The UN Sustainable Development Goals have become a touchpoint for those in the sector that are working to create nature-based solutions as a means to tackle the climate and biodiversity emergencies.
In order to achieve this, the built environment sector needs green skills in the right places. The Landscape Institute’s aim, through the work of its members, is to protect, conserve, and enhance the natural and built environment for the public benefit. Green skills will play a central role in this greener recovery and shift towards a nature-based economy, and the landscape sector already holds many of the skills that are needed.Read more here
The construction industry exists to give humanity an environment in which to thrive, and there is no doubt that we have risen to that challenge. Unfortunately, typically there is no action without consequence and what is abundantly clear is that in pursuit of our goal the buildings and infrastructure that we have delivered have had a significant impact on our natural environment.
This needs to be addressed, otherwise the advances we have made will soon be reversed.Read more here
In early 2021 South East Consortium (SEC) began their first programme of research projects with the aim of tackling three challenging topics impacting the housing sector.
SEC launched the final guidance document from their Climate Challenge working group in March 2022. The Sustainable Homes Matrix sets out a sustainable approach to delivering homes that are fit for the future with residents in mind, beyond Net Zero. Read more here
“Clean Growth” is becoming something of a buzzword – but if you want to know what it looks like in practice, the best answer might lie in a former water treatment works five miles north of Bradford.
Esholt is shaping up to be the UK’s largest Clean Growth testbed. The 500-acre site, set in natural woodland, was the subject of rapid industrialisation in the early 20th century, with huge concrete settlement tanks embedded into the landscape. Over time, advances in water technology saw the operational footprint shrink and large tracts of the site left redundant.Read more here.
This week marks six months since COP26 brought 200 world leaders to the United Kingdom to discuss climate change.
As we all find ourselves living through the largest cost of living crisis for 30 years, years whilst watching the horrifying fallout of Russia’s war in Ukraine, I find myself reflecting on the challenges we all face.
An inconvenient truth about net zero is that, however important it may be, it cannot be the only thing that matters. Read more here
Measuring social and environmental responsibility – the Innerspace Impact Canvas
Innerspace has set out its commitment to undertake all its residential housing development activities in as socially and environmentally sustainable a way as possible. Supporting this bold commitment requires an approach which provides both a robust mechanism for aligning commitments at company level, with delivery as project level. It must also provide clarity and transparency for all reporting, from investors and the project team to end users.
Innerspace’s business commitment is underpinned by a set of social and environmental performance objectives:
A framework approach:
Innerspace’s ‘Impact Canvas’ has been established as a multi-level framework approach which links
commitments and delivery, and employs a series of KPIs to demonstrate and manage performance.
The framework is based around four steps, highlighting Innerspace’s sustainability ‘themes’ and high-level principles, underpinned by a set of key questions and performance indicators. This systematic approach ensures all project outcomes are rooted within Innerspace’s priorities and will ensure consistent reporting across all projects and activities.
Image: Innerspace ‘Impact Canvas’ radar example
Innerspace has committed to standardising and measuring outcomes against 10 key Themes.
The ‘Impact Canvas’ allows Innerspace to robustly demonstrate its project-by-project sustainability credentials, offers a clear route to measurement, learning and improving and instils a transparent reporting mechanism linked to clear ESG and UN SDG principles.
From energy usage to emissions, the construction industry has a huge impact on our environment and our health and wellbeing. Whilst adopting sustainable construction methods is not an overnight process, the commitment and action to do better is advancing as a ‘must’ for all involved in construction. Innerspace strongly believes that by adopting a framework approach, it can start to measure and understand the impacts from its construction activities and pave a way for improving its social and environmental impacts.
UKBCSD member WSP - one of the UK’s largest environmental consultancies - has supported a unique and comprehensive analysis published by Bright Blue, the independent think tank for liberal conservatism.
Entitled Nature positive?, the research analyses public attitudes towards the value of the UK’s natural environment, how we access and engage with it, and the responsibility of different stakeholders for its protection and enhancement.
Biodiversity in the UK and around the world is declining at an alarming rate and should be viewed as an equally important and interconnected issue alongside the climate crisis.
The report finds that, while support is high for current leading UK Government policies to protect the natural environment both domestically and overseas, the UK public believes Government and government agencies are currently not doing enough.
There is public support for new housing and infrastructure developments so long as they improve the natural environment, indicating support for the ‘biodiversity net gain principle’ included within the Environment Bill, which requires developers to ensure the natural environment be left in a better state than before.
The report also shows clear recognition of the benefits of nature from a mental and physical wellbeing perspective, and a desire for local benefits from the natural environment. However, though urban green spaces and parks are the most visited natural environment by the UK public, they are perceived as relatively low value and quality.
