Urban Policy for the Greens

A few days ago as I bumped and bustled my way out of North Sydney station, I accepted a newsletter from a bearded, middle-aged, concerned-looking gentleman, looking lost amid the primped and preened flyer hander-outerers for the newest manicure parlour, and the harried and hurried businessmen and women on their morning commute. He was as though from another age, when being a concerned citizen-activist held social currency, and I felt for him with every turned head, or irritable brush off from the all-to-preoccupied iPhone-reading commuters.

The NSW Greens newsletter - Green Voice - shouted the anti-coal-seam-gas (CSG) message on its front page, in bold letters, showing off the resolute farmers standing up to the dirty energy sector. An important message for sure, but I couldn't help feeling that the whole package - from first encounter (I had noticed him the day before and felt guilty for not taking a paper then) to final skimming of the publication - that the Greens have a much more socially powerful message than they are currently telling; an ace up their sleeves.

The Australian Greens need solid, progressive, urban policy to take advantage of the seemly inevitable global trend in the demographics and sensibilities of urbanising populations.

The most compelling argument for the environmental movement is that in the long run, it makes real-world sense to care for the systems that sustain us. Unfortunately the feedback loops in most natural systems are slow, and the systems themselves very resilient, so full effects are not always immediately obvious. This means that the great majority of environmentally sensitive policy must be sold on future benefits, or the mitigation of future consequences.

Cities, however, are one sphere where the benefits of progressive, environmentally sound policy show almost immediate, and entirely tangible benefits to constituents. It is also a sphere where the tide of history is inexorably moving towards clear winners (and also clear losers): cities that get compact design, mass transit, affordability, liveability and resilience right will out-compete those that remain locked into a sprawling, car-driven, concrete-jungle  not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) mindset in the very near future. The effects of high quality urban policy could even be felt within a single political term, something that cannot really be said for many campaign promises.

But to appeal to urban voters, the Greens must shift tack somewhat in how they portray themselves. The efforts to save the Tasmanian forests and the Great Barrier Reef and their advocacy for energy transition, biodiversity and biosecurity have framed the party primarily along rural lines - a party to save our natural resources. As populations urbanise though, the coal-face of meaningful environmental policy is increasingly becoming the form and governance of our cities. To better reflect these leverage points for progressive action, the Green's message needs to appeal to an urban audience as strongly as it does the rural environmental and conservation activists that have laid the party foundations.

The focus on conservation and resources also misses one of the primary battle lines of the major battle on the environment: that between ex-burb, NIMBY interests and next generation, compact urban interests. Busses vs cars. McMansions vs Apartments. Highly leveraged old money vs affordable housing and amenity. The form and governance of cities is a bit of a zero-sum game on this front, and choosing to bet on the long-term success of cars (and associated planning systems and outcomes) is unlikely to be a winning one.

The beauty of the environmental story for cities is that it embraces people across the full spectrum of society by providing tangible benefits that are felt in the near term. It can be told to property developers (compact cities increase land value), infrastructure planners (next generation infrastructure for mixed use neighbourhoods), commuters and first home buyers... Most importantly, it particularly benefits those who will be coming into the voting booths for the first time in the coming half decade.

Australia's cities are possibly it's most valuable asset, and I would have thought the opportunities in cities for new models of resilience and sustainability would be central to any 'green' party.

I'm no political scientist, nor am I well versed in the Green's policy - they may well have a truly extraordinary urban vision... But right now in Australia, in the lead-up to a federal election, there is awfully little attention paid to how our cities are governed, invested in and supported. This means there an awfully big opportunity being missed for a party whose central message can so well be served by good urban policy.

Poo Wars - Sanitation in Cape Town's Informal Settlements

The 'poo wars' are taking Cape Town by storm... again. They are politically charged, indelibly tied to Apartheid planning but ultimately about giving people (yes, people) the dignity to poo; safely, in private and without compromising the health of their community - something most people reading this blog take for granted.

On current evidence, it seems the truth of the matter is that providing basic sanitation services to South Africa's poor seems too big a challenge for our major cities, regardless of who governs them (unpalatable as that might be to many DA supporters). In their defence though, delivering effective sanitation services to informal settlements is a tough ask, with few successful precedents globally.

This post is a response to a 'conversation' with WC premier, Helen Zille on Twitter (@helenzille) about the failure of The City of Cape Town to commit to a process of getting the problem solved. My biggest grievance is that the current approach has not even begun to test the possible innovative options and is desperately lacking in compassion - neglecting the dignity granted to all people by the bill of rights.

