon utilities refer to services that have a lower carbon footprint than the traditional services, such as supplies of low carbon electricity generated by renewable energy sources for example. - Description added by: David Lockie

Communities consist of homes, businesses and sometimes industrial concerns, with infrastructure like health care, transport, communications, government and utilities. Many decisions about low carbon need to be considered at the community level in order to ensure that ‘joined-up thinking’ is applied to the process. Click the picture to the right to explore our interactive community environment. - Description added by: David Lockie