Powering Productivity: Mapping the Role of Energy Infrastructure in UK Labour Productivity using Expert Elicitation and a Thematic Literature Review
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Surrey
Department Name: Centre for Environment & Sustainability
Abstract
Energy is likely to be an important element of UK productivity (defined as the amount of output generated per hour worked). One way that energy might impact UK productivity is through cost. The price of energy is an important part of the cost of production for UK firms and affects their investment decisions. Another way that energy is important is through transport. Traffic congestion affects the productivity of cities, and attempts to reduce congestion are affected by energy infrastructure and supply, both of which are currently changing. If energy is important for productivity, then it is important to try understand how changes in UK energy infrastructure might affect UK productivity growth.
Renewable energy has a growing share of the UK energy supply. It is harder to extract energy from renewable sources than from conventional oil, coal and gas. This means that it requires greater energy in to get the same amount of energy out. As a result, using more renewable energy might mean that the UK has to use more and more energy to support the same amount of economic activity. Energy (and energy infrastructure) is not free, so the country might have to spend more of its finances producing the same amount of output. However, renewable energies are relatively cheap, and getting cheaper. This could be good news for productivity because it might increase investment in new technologies, for example. In turn this might make renewables more efficient, and investment in renewable energy could be used as a way to boost productivity growth. So, whether renewable energy is good or bad for productivity growth depends on how these and other factors interact. This project aims to summarise the existing evidence base in order to try answer this kind of question.
Our research will review the existing body of work that explores the relationship between energy and productivity. Using bibliographic and computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software we will construct and analyse a database of research literature. This will be complemented by engagement with experts from business, government and academia. Experts will help us to identify the key relationships between energy and productivity in the UK, and help us navigate the evidence base. Expert views will be gathered by a questionnaire and then by a series of mapping workshops. The workshops will produce several diagrams that show the links between parts of the evidence base ('knowledge maps'). These maps will be used to identify and organise the most important pieces of evidence in the debates around energy and productivity in the UK. In this way, the experts will focus our review of the research literature.
This research project will deliver innovative visualisations and a written report. These deliverables will summarise existing knowledge on the relationship between energy and UK productivity. Initial knowledge maps, produced in the workshops, will be developed by professional designers into infographics. These infographics will be produced in two forms, one suitable for offline use and one for online use. The latter will be interactive and updateable. In addition, we will produce an open access database of the literature, and a written report summarising key lessons from the evidence base on energy and UK productivity. These outputs will be hosted on the website of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, and will be promoted with blogposts and a social media campaign.
It is hoped that this project will enhance discussions on UK productivity and build and increase capacities for policymakers, researchers and private sector actors.
Renewable energy has a growing share of the UK energy supply. It is harder to extract energy from renewable sources than from conventional oil, coal and gas. This means that it requires greater energy in to get the same amount of energy out. As a result, using more renewable energy might mean that the UK has to use more and more energy to support the same amount of economic activity. Energy (and energy infrastructure) is not free, so the country might have to spend more of its finances producing the same amount of output. However, renewable energies are relatively cheap, and getting cheaper. This could be good news for productivity because it might increase investment in new technologies, for example. In turn this might make renewables more efficient, and investment in renewable energy could be used as a way to boost productivity growth. So, whether renewable energy is good or bad for productivity growth depends on how these and other factors interact. This project aims to summarise the existing evidence base in order to try answer this kind of question.
Our research will review the existing body of work that explores the relationship between energy and productivity. Using bibliographic and computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software we will construct and analyse a database of research literature. This will be complemented by engagement with experts from business, government and academia. Experts will help us to identify the key relationships between energy and productivity in the UK, and help us navigate the evidence base. Expert views will be gathered by a questionnaire and then by a series of mapping workshops. The workshops will produce several diagrams that show the links between parts of the evidence base ('knowledge maps'). These maps will be used to identify and organise the most important pieces of evidence in the debates around energy and productivity in the UK. In this way, the experts will focus our review of the research literature.
This research project will deliver innovative visualisations and a written report. These deliverables will summarise existing knowledge on the relationship between energy and UK productivity. Initial knowledge maps, produced in the workshops, will be developed by professional designers into infographics. These infographics will be produced in two forms, one suitable for offline use and one for online use. The latter will be interactive and updateable. In addition, we will produce an open access database of the literature, and a written report summarising key lessons from the evidence base on energy and UK productivity. These outputs will be hosted on the website of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity, and will be promoted with blogposts and a social media campaign.
It is hoped that this project will enhance discussions on UK productivity and build and increase capacities for policymakers, researchers and private sector actors.
Planned Impact
The industrial strategy intends to increase productivity at a time when the sources of energy supply are changing with implications for the entire economy. There is an existing resource of research on these topics, but it is diffuse and not well integrated into commercial thinking or policy design. Gathering and structuring the existing evidence base literature will provide pathways to drive productivity, as well as highlighting the practicability and potential effectiveness of interventions.