Informal settlements - slums - are a feature of nearly every emerging city. In many ways they provide an optimal, self-organising strategy for allowing people to escape rural poverty within whatever means they have and access the social and economic opportunities of cities. Slums are not, in and of themselves, a problem.

But they are devilishly difficult to service with municipal infrastructure - water, sanitation, waste collection and transport. They're also a challenge for essential services like health, education and security. In essence this is because our traditional approach to delivering services is that infrastructure comes first and people come later. When dwellings come first, we don't have good models for fitting infrastructure in afterwards.

With specific reference to the Cape Town saga, the difficulty is not in providing flush toilets in slums. That bit is rather easy actually. The difficulty is in connecting those toilets to the water, sewer and treatment plant infrastructure that make them work. A conventional flush loo with no sewer is of little use to anyone... And to retrofit sewer systems into informal settlements is nearly impossible without displacing thousands of people... Displacing people has been shown to be a universally bad idea, and especially so in a country with the political history of South Africa.

The result is that local government throw their hands up, claiming to be in a ‘lose-lose’ situation. Unable to deliver the service they are comfortable with (sewer connected, water-borne sanitation) and facing the demand for flushing toilets (rather than the all-too-prevalent bucket or pit latrine systems), they deliver Portable Flush Toilets (PFTs).

These are the sort of thing you may be used to using at a construction site or music festival and are delivered as a flushing 'solution' to the demands of settlement citizens, without really understanding their underlying needs at all... It's not really about flushing; but rather safety, dignity and health.

This 'solution' inevitably falls apart - when inadequately maintained, the PFTs, not designed for the task of full-time service in the first place, end up broken, unsanitary and unsafe... And children end up playing in a cesspit, adding to the already overburdened public health system. PFT's are no real solution, just cynical a political band-aid to keep the opposition on the back-foot.

So it would seem that with a status quo approach to sanitation, cities are fundamentally unable to deliver effective sanitation services to their constituents. Decision-makers get focused on technology, and few give serious considerations to reforming the system. If ever there was a challenge which required a 'systemic' response rather than just a technology response, this is it.

A systems approach to sanitation might start with function - dignity, safety and health. Then it might consider resource cycles: the water cycle, treatment demands, nutrient availability (and potential use), durability and privacy. It might demand a solution that is cyclical, as there is no 'away' for waste to be sent, and no resource to carry it there (being disconnected from conventional water infrastructure too). It might also consider input from all the stakeholders - professionals, entrepreneurs, citizens, health departments and civil society (I'm sure there are others too).

Given the inherent limitations of informal settlements spatially, a permanent solution that meets the requirements of private, hygienic and safe is necessarily independent of conventional sewer infrastructure. This means that we are in the territory of dry-toilet systems (composting toilets), bio-digesters or wet-toilet systems with stand-alone bio-mechanical water treatment (or the band-aid PFT solution)...

In practice, it will probably be a combination of each. The most important thing though is that the function of the system be kept foremost in mind, not the technology.

That being said, a quick review of the tech is in order.

Dry toilet systems abound, but are usually dependent on relatively low loading. They are also quite expensive, and don't work well when used inappropriately (i.e. putting non-biological effluent down them). However, they work very well when combined with a composting system and provide a cyclical approach to nutrients without relying on extensive water use. Perhaps most importantly, once the effluent has been digested by bacteria in the sump, it is sterile and can be used for fertiliser or fuel - potentially even providing a source of income.

Decentralised wet systems (membrane bio reactors for instance) are tech-heavy and require attention, maintenance and energy. However, they are able to treat water to a very high standard so that it can be re-used. In theory, a well-designed packaged plant could fit into a shipping container, be run off a PV array on the roof and connected to an ablution block to deliver sanitation services. Tanked water could be provided occasionally to make up for the losses (typically in sludge drying) but most water would be circulated around the system. It could conceivably be augmented with some level of biogas collection and management of dried sludge for fuel purposes.

Bio-digesters are vessels which generate biogas through the bacterial digestion of organic waste. Industrial scale systems are typically aligned with pig farms, but again the potential exists for small or medium scale systems to be linked with municipal sanitation services. Again, the 'waste' becomes a resource for the generation of energy.

Moving on from the technology though, the engagement of end-users is essential, and civil society has an important role to play. Communities in Cape Town have rejected dry-toilet systems as inferior - an understandable viewpoint given the 'aspirational' nature of a white, porcelain, flushing loo. But I wonder if there were an income stream from the provision of sewage (as fertilizer to a community garden or as feedstock to a bio-digester operator) whether those perceptions could be shifted.

