Blog

Key considerations for sustainable procurement

April 15, 2014

It’s relatively easy for companies to understand and manage their direct environmental impacts, for example through energy or water bills. But for many companies there are often much greater, hidden […]

By Jo Dobson

Tags: Featured, Procurement, Sustainable supply chains

Open Data Innovation and Creation

March 31, 2014

Over the weekend of March 22nd-23rd Useful Simple had the privilege of working with ODI, Nesta and Bristol City Council on a very well organised “Innovation and Creation Weekend”. We […]

By Daniel Epstein

Tags: Cities, Community, Energy, Featured

Raining on the rainwater harvesting parade

March 21, 2014

The answer seems obvious, so when clients ask us whether or not they should invest in a rainwater harvesting system, instinctively, I want to say yes. The arguments in favour […]

By Alice Clarke

Tags: Featured

Designing with the sun and natural evolution

March 7, 2014

A multi-objective evolutionary algorithm was used to optimise a complex shading screen over the atrium of the new Student Centre at UCL

We all like daylight in buildings, and a good view out, but want to keep the sun off our computer screens. We like to bask in the winter sun, but […]

By Fred Labbe

Tags: Design, Energy, Featured, Research

Future Cites Mission to the US

March 5, 2014

View from the Centre for Urban Science and Progress in New York City

At the beginning of February, I was hugely privileged to be invited on the Technology Strategy Board funded mission to the US to share best practice in relation to the […]

By Judith Sykes

Tags: Cities, Featured

Circular, in a fashion

February 27, 2014

Fashion is surely the most circular of industries. Right? Here’s my reasoning. Don’t throw anything away, it’ll come back into fashion. I’ve recently stopped wearing my George Cox creepers for […]

By Mark Shayler

Tags: Circular Economy, Materials

Energy Open Data Challenge

February 17, 2014

The Energy Problem The UK faces huge challenges in the area of energy with social, environmental and economic consequences at individual, city and national levels. We are in an energy […]

By Daniel Epstein

Tags: Cities, Energy, Featured

The Life Cycle of a Building

November 15, 2013

If I told you that the life cycle of every building component can be broken down into eight phases comprising as many as 14 processes, could you name them all? […]

By Bengt Cousins-Jenvey

Tags: Carbon, Featured, Materials

Circular Economy: Good for Business?

October 22, 2013

Discovering the many materials inside an LED light disassembled during one of our workshops on closed loop design

I was really intrigued by this article in the Guardian last week, citing the circular economy as a new way of doing business. It really isn’t. But it is brilliant […]

By Judith Sykes

Tags: Circular Economy, Featured, Materials, Waste

We Made 2012 Opens Today

July 9, 2013

The Building Centre’s We Made 2012 exhibition opens today. Our work developing the sustainable water supply strategy and sustainable drainage strategy will be showcased, as will Expedition’s role engineering the […]

By Jo Dobson

Tags: Featured, Olympics, Water

Design Mimicking Nature

July 7, 2013

Today we were pleased to host Michael Pawlyn from Exploration Architecture for a really interesting lunchtime talk on biomimicry in architectural design. Our sister company Expedition (and two Useful simple Projects Associates Fred and […]

By Jo Dobson

Tags: Architecture, Biomimicry, Design, Featured

Sustainable Waste Management for the 2014 World Cup, 2016 Olympic Games… and Beyond

June 26, 2013

Carbon footprinting and mitigation for the Brazil 2014 World Cup

We have recently started working with ICLEI-Brasil on a project called ‘Sustainable Waste Management in Sporting Events’, focusing on three Brazilian Host Cities; Recife, and São Paulo and Rio de […]

By Jo Dobson

Tags: Brazil, Olympics, Waste, World Cup

Blog

More Posts