Day one: (Not) waiting for Godot - time to get on with it

"This is part of our 10 Big Ideas which we hope will help the transition to a very low-to-no-carbon economy make cities, homes and work places better, movement easier, society stronger and improve quality of life...oh, and save the planet." The Beyond Green Team

Day one: (Not) waiting for Godot - time to get on with it

"Lets go" "Yes, lets go" (They do not move)
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

Conferences won't solve this global problem; they can create a compelling framework but unless you want massive, Orwellian government to impose change it's time to get creative, strategic and bold and start taking decisions to re-build your values, your brand and your business. No development, no major event (not even the Olympics) nor even physical renewal and regeneration has a divine right to happen in the Energy/Climate Era; they have to earn the right by taking action to achieve profound carbon reductions, irrespective of the barriers. It's time to get real, seize the opportunities and benefits and get on with it.

Negotiations on the ‘new Copenhagen climate deal'[1] begin formally today. It's a seminal moment in international relations.

Ed Miliband recently described the challenge in the following terms - "Imagine if you knew 189 people, and you got them all together and said, ‘Here's how we want you to run a significant part of your lives in the next 30 or 40 years - and by the way, you have to unanimously agree that that's how you want to do it'."

Many good things will be agreed in Copenhagen. But rather than simply setting targets we need implementation mechanisms. We need government at all levels - locally, nationally and internationally - to set a common and consistent strategic framework of price and tax signals, incentives (and disincentives) for a rapid transition to a no carbon economy and society. And we need urgency and deep commitment. But governments find it difficult to galvanise society in any way still less on an issue that is still perceived as primarily environmental, distant, abstract and intangible.

Governments need encouragement, partners, flagships, exemplars, common purpose and support in engaging and communicating with a distrusting and even alienated public. The window of opportunity on carbon emissions will close quickly. In simple terms, the more carbon is emitted year- on-year (29% more globally in 2008 than 2000!) the more difficult and expensive it becomes to keep atmospheric concentrations of carbon to amounts that will allow future wellbeing and prosperity. It is relentless and unforgiving. And since many of the biggest reductions will be achieved through new or renewed infrastructure such as railways, large scale renewable energy generation and grids it will take some time in any event before some of the biggest cuts in carbon can be made. Unless leaders across all sectors take comprehensive action now to invest directly and kick the market into strategic and widespread action it seems inevitable that tackling the problem further down the line will require autocratic government with hard-line measures introduced and enforced by diktat, draconian personal carbon budgeting and rationing accompanied by invasive policing.

For anyone involved in the built environment this is a huge challenge. Not only does a vast amount of carbon arise from the heating and cooling of buildings but, as we will describe later in this series, development and re-development is profoundly impactful in shaping human behaviour. The form and operation of physical places and spaces can make it either far easier or much more difficult to walk, cycle, take exercise, be safe and healthy, play, build the bridges and bonds of community, travel efficiently, enjoy work, stay warm, cool down, grow food and provide ecological habitat. And the embodied energy and carbon used and emitted during the mining, processing and transporting of materials and in erecting buildings are increasingly important factors in measuring the impact of development.

Simply by building something/anything, climate is impacted and social and economic impacts follow. Arguably, the impacts of every new large scale building project should be more than compensated for by investment in new renewable energy generation capacity, localised offsetting (through, for instance, green retrofits in existing homes and workplaces nearby), and the project should be required to demonstrate how it will otherwise help reduce the total carbon footprint of its host neighbourhood. All of this must (and indeed can) be achieved without excessive cost - or at least under a different whole-life and long term value financial model incorporating an internal carbon pricing regime; in this and other ways the good practice can then be replicated.

Prestige public sector-led projects such as the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games and its regeneration legacy have a particular responsibility to re-think development and innovate, seek changes in policy where necessary and then achieve deep cuts in total carbon footprint.

This means that the modal split of movement should be radically transformed, not just tinkered with; long-life resilient and adaptable buildings should be built, not short-lived, faddish and cheaply specified and built apartments of the kind we have seen in recent years. We need new housing typologies able to accommodate solar and other renewable energy generation; roofs and niche spaces should be used for urban ecology, cooling and food production and the whole process of creating and renewing neighbourhoods should be used with gusto and imagination to effect widespread cultural change.

The Olympic project is also ideally suited to demonstrating the way forward in effecting behavioral change - showing how low carbon living and a more cohesive community can be achieved via a healthier diet, local food growing, active use of the Olympic Park and other planned green spaces and the creation of a Copenhagen style bike culture.

We are entering an age when everything must be done somewhat differently, where the public sector must lead the way and create a new framework for rapid change and in which all large scale projects have to justify their existence by demonstrating their commitment to comprehensive reductions in carbon. Think of the innovation, creativity and opportunity that will stimulate and what superb projects and brands will emerge.

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[1] A phrase used by WWF to put a title to the Copenhagen talks

A PDF version of our 10 Big Ideas is available to download from the ‘what's new' section of our website. Please follow the link, enter the website and select ‘current' under the ‘what's new' page: www.beyondgreen.co.uk

The Beyond Green group puts sustainability principles into practice through strategic and practical projects that achieve real sustainability outcomes. Beyond Green Consulting delivers policy, strategies, plans, place-making and process for authentic sustainable developments which inspire and enable free, pleasurable, healthy and environmentally sustainable living. Beyond Green Living offers advice on sustainable lifestyles, often through brands and communications; TV projects, personal appearances and publications. Sister company BlueLiving has a portfolio of strategic land and development projects with a view to building, owning and managing seminal sustainable developments across the UK.

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