Ashley Dunseath, Director, Head of Masterplanning, Advisory & Economics at WSP andUKBCSD Board Director, said “The impact of the pandemic has reinforced how important greenspace is, at a very human level, resulting in a far greater awareness of nature and all it offers not least in our bid to go beyond net zero. Those of us working across the built environment sectors, have a responsibility to our communities and our planet, to ensure we design with nature in mind.”
Key findings
Find a link to the report here.
“The findings of the IPCC report demand actions, not just platitudes. Businesses have the innovation, tech and capabilities now. UKBCSD members are proving this every day.
“Businesses do not need world leaders to provide short-term, one-off funding to incentivise the transition to net zero, but a road map which enables businesses to invest trillions of dollars in the long-term change of our global economy.
“The barrier to change is the lack of a sustainable economy – we’re not talking about levelling up but enabling sustainable change.”
The UK Business Council for Sustainable Development is calling for:
1. A reward-based transition to net zero with no VAT charged on green energy use or sustainably created materials, fast-tracking environmentally friendly buildings and projects through the planning system and green taxes which are lower for companies which reach targets to transition away from carbon faster.
2. A clear and consistent set of outcome-based targets for businesses which enable regulators to legally determine who is meeting their commitments to transition to net zero. These targets should be based on the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
3. World leaders to commit to creating national laws based on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals at COP26.
Clean Planet Energy is ‘buying time’ for the world by delivering a solution to act as an intermediate step for cleaner air, and cleaner oceans, today.”
Yesterday, by midnight, the world’s plastic factories had manufactured 876,000 tonnes of new plastic products, in a single day. Tonight, by midnight, the world’s transport and logistic networks will reset for another day. Tomorrow 100,000+ flights will depart, and 75,000+ cargo, cruise & fishing ships will set sail. A cargo ship can use 175,000+ litres of dirty fossil fuel in a single day. It can release the same SOx pollutants as over 300 million cars. That’s a single ship, in a single day. A domestic flight, for each KM travelled, for every economy passenger, will release 250g of new CO2e emissions. Record CO2e emissions are dramatically changing our environment; 33 million tonnes were released into the atmosphere last year alone. And it’s growing, fast.
So, what if there was an immediate solution to recycle all the plastic waste and reduce CO2 emissions at the same time? Clean Planet Energy (CPE) is today’s answer to that intermediate step towards clean air and clean oceans. CPE is a fast-rising UK company that delivers proprietary ecoPlants (that power themselves) designed to convert non-recyclable waste plastic into ultra-clean fuel.
Clean Plant Energy is on a mission to remove over 1 million tonnes of waste plastic from our environment, every year. Plastic that would otherwise end up in landfill, being incinerated or entering our oceans. By replacing fossil hydrocarbons with recycled plastic material, CPE extracts as much value as possible from existing resources while eliminating waste, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and ensuring a sustainable circular economy.
CPE’s ecoPlants use a process called ThermoCatalytic Pyrolysis which, in addition to their commercially tested and patent-pending hydroprocessing upgrading process, achieve the shift from low-value pyrolysis oil properties into premium-grade, ultra-clean and negligible-Sulphur fuel.
Unlike today’s mechanical recycling processes which are limited to a limited set of plastics, CPE’s ecoPlants can accept almost any type of plastic, including single-use plastic and plastic which is wet and dirty, tolerating ~10% of contamination (e.g. food waste); this means most of the plastic which is harming our environment can now be recycled. Each Clean Planet ecoPlant can process 20,000 tonnes of plastic a year, and their unique and sustainable design aims to make a significant positive impact on the communities wherever they are built. Currently, CPE have 2 ecoPlants in construction Phase in Teesside and Suffolk, and 4 others under development phase across England. We aim to build strong and long-term partnerships with local authorities and the private companies to enable us to grow quickly and sustainably and reach our goal of processing 1 million tonnes by 2027.
For the CPE team, sustainability is not just a good idea – it’s the reason why they exist. Each one of the CPE team is an ambassador of our core values, shares the vision for Clean Oceans and Clean Air, and believes in the mission to remove over 1 Million tonnes of non-recyclable plastic waste from our environment, every year. What brings them together is the belief that “Everyone deserves better”.
“Our partnership with UKBCSD supports our vision for clean oceans and clean air. Collaborating with a like-minded group such as UKBCSD who engage directly with the Government to showcase WHY and HOW the innovative solutions produced and advocated by its members how can deliver this, enables Clean Planet to enhance the delivery of our mission of to remove over 1 Million tonnes of non-recyclable plastic waste from our environment, every year. We all believe that everyone deserves better, and this collaboration builds on this mantra.” Dr. Andrew Odjo, Chief Technical Officer.
