Climate change: It all begins with space and planning

The recent climate conference in Copenhagen produced two statements with global political consensus: the risk of climate change warrants action, and this action involves both adaptation to changes that occur and mitigation to reduce these changes. Meeting ambitious targets set in the United Kingdom, with emissions cuts of more than 80 percent required over the coming few decades, will require rethinking how we build, live and work in our buildings, how we provide energy for them, and how we move between them. There is a pressing need to map out strategies for a low carbon community. Success depends on a crucial factor often overlooked: the spatial positioning of urban developments and associated infrastructure. This is a key consideration to ensure that master plans can be viably and sustainably implemented.

Take transport, for example. The willingness of commuters to travel by foot or bike drops precipitously with increased distance. A distance of half a mile makes these modes quite attractive. Increase that to a mile and, for many, these options will become less viable. Increase it to three miles, and the uptake of these modes of travel declines further still. Master planning for a low carbon community should seek to positively influence people’s behaviour by anticipating human behaviour.

What of energy provision? District schemes can reduce the carbon footprint by 30 percent or more. Their efficiency, however, and the cost of construction depend critically on distance from source to point of use. The ideal network is one of mixed use communities, where buildings with different energy demands are bundled adjacent to each other. Such spatial designs are at the heart of meeting the higher Code for Sustainable Homes requirements.

Are Eco Towns the solution? Yes, but not the way currently envisioned, which imagines them as exemplars of what can be accomplished when everything is designed anew. More than two thirds of the carbon footprint of the nation in 2050 will be from buildings that exist today. Integrating new low carbon developments into existing communities will help to act as a catalyst for low carbon practices diffusing into those same communities. It prevents a disparity that will arise if only new communities benefit from the technological advances that will drive down future emissions as well as energy costs. Social equity alone requires climate policies that focus as much on existing buildings as new structures.

In the UK an approach that combines use of renewable energy sources with more flexible spatial planning will facilitate the low carbon built environment of the future – building orientation, innovative use of materials and techniques in construction as well as using new fuels such as hydrogen. Uses characterised by heavy demand for energy such as data centres might, for example, capture and re-use waste heat. A low carbon community follows principles such as those envisaged in the Mayor’s London Plan, where design begins with reducing the need for materials and energy in the first place, by drawing on available energy and material in the surrounding environment, such as ground source heating and cooling. Only then does one turn to improving energy efficiency and the use of renewable fuels.

A low carbon world will therefore need to be underpinned by spatial planning. Appropriate design and layout ensures not only that the aspirations for low carbon communities are met by performance but that the buildings we create and occupy bring lower operational and embodied carbon costs and higher asset values. Increasingly applicants for planning permission are being asked by local authorities to provide evidence of the carbon footprints for their developments.

Case study
Mott MacDonald recently developed a master plan in the West Midlands centred around integrated proposals comprising a new fibre optic network and data hub, Live Work space and commercial floorspace. The proposals embraced many low carbon principles and the outcome is a sustainable design which should help future-proof against climate change, differentiated from other property investment in part due to its green credentials.

Author information
Professor Douglas Crawford-Brown is principal advisor on climate change strategy at Mott MacDonald while Stephen McKenna is head of planning in Mott MacDonald’s environment team