Possible emerging gaps in the literature regarding energy and UK productivity which are important for policymaking could foster further engagements and knowledge sharing between industrial, academic and policymaking actors. Outcomes of such interactions could eventually bring significant value addition to UK industrial strategy and how it pursues its goal of increasing productivity. Possible outcomes of a thematic literature review could shape planning of the UK energy resources and investment in energy infrastructure at the micro and macro levels as the interactions of the factors that drive productivity becomes clearer in the UK context.
It is hoped that at the end of the research, investor behaviour and its linkages to the energy-productivity relationship will be contextualised and made more comprehensible to support investment decision making in the UK.
All the above possible outcomes of the research could significantly inform the industrial strategy of the UK and its expected outcomes on the entire UK economy.
Possible emerging gaps in the literature regarding energy and UK productivity which are important for policymaking could foster further engagements and knowledge sharing between industrial, academic and policymaking actors. Outcomes of such interactions could eventually bring significant value addition to UK industrial strategy and how it pursues its goal of increasing productivity. Possible outcomes of a thematic literature review could shape planning of the UK energy resources and investment in energy infrastructure at the micro and macro levels as the interactions of the factors that drive productivity becomes clearer in the UK context.
It is hoped that at the end of the research, investor behaviour and its linkages to the energy-productivity relationship will be contextualised and made more comprehensible to support investment decision making in the UK.
All the above possible outcomes of the research could significantly inform the industrial strategy of the UK and its expected outcomes on the entire UK economy.
Organisations
Publications
Isham A
(2021)
Worker wellbeing and productivity in advanced economies: Re-examining the link
in Ecological Economics
Boehnert J
(2019)
CUSP Online Report
in Powering Productivity - Mapping Method Report
Mair S
(2020)
A tale of two utopias: Work in a post-growth world
in Ecological Economics
Description | Our key achievements in this grant have been to 1) open up new research questions at the interface of energy, wellbeing and sustainability; 2) bring established tools from systems oriented design into economics and sustainability research, this provided the basis for 3) development of new methods for summarising, synthesising and communicating knowledge in the latter disciplines. On 1), we produced two substantive reports that summarise the literature on wellbeing and productivity, and energy and productivity and make recommendations for future research. Key lessons from the energy report were that researchers have proposed a many links between energy and productivity, both direct (such as the way that capital uses energy) and more indirect (particularly through climate change). We also found that there was insufficient empirical evidence to prove or disprove many of the proposed links. In some cases, we do not appear to have robust methodologies for making empirical assessments. As a result we raise a number of directions for future research that suggest going back to the fundamental concepts in energy and economy research in order to develop the tools needed to explore these links more fully. Finally, we found that mitigating against the negative impacts of energy use may require transformative change. Consequently we more research into the scale and nature of such transformations. In the wellbeing report we identify 3 key findings with implications for future research. We found substantial evidence to showing that wellbeing is linked to higher levels of labour productivity. A number of factors provide an explanation for this link. This includes, natural capital, temperature, human capital and social capital. However, we also find that productivity growth may have detrimental effects on wellbeing, because pursuit of productivity is linked to carbon emissions and job insecurity, for example. We also find that this relationship is under explored in the literature. Our key recommendation is therefore for research that takes a critical approach to understanding how wellbeing and productivity growth may influence each other over time and across contexts. The findings presented above are due in large part to our adoption and development of tools from system oriented design. As we discuss in our report on the methods used, we used giga-mapping tools that are well established in systems oriented design and applied them to the question of productivity-energy and productivity-wellbeing questions. The system-oriented design tools gave participants new ways to collaborate, exchange knowledge and capture learnings. In particular they encourage discussion across disciplinary silos and the exploration of gaps and tensions in the knowledge base. However, we also identified a number of areas where these methods could be improved. In particular, the limited time available on this project made recruitment of diverse participants difficult, and further fine-tuning of the tools used in the mapping process is required. Finally, out of the literature reviews and mapping work we have developed innovative ways of presenting our findings. These include visualisations that complement our reports, and act as bibliographic databases. These are available on the project website: https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/powering-productivity/. |
Exploitation Route | Our deliverables were designed to make our findings accessible to the widest possible audience. We have delivered 3 in depth reports that will be of interest to academics working in wellbeing, energy, productivity, and sustainability. The bibliographic databases (hosted on Zotero) and detailed system maps will also be useful to this group, who will take forward our recommendations on research gaps, and can use the latter as a basis to begin their literature searches. We have also delivered 2 executive summaries, and a briefing report. These make the work more accessible to policy makers and research funders, as they offer brief summaries of the key findings. The visualisations provide quick introductions to key terms and relationships for these groups. Policymakers and research funders can use our recommendations and key findings as the basis for commission future research in these areas and as an evidence base to improve decision making. |
Sectors | Education |
URL | https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/powering-productivity/ |
Description | Our work has generated interest from a range of stakeholders. Workshops were attended by academics from a wide range of disciplines (including design, economics, engineering and psychology) as well as stakeholders from outside academia (including policy and consultancy). After publication of the project reports, we have contributed to further funded work on productivity in the UK including the National Engineering Policy Centre, the Productivity Institute. Our work is also showing international reach through a keynote at a national education policy conference in Fiji. |
