Mr Rees told the UKREiiF conference in Leeds that sustainability shouldn't just be a matter for individuals making lifestyle choices, but was instead about those with power changing the infrastructure and systems that would deliver - or fail to deliver - sustainability.
Bristol mayor Marvin Rees said; ”If we sort cities out that will go a long way to sorting out our global problems. But if we get urbanisation wrong, it will be a disaster.”
He warned that climate change was sometimes seen as a "middle-class pastime" rather a pressing concern for some of the most vulnerable people in society. And he warned changes aimed at bring about sustainable solutions had to be cost-effective for people who had suffered a cost of living crisis not just in recent weeks, but "for a very long time".
Mr Rees - whose role is being scrapped after a referendum in Bristol - said his proudest moment had been delivering 9,000 new homes in Bristol. And he said achieving a truly sustainable future would take more than political will, saying it had to be properly funded by a government that allowed long-term planning rather than repeatedly asking local authorities to compete for small pots of money.
He was speaking in conversation with our Chair Jason Longhurst who is also Strategic Director of Place at Bradford Council, at the Beyond Net Zero pavilion at UKREiiF in Leeds.
The first day's sessions in the pavilion had a number of key themes, including the importance of delivery - rather than promises - and the importance of innovation in achieving measurable change.
In a session on sustainable development and place, sponsored by Keyland, titled "Will the next generation thank us for what we leave behind?", Claudine Blamey - head of sustainability and digital strategy at Argent - explained how technology had a key role to play in the buildings of both the future and present.
She said proptech was a "massive" area for Argent, who used it to measure things like usage and efficiency for maximum gains.
"We are going whole-heartedly after proptech," she said. "Without the technology in buildings we are not going to get to zero carbon."
Ms Blamey said money was available to finance developments providing property firms could make good on environmental promises.
"We have got green financing. If you are building the right buildings and infrastructure there is money out there but you have to deliver [zero-carbon]," she said. "Customers are asking for it. Their employees want to be working in a sustainable way.
"Developers have no excuses any more. There are no vicious circles. They have all closed up."
The session also heard from Jerry Tate, founder of Tate and Co Architects, and Euan Hall, chief executive of the Land Trust.
The Beyond Net Zero pavilion is sponsored by UKBCSD in partnership with City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, with UKBCSD members Sir Robert McAlpine and Keyland Developments as key sponsors.
Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, opened the pavilion with a keynote address.
She reflected on families being pushed into poverty and struggling with the cost of living, and spoke of households being affected by flooding on an increasingly frequent basis. She revealed that air pollution was now responsible for one in 20 deaths in West Yorkshire.
The Mayor said that there was an opportunity to tackle climate change by levelling up the UK if resources were concentrated on clean growth.
In response Mr Longhurst highlighted how Bradford was looking beyond net zero and aiming to become the UK’s leading clean growth city district through development’s like Esholt, the UK’s largest clean growth test bed, with one million square feet of sustainable commercial property space for biotech, agritech and cleantech firms.
He told a packed-out pavilion that UKBCSD members were focussed on delivering clean growth testbeds which the public and private sector could learn from rather than making undeliverable promises and pledges.
In a session entitled Creating a Clean Economy through Digital Transformation, Founder and chair of DiverseCity Surveyors, Bola Abisogun, Joseph Daniels, Board member of UKBCSD and founder of Etopia, Matthew Kirkman, Director of Infrastructure Solutions at Openreach and Savannah de Savary, founder and CEO of Built-ID, highlighted how high-quality, smart homes and buildings, powered by fibre broadband, enabled people to live and work more sustainably at a time when millions of people had adopted a hybrid working model.
Dr Manoj Joshi DL is the new Chair of the Bradford District Economic Partnership.
Dr Joshi will be championing the economic potential of the district, leading on clean growth, and working with partners to develop a new economic strategy. He brings extensive experience across a broad range of leadership roles and has been the Board Director of Bradford Breakthrough. He has held many high-profile local roles in the civic affairs, business, faith and charity sectors. These followed a 27-year career in pharmaceuticals and health care, including as a Business Development Manager for AstraZeneca. Read more here
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.
The UK Business Council for Sustainable Development’s ‘Beyond Net Zero’ pavilion is set to be the centre of attention at UKREiiF.
The pavilion – being run in partnership with the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council and sponsored by Sir Robert McAlpine and Keyland Developments – has assembled a high-quality cast of private- and public-sector development and placemaking experts who will inspire and inform during three days of knowledge sharing and debate. 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
This week WBCSD published its Business Manifesto for Climate Recovery. UKBCSD Chair and Chief Executive, Jason Longhurst comments,
“UKBCSD welcomes the manifesto from our global partners WBCSD. It reinforces the role of partnership across sectors and moves us on from generic pledges and commitments that lack committed, tangible and investable steps,. The manifesto reflects UKBCSD’s position to drive positive change through the direct application of sustainability steps today, through partnership, innovation and transition, going beyond just a net zero focus. Our aim is to reduce and remove emissions across sectors, whilst ensuring transition to achieve sustainable growth within the UK.
“Critically, UKBCSD seeks to align the UK’s leading organisations in partnership, to unlock, create and sustain a new sustainability sector that drives a true green economy, with global benefits and placing sustainability at the heart of the response to climate challenges. We seek to measure this transition against the existing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement meeting the 2030 and 2050 commitments.
“As part of the WBCSD global network, UKBCSD members are already at the forefront of delivering transformational outcome benefits in addressing climate change and meeting the UN SDGs.
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.