Based on what I have seen in successful strategies for renewable energy in informal entitlements in India using micro-finance (like Pollinate Energy), I am convinced appropriate solutions for sanitation can be found, with sufficient humility and willingness to engage.

I haven't done the design work and I'm not a waste-water specialist, but I have been seen a wide range of design processes that challenge the status quo, and the options are always wider than we first imagine.

I believe a first step for Cape Town might be to get some heads around a table - World Design Capital 2014 might be a good forum to do this in. There are bio-tech specialists at UCT (and almost certainly elsewhere), world class engineers and an engaged civil society in the City. Perhaps get a facilitation specialist to manage the process – a team like Meshfield... But put experienced, innovative people around a table, with a brief and a budget and get them thinking, designing and working.

For what it's worth, my approach would be:

Trial a range of dry-toilet systems aligned to community gardens (Cape Town has poor soil, so nutrients are a limitation); not as a strategy to deliver the services to all, but to showcase how the tech works.

Do your best to secure buy-in and support from civic, health and community organisations.

Finance some of the investment from your health budget as the payback on 'prevention' will always top that on 'cure'.

If it is possible to build a business case around the production of local food, and the stigma (and actual safety and health) of waste-to-food can be managed (which they can), then do so. Frame the venture as a business exercise for value creation from a waste product, and better health and sanitation or a by-product.

Then, commission a packaged plant design with ablution facility, intended to be permanent, that runs a cyclical water re-use system. The system spec should be:

- energy neutral (i.e. powered by renewables)

- cycle water

- provide sterilised, dry sludge that can be used for fuel

This could be a university research project or paid design commission from an innovative engineering firm or start-up. The technology is largely proven and the challenges are cost, durability and scalability.

I would suggest a business plan competition at UCT or UWC business schools, with seed finding from the City for the winner for either. The most critical thing is to look at new models for finance, governance and ownership to view the utility as a community asset rather than an entitled service (which can only happen with a business plan and finance strategy).

Finally, get a feasibility study of the critical mass of bio-gas from effluent and value the waste in terms of energy production. If it is viable, let an operator strategize the collection of waste, with a requirement for safe, hygienic and private systems...

I know there are no easy solutions to this challenge, if there were, it would be commonplace by now. However, I also know that we have become complacent in our design of municipal infrastructure and that alternative opportunities do exist.

By acknowledging that the status quo (conventional sewers) is impossible in informal settlements, and temporary solutions are not in fact solutions, you create a challenge that must seek new answers.

I believe the challenge of innovative delivery of municipal services to informal settlements is one of the chief global challenges of this decade. I also believe it will prove crucial to the future competitiveness of emerging market cities.

I would hope there sufficient free thinkers, practical innovators and enlightened governors in Cape Town to at least attempt a fully integrated, multi-level, multi-tech approach to this challenge. 

2013 – What you don’t know, can hurt you

I have just finished reading George Monbiot’s (@georgemonbiot) final post for 2012 – Annus Horribilis (here) – a fine, but deeply depressing piece. It details such astounding disregard for the biosphere by governments and corporates (and little sign of wide-spread popular protest from the rest of us) that one can only assume that they (we) have no understanding of humanity’s reliance on the biosphere or the speed with which things could change.

The substantial steps towards the loss of some of our remaining mega-fauna species (rhinos and blue-fin tuna among others); continued degradation of critical habitats (forests and coral reefs in particular); and the record-breaking ice melts, droughts, hurricanes and (maximum) temperatures of last year are just some of the screams of a biosphere under supreme stress. And in the face of these, policy shifts in precisely the wrong direction - the abject failures of Rio and Doha, oil-drilling in the arctic, record-breaking carbon emissions and always the primary focus on the trivial wrangling of wholly preventable, largely inconsequential, short term economic issues (like the current “fiscal cliff” fiasco).

All this must surely indicate a profound lack of appreciation of complex systems and not just an uncaring or selfish attitude (which is, however, undeniable). Marching forward, guessing, but not really understanding the peril – not really, deeply grappling with what life might be like on a changed planet.

And one of the characteristics of complex, resilient systems (like the biosphere) is that a great deal of disturbance can be absorbed by the system with little outward sign of stress. While this may sound like a good thing, it also means that by the time you start to see things going wrong, the system is probably quite close to rapid decline or collapse. So these evident signs of distress are even more disturbing given our biosphere’s resilience, not less so.

It is so easy to be blasé about the fall-out of a stressed planet when supermarkets stock everything we need, and the latest piece of iStuff is our only care or aspiration. So easy to cast our vote on taxes, jobs and prejudice that perhaps it is understandable that we don’t really engage with the difficult, poorly understood, sometimes imprecise and occasionally contested world of science and the environment.