First Year Of Impact | 2018 |
Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Energy,Healthcare |
Impact Types | Cultural Societal Economic Policy & public services |
Description | 'Value' - Invited Keynote talk |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | Simon Mair gave an invited Keynote 'Value' to 'Education for Economic Growth: Remodelling Fiji's National Development Plan post COVID-19' at University of Fiji (online) |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Climate Annual Conference 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Shimaa Elkomy attended the Climate Annual Conference in Florence |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://fsr.eui.eu/event/fsr-climate-annual-conference-2019/ |
Description | ESRC Productivity Sandpit |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Supporters |
Results and Impact | Attended 2 day sandpit on productivity for the ESRC. Developed outline bid with co-i's at Essex, Warwick, Anglia Ruskin, and Surrey. Invited to submit for full review. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | How getting rid of 'shit jobs' and the metric of productivity can combat climate change | The Conversation |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | 'The Conversation published Simon Mair's article on productivity and climate change. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
URL | https://theconversation.com/how-getting-rid-of-shit-jobs-and-the-metric-of-productivity-can-combat-c... |
Description | Interview with Bradford Community Broadcasting |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Simon Mair interviewed by Bradford Community Broadcasting as part of Bradford Science Festival 2021 - 'Are we here yet? Bradford's Journey to a Circular Economy' |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
URL | https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/what-was-on/bradford-science-festival-2021 |
Description | Joint Conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | Regional |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Simon Mair gave a conference presentation 'Solving the Productivity Puzzle? Ontology and Ideology in Productivity Research' at Joint Conference of the International Society for Ecological Economics, European Society for Ecological Economics and Degrowth, University of Manchester |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | National Engineering Policy Centre Partners' plenary |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Joanna Boehnert as panellist at the National Engineering Policy Centre Partners' plenary talking about the Mapping and Productivity Project |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.raeng.org.uk/events/events-programme/2020/january/policy-centre-plenary |
Description | Norwich Business School seminar |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
Results and Impact | A talk given as part of the wellbeing seminar series at NBS. Talk titled: Wellbeing and productivity in advanced economies: Updated understandings from a participatory systems mapping and review process. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Productivity Project Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | ESRC Research in Productivity and Energy |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Productivity, energy and climate change-a view on the links | Blog by Simon Mair |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Falling productivity growth, climate change and changes in energy supply. We face serious challenges now and in the coming years. A recent paper by CUSP researchers Shimaa Elkomy, Simon Mair and Tim Jackson reviews connections between these three challenges and look for paths forwards. Here, Simon Mair is summarising the findings. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/s2/blog-sm-energy-pp/ |
Description | Pursuing productivity-better ways for business, people and planet | Blog |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | Businesses want to be more productive, but do not always know how to improve. A recent review from CUSP highlights how different approaches have very different implications for businesses, their employees and the planet. In this blog, Amy Isham from CUSP and Helen Fitzhugh from the PrOPEL Hub reflect on three common ideas about pursuing productivity growth and what these different approaches mean in practice. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/s1/blog-ai-hf-pursuing-productivity/ |
Description | RSD8 Conference 2019 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Simon Mair and Joanna Boehnert presented their work on Mapping Productivity, Energy and Wellbeing at the RSD8 Conference |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | The Productivity Institute workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
Results and Impact | Presentation on wellbeing and productivity at 'Perspectives on Productivity: Concepts, Measurement and Communication' workshop hosted by The Productivity Institute. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
Description | Well-being and Productivity Workshop |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | ESRC Mapping Workshop led by Amy Isham and Simon Mair |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
Description | Wellbeing and Productivity: ESRC FOSS Event |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
Results and Impact | A participatory workshop held as part of the ESRC festival of social science. Exploring the relationship between wellbeing and productivity. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
Description | Why we need a more critical stance on the relationship between wellbeing and productivity | Blog by Amy Isham |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | National |
Primary Audience | Other audiences |
Results and Impact | Wellbeing and productivity are typically assumed to be positively related, but a new review suggests that this may not always be the case. It is crucial that we start to take a more critical view of this relationship, Amy Isham writes, introducing her latest working paper with Simon Mair and Tim Jackson. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/s2/blog-ai-wellbeing-productivity/ |
Description | Why we need a more critical stance on the relationship between wellbeing and productivity | Blog by Amy Isham |
Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Media (as a channel to the public) |
Results and Impact | The relationship between wellbeing and labour productivity is receiving increased attention. This is unsurprising, given the highly publicised problems of slow labour productivity growth and poor workforce wellbeing in the UK. Current understandings typically assume a positive relationship between wellbeing and labour productivity/productivity growth. Increases in productivity are assumed to raise incomes and thus wellbeing. At the same time, employee wellbeing is considered to drive greater levels of employee and firm-level labour productivity. However, our new working paper suggests that the relationship may not be so straightforward. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
URL | https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/s2/blog-ai-wellbeing-productivity/ |