The EVALOC project, which started in January 2011, brings together social science and building science-based disciplines to assess, explain and communicate the changes in energy use due to community activities within six selected low-carbon communities funded under the DECC's Low Carbon Communities Challenge (LCCC), a government-supported initiative to transform the way communities use and produce energy, and build new ways of supporting more sustainable living.

The six geographical low-carbon communities represent: best-practice low-carbon interventions, socio-economic status (affluent and non-affluent), and track record in achieving carbon reductions. In the EVALOC project, these low-carbon community projects will be evaluated in tesrms of their:

Impacts (on changing individual and community energy behaviours)
Effectiveness (on achieving real-savings in energy use and carbon emissions)
Success (in bringing about sustained and systemic change).

Capacity has been invited as a consultant to provide research into community capacity building. More information on EVALOC can be found here download EVALOC Leaflet

This major research grant has been awarded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to lead an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Oxford Brookes Univ) and University of Oxford (OU) on a three-year research project.