To kick off COP26, the Planning team attended ‘The Critical Role of Cities in Meeting Climate Ambitions’, as part of the Build Better Now series, which explores the crucial role of the built environment in tackling climate change. More than half of total emissions from cities come from the construction and operation of buildings, and it is expected that by 2050, another 2.5 billion people will live in urban areas. This means the global building stock will need to expand by a city the size of New York every month until 2050. The sector is therefore full of opportunity for developers; the challenge lies in how to achieve this growth whilst remaining within government emissions targets and staying ahead of regulation in the area.
The webinar explored efforts made by cities across the globe to find innovative solutions to the climate crisis. 85 out of 97 leading cities across the world are currently developing climate action plans, as part of Leadership Group C40. These ambitious plans are predicted to alter our cities for generations to come. Innovative solutions to the climate crisis are already taking shape – ranging from retrofit projects in Favela de Paz in Brazil which found renewing and repurposing existing buildings reduces costs (both financial and environmental) of demolishing existing buildings, to Singapore's ambition to produce 200 hectares of skyrise greenery by 2030. Perhaps as we delve deeper into the next two weeks of COP26, the UK may announce some ground breaking plans for our main cities to tackle the climate crisis.
The UK is taking its carbon pledges increasingly seriously across more sectors, not least the planning sector. The new Environment Bill, which is currently in its final stages of passage through parliament, is set to bring in an automatically implied condition into planning permissions in England. This will require developers to provide a “biodiversity net gain” of at least 10% on a development scheme. Loss of habitats with greater biodiversity will require developers to take further steps to mitigate the impact of their development. The mitigation could be on-site or off-site, or by way of financial contribution to the local authority.
To reduce the potential for significant financial contributions in future developments, developers may benefit from considering some of the innovative mitigation measures put forward as part of the Build Better Now series. Stay tuned for further updates throughout the next two weeks.
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