But 2012 was also a year when many of the world’s wealthiest countries realised on quite a wide scale that perhaps life under a changing climate and stressed biosphere might be a little tougher than anticipated. Hurricane Sandy and the severe drought in the mid-west of the USA were perhaps a wake-up call to the wealthy, but perhaps not enough to push people to change? The 350.org disinvestment campaign is the one beacon of light in an otherwise bleak year, and it points us in the right direction.

Unfortunately, in many cases (and here I number soil degradation and biodiversity loss before climate change), we are already in for a bumpy ride globally. And if we have truly given up on limiting climate change to 2° rise this century, then that unholy trifecta is going to cause a lot of misery, the like of which residents of the Jersey Shore have had but a taste.

And so for me, 2013 may be the year that quite a substantial number of people learn that disengaging from the debate is no insulation to its effects; that what you don’t know can, in fact hurt you. And I only hope that this learning leads to the sort of mass action called for in George's review of 2012: Annus Horribilis.

Responsible Journalism and Climate Change

Over the past few weeks, I have engaged in a number of debates on Twitter relating to the views of Ivo Vegter, an author and columnist for the Daily Maverick online newspaper. Mr Vegter, author of Extreme Environment, is a self-proclaimed sceptic of the environmental movement and a denier of anthropogenic climate change in particular.

I must disclose at this point that I have not yet read Extreme Environment, and I am increasingly ill-disposed to contribute financially to Mr Vegter's pockets, but I will endeavour to get my hands on a copy at some stage. I am, however, familiar with a host of the enviro-sceptic arguments, and from his interactions it would appear Mr Vegter shares the majority of his opinions with this community.

My engagement on Twitter, which has included a range of writers, editors and opinionistas (including Leonie Joubert and Jacque Rousseau among others), has focused on two things:

- Firstly, the basis for the challenge on climate science; and

- Secondly, on the journalistic/editorial ethics of not balancing these opinion pieces with a description of the scientific consensus.

While I am neither a journalist nor a climate scientist, I am technically trained and have read widely on the topic. My wife completed her peace studies masters thesis on climate change as portrayed by the media, and for her insight into these matters I thank her (a summary of her dissertation, based on Australian media but relevant to SA, can be found here). In my professional life as an engineering consultant considering climate mitigation and adaptation, I also have a broad understanding of many of the issues.

I take it as fact that climate change is happening, that it is caused by human activity and that by substantially reducing our greenhouse gas emissions we can avoid some of the direst consequences of a rapidly changing climate. This position is supported by the global scientific community, where there is now broad consensus of these core issues. 

This post is not a detailed defence of the climate science. Wikipedia notes that thirty four leading science academies globally have publicly endorsed the findings of the UN Inter Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Their endorsement counts far more than my opinion (or that of Mr Vegter for that matter). The G8+5 Academies’ joint statement can be viewed here. For more analysis and research I can recommend NASA, NOAA and Nature Geoscience.

And so for better or worse, we must accept that the scientific community are unequivocal in their assessment of anthropogenic climate change.

This means that any opinion piece taking a sceptical/denialist approach must tackle the science to be legitimate. And yet none appear to.

To seriously contest this space, a climate denialist must provide peer reviewed research which is accepted on a scale to sway global scientific consensus. The appropriate places to contend the science are journals like Nature, not the opinion sections of the mainstream media (online or print).

Which brings me to the second issue - the representation of these views in the mainstream media.

Let's start by acknowledging the role of columnists and opinion pieces in media. As pointed out to me by Jacques Rousseau, opinion pieces are not journalism, but opinion (clearly). As such, they are not subject to editorial control, nor are they bound by consensus. I do not contest this, nor do I advocate editorial censorship of opinion pieces.

However, I do advocate contextual framing of opinion pieces by editors where the external balance of scientific consensus is clearly in conflict with the expressed opinion. And this is especially so where the topic content is of a sufficiently specialist nature that the majority of readers would be ill-equipped to contextualise the opinion themselves.

Mr Rousseau noted the role of rebuttals and comments in challenging opinion pieces in the absence of editorial control. I take note of that, but it is flawed.  An opinion-rebuttal frame puts the two arguments on the same footing, implying the differences are just a matter of opinion rather than one being grounded in scientific consensus and the other backed primarily by vested interests and largely discredited in the scientific community (thanks Leonie Joubert). By virtue of the original being an opinion piece, it draws all further discussion on the topic down to that level. It also opens the door for substantial trolling, which makes reasoned discussion difficult to fathom for readers (a topic discussed at some length my Mr Rousseau in other posts of his).

Mail and Guardian editor, Nic Dawes, brought up the role of reputational damage in providing this motivation to editors.  I'm afraid I do not buy the line that the reputation of publications will be called into question due to a discerning public. On issues as technical as climate science, few members of the public are equipped to make a call. I believe it is very unlikely for the public to provide these checks and balances on topics requiring relatively detailed scientific understanding. Mr Dawes also brought up the topic of AIDS denialism as a point of comparison, and I think it is a good example (except perhaps that the impacts of climate change have the potential to far outstrip the human cost of AIDS denialism).

Equally, I do not buy the implied assertion that editors do not have control over opinion contributors. It may be a journalistic norm not to, but ultimately editors have the authority to provide comment on opinion expressed on their platforms. A number of the M&G editors (including Mr Dawes) did this with recently over the 'Spear' cartoons by cartoonist Zapiro (a commentator of a different sort). There was extensive comment over whether or not to publish, and the degree to which the views of the cartoonist were consistent with the views of the publication. As editor, you have control, therefore you have responsibility.

Finally, I was questioned by Mr Rousseau on whether I would react like this to other opinions I felt were not founded on scientific consensus. Well, my track record would show not... However, climate change is the first where I feel sufficiently angry over the mis-representation and sufficiently informed to make my case. That being said, there is a trend by opinionistas of Mr Vegter's ilk to dismiss the science on many issues perceived to be environmental: nutrition and hydraulic fracturing among others. This is a worrying trend as it breeds a culture of picking and choosing the bits of science that support your view - confirmation bias if ever I encountered it.

In essence, climate change (and in particular climate denialism) is an issue of sufficient import to the public good that editors have a responsibility to balance sceptical content on their platforms with some reference to the scientific consensus. And in this case, there is no serious debate within the scientific community on whether anthropogenic climate change is happening, consensus has been reached. The only debate is how to mitigate it as far as possible and then how to adapt.

Denialist views are deliberately contrarian, in the face of evidence and scientific consensus, and if not framed as such, can have damaging consequences. I am disappointed that our editors appear not to agree.

I have represented the arguments here as I understood them, which is not to say how they were intended. I would welcome debate and engagement on these issues; or correction if I have misrepresented any of the people mentioned above.

* At the time of the discussion, I did not know who the editor of the Daily Maverick was and could not find their details on the website, hence my engagement of other local editors. I have subsequently been informed that Branko Brkic is the man in question. Apologies to Mr Brkic for subtweeting him (I had to look that up, so thanks Mr Dawes for the lesson on Twitter etiquette). I hope the Daily Maverick editorial team feel free to engage...

The Question to Ask

Before going further, please read Bill McKibben's article in Rolling Stone from last month: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719

Good.

Now, let's talk 

In summary: to keep climate change to a (debatably 'safe') 2°C rise, we must leave $20 trillion worth of fossil fuel in the ground.

This makes a complete mockery of emissions reductions, energy efficiency and responsible behaviour. We must leave that carbon in the ground, end of story (burning it slower will not help). This means a wholesale shift to renewables and, more importantly, a boycott of fossil fuel energy companies - products, services, profits.

Most companies and institutions have some form of public stance on climate change. For many 'sustainability' is a core value. Some even claim to be carbon neutral. However all organistions rely on some degree on the fossil fuel energy system - either directly by providing services to a lucrative sector or simply through the purchase of their products.

And nearly all climate change strategies, for public and private institutions are based on emissions reductions and offsets, which do not address the basic fact of writing off those $20tn of assets in current circulation.

It's relatively easy to be 'for' something like emissions reduction. The real test then, is not a stance on emissions, but a stance leaving fuel in the ground.

So, the question to ask of CEOs, chair(wo)men, presidents and prime ministers is no longer whether or not they have an opinion or policy on climate change or emissions reduction.

The question to ask is what role they will play in keeping those $20tn worth of carbon in the ground.

Brief Thoughts on Cape Town Stadium

The City of Cape Town has a problem - a nearly new, barely used, international quality stadium slap bang in the centre of a precinct screaming to be developed into an urban node. The business case for the stadium hinged on attracting the local rugby union team Western Province (or The Stormers when playing in the Super Rugby tournament) as anchor tenants as the stadium is too big and inconveniently located for the two professional soccer teams based in the city. The costs of maintaining the stadium require 16 full house events (55,000 bums on seats) annually (noted by Guy Lundy, Twitter), which can only realistically be achieved if it hosts regular rugby games.

However, the Western Province Rugby Football Union (WPRFU) own their current stadium, Newlands, and are loathe to forego the benefits of being owners of an old stadium for the benefits of being tenants at a new one. And understandably so - the WPRFU are in a strong negotiating position to get a good deal from the City, so a move that makes financial sense to the City is looking less and less likely.

Compounding this issue for City is a vocal, NIMBY, residents association covering the new stadium precinct, which viciously opposes any alternative uses of the stadium precinct for restaurants, clubs and other night-life venues.

This seemingly intractable situation has led to a few alarming, or at least surprising suggestions... The most extreme is to 'simply' demolish the new stadium - although I don't know if the proponents of that path have given any thoughts how to use the land better... In my humble opinion, demolishing R4.5 billion of nearly new infrastructure, no matter how misplaced the spending may have been is an indication of a severe lack of imagination.

Not lacking in imagination, but perhaps in practicality is the plan to turn the stadium into low-cost housing. I'm not sure how this would work architecturally, but the first thing to spring to mind is that low-cost housing should probably be low-cost (which the stadium certainly isn't). The other is that the modifications necessary to change a stadium into apartments are likely to cost more than demolishing and then building genuine low-cost housing in its place... So we're back to the point above.

Further to that, new urban models show the need for mixed income housing along with other space uses to create liveable urban spaces. Putting high density housing where the stadium would have to be thoroughly tested on urban design grounds before taking any steps in that direction.

I'd like to throw another thought into the mix... If the key issue is land ownership of Newlands (for WPRFU) and the operating costs of the new stadium (for the City), why not just exchange assets?

The City could swap the new stadium in Greenpoint for the old one in Newlands. WPRFU would get a brand new, world class stadium instead of an old one, without having to give up the land ownership of ‘their’ stadium. The City would get an albatross off from around their necks and secure a prime piece of land for place-making in Newlands.

The fact that there is already a project underway for creating a public zone adjacent to Newlands strengthens the case further...

If I have overlooked something here, please comment...

Hope: Where not to look

I was privileged to attend a side event at COP17 in Durban last year and I have explored some of the disappointment and hope from the international climate negotiations in a previous post. At the time I was looking forward to Rio+20 as a more relevant event for progress on cities and our built environment. And on some fronts it seems to be so, at least as far as cities are concerned.

However the final text contains few, if any, firm commitments. The commentary coming out of Rio was downbeat, with the hash-tag #riominus20 getting airtime on Twitter - and Greenpeace adopting what CEO, Kumi Naidoo, has termed a 'war footing' of civil disobedience. The USA and Russia appear to be the major blockers of strong action, perhaps with a view to exploiting arctic energy resources?

Guardian columnist George Monbiot wrote an excellent piece on how global leaders are using the rhetoric of hope to string the public along with these global negotiations. I too have allowed myself to dare to hope that leaders will announce some big breakthrough at these conferences, something more than is needed, not less - and each time I have been bitterly disappointed.

And yet why are we disappointed? There has been so much written on the relationship between corporations and governments: embracing partners in a dance of power and wealth, at any cost it would seem. Is it not naive to believe that this very system will somehow transcend its own inherently selfish nature?

So the inevitable failure of Rio hurts, but does not surprise... And yet, despite my best efforts (a few brief minutes of fantasy about being a John Gant of sorts and dismantling the industrial machine, although for wildly different reasons to those described in Atlas Shrugged), I cannot give up hope. But I cannot hope in the pomp and ego of the global sustainability summits any more. They have been sold to us on the basis of 'last chances' but negotiators have failed us too many times now.

Instead I must hope in individuals working to do things better tomorrow than they did them yesterday. Simple things. Because we seem to find our humanity at the local scale and that is where my hope lies, in finding our humanity. And even in the midst of massive institutional failure, and the potential humanitarian and environmental disasters that might follow, I can still hope in community and the simple, everyday human interactions that build it.

So for my part, my efforts will be directed at designing spaces that best allow community to engage with environmental and humanitarian challenges at their own scale, in their own context.

Ten Points

1. Integrated design.

 2. Whole systems.

 3. Purpose and function.

 4. Participation.

 5. Restorative.

 6. Decentralised.

 7. Cyclical.

 8. Non-toxic (benign).

 9. Optimised across a system.

 10. Stewardship.

The Age of the Generalist

Over the last few weeks I have been struck by how stuck professionals are in their expertise... The most confronting of late has been the medical profession with whom my wife and I are working towards the birth of our first child; negotiating our way between the mid-wife-led natural birth community and the conventional medical fraternity of obstetricians, medical aids and hospitals. Both camps seem to lack the flexibility of thought to adapt and allow us to walk a path between them, drawing from each side as it suits our particular need and preferences.

This same inflexibility of thought is something I have witnessed in the engineering profession and it appears to be of epidemic proportions in our 'specialist' areas of knowledge. Our modern approach to most things has been focused on increasing levels of specialisation to the point where there are few real mavericks/thinkers/jokers/game-changers left on the implementation side of life. By the time a professional can call themselves that (read engineer, lawyer, doctor etc) they will have studied and/or been a candidate-whatever for at least 7 and as much as 10 or 12 years... No wonder they feel the need to hold that hard-won ground so fiercely...

And in this stagnant marsh of specialist turf-war thinking, the shining lights are the people who can tell the whole story, bringing in the relevant areas of detail as required, but all the time keeping a broad narrative which reflects real life in all its complexity. It is these yarn-spinners who are the real hidden gems, who keep our disabled institutions limping along with promises of a new story.

In the sustainable design business we spend a lot of time talking about integrated design, yet our approach is still heavily focused on specialists each doing their bit (while at least talking to each other) – we have not yet leveraged the power of true generalists and story tellers in our approach to design. In other words, we are getting to grips with multi-disciplinary approaches, but haven’t yet got to the trans-disciplinary approach of those disciplines which pursue an understanding of societies, communities and eco-systems and can put design in context. And context, my friends, is everything.

Which is why I'm looking forward to a new age; the age of the generalist... I want people who have enough understanding of the details to keep the specialists honest; but as a priority are able to provide context to design. We should look in the fields of anthropology, ethics, peace studies, ecology and the arts for those thinkers with the breadth of understanding to ask not just what is possible, but also what is right, appropriate and fitting. People who can describe our preferred futures in broad terms and help navigate the path to get there.

COPing it in Debben 2011

Summer, Durban, 2011. It’s hot, muggy and very much not Cape Town, which seems to be struggling out of winter as though mired in treacle. The world’s climate negotiators have descended on the International Convention Centre with their entourages and the host of professionals, NGOs, corporates, government representatives and other climate trough-feeders in tow. The night before the conference, storms ravaged Durban with a number of casualties – a tragic (although timely) reminder of how our changing climate will change urban life, especially for the poor.


My reason for being here is the annual architectural side event organised by the South African Institute for Architects (SAIA) and the International Union of Architects (UIA) – Sustainability by Design: built environment strategies in response to climate change. I was one of the panelist for the interactive event attended by some 200 architects, providing some engineering perspectives on our urban response to climate change.

The broad context at this Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), appears to be one of slow movement on global climate funding, amid threats of Canadian withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol (to join their North American neighbours in the dirty energy business). This amid a widening trust-gap between major players, developed and developing nations and even within negotiating blocs. My expectations for the global negotiations are low – I don’t foresee binding agreements soon, but I do have hopes for individual sectors, cities and other governance forums for substantial action in the absence of global agreement. Going into COP17, it was imagined that this round of negotiations would see the world’s premier cities rising to the challenge to address climate change and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. I still have hopes of that.

So then, what role for the built environment - a sector which is responsible for at least 40% and perhaps as much as 60% of global GHG emissions?

Let me first frame the conference… In contrast with previous built environment conferences, this was not “talking heads” – experts lecturing an audience on their latest project or opinion - this conference was a conversation. This was primarily an architectural audience interacting with an inter-disciplinary panel, exploring climate scenarios in the built environment (with expertise ranging from food security to urban design to ‘integral coaching’ – a full list of panelists can be sourced here: http://uiasustainabilitybydesign.org/panelists.html).

Short inputs of 4 minutes each from this panel were interspersed with discussions in a 'fishbowl' format (where vacant seats on the panel are temporarily filled by audience members to explore ideas). Day one of the conference was an introduction to COP, followed by an exercise in scenarios relating to the rate of climate change and peak oil. It was an exploration of the capacity we have in the built environment to address climate and energy scenarios. The scenarios explored were those presented by Permaculture co-founder David Holmgren (http://www.futurescenarios.org/) in the face of 'energy descent' (as cheap, high intensity energy sources peak and plateau). It was an eye-opening exercise in trying to describe what a low-energy future might look like, and especially so in the face of climate uncertainty.

My journey through the conference started with speaking in the 'green tech' scenario session (one of Holmgren's scenarios, consisting of relatively benign climate change and slow energy descent). This is probably what most sustainability professionals consider the likely scenario. What I learned from trying to visualise a true energy descent scenario, was the impact on current decision-making in terms of function. Buildings that are able to function without active mechanical or electrical systems will be at an advantage in any energy descent scenario. Similarly, any urban system which does not build in resilience to a low-energy world runs a significant risk of redundancy within its lifetime. The time-scale of Holmgren's scenarios are 5-7 years for 'fast descent' and in the order of 35 years for 'slow descent'. The economic life of built environment systems is longer than both these periods, so low-energy design should become a primary decision-making point for current projects, as energy descent is a credible scenario for major systemic change within building life-spans.

The other scenarios ('brown tech', 'earth steward' and 'lifeboats') explored a range of possible futures, from primitivism through to mega-cities, each with their compelling and terrifying aspects. The strength of exploring these scenarios was not in their predictive capacity, but rather in the way they opened one's thinking to consider alternatives to the dominant story around energy availability. I think most delegates and panelists left the first day feeling deeply unsettled, questioning the potential within our industry to function in a low-energy and climatically unstable world.

The second day consisted of a series of workshops to explore our capacity within the built environment to respond to these scenarios at local, national and global levels; as well as understanding the gaps in our capacity to play a meaningful role in humanity's response to climate change. Afterwards, panelists and delegates engaged with the global, national and city-scale debates; framed a range of priorities; and brainstormed actions to move the built environment forward. There were elements of heated debate on the role of cities, and mega-cities in particular.

In contrast to day one, day two was more empowering - the full audience was engaged to explore potential responses, and here credit must be given to the facilitators. A group of nearly two hundred people combined through three workshop sessions to explore what climate change and energy descent would mean for  our industry, and what immediate steps we can take. Initial discussions identified 'elephants in the room' and brought out some key options, which were in turn whittled down through a vote to four strategies for action. The final session provided for the exploration of these core themes in terms of actions.

One of the real eye-openers for me was the use of 'back-casting' to explore potential solutions - starting from a future point of having successfully negotiated climate change, and then exploring what steps would have been critical in arriving there. 'Back-casting' is a tool I'm excited about exploring in design workshops in the future. The outcomes of these workshops were four focus areas on which the industry could take immediate action:

• Developing a strategic plan for the built environment in the face of climate change;
• Building trans-disciplinary capacity for engagement with national government on climate policy;
• Telling a compelling story relating to climate change in the built environment; and
• Fostering professional ties with education facilities to build climate sensitivity into built environment training.

I threw myself into the strategic response workshop, but found the discussion difficult, with many disparate perspectives struggling to hold a cohesive conversation around responses. High levels engagement, some of it passionate - but what emerged for me was incredibly fragmented. Despite this, the outcomes could be useful in the local context, with some potential actions from which to build urban resilience. 

In summary, the key points of the strategy are:

• Establishing urban design standards for resilience;
• Shifting our financial mindset to life-cycle costing;
• Supporting an inter-disciplinary forum for climate-related issues;
• Focusing on affordable and appropriate technology;
• Devising tax or rates incentives for addressing climate change on projects;
• Matching adaptation and mitigation action with real development needs;
• Decentralising urban infrastructure; and
• Retrofitting the urban environment.

Immediate actions relating to this strategy are:

• Taking a report from the conference to all built environment institutes and convene a discussion between them (architectural, engineering, quantity surveying, urban design and building institutes) to address climate resilience.
• Making a bold call to the built environment to include adaptation and mitigation actions in their standards.
• Specifically approaching the Urban Design Institute of South Africa to prioritise climate change resilience in the urban design standards.
• SAIA requesting the assistance of the Institute for Quantity Surveyors in developing life-cycle costing standards and guidelines.

Actions from the other workshops included the drafting of a charter for addressing climate change through design in our built environment; and a wide range of education options for incorporating climate change awareness into training (including apprenticeships, professional development programs and leadership training). To me the charter is one of the most critical, and the one with potential to spark a global impact, however there is a long road ahead to gain wider support.

These actions appear credible to me, and the level of engagement was impressive for a conference where many delegates probably weren't expecting to work so hard. And for these reasons, the conference was a tremendous success. However, I left the final session with a deep sense of unease over the potential of the built environment to provide a sufficiently concise view of climate action that would be be useful in global negotiations. 'Fragmented' is the word that springs to mind again and again, and that within a gathering of people largely from within a single profession!

An element of real concern for me was the lack of an international perspective on climate action - as if the challenges at a national level were already too much to address suitably. In a previous post I have already explored the difficulty of looking at the built environment through just a mitigation lens, due to its complexity. This conference served to reinforce my view. We are dealing with such incredibly complex beasts in our urban spaces, that tell so many concurrent stories, that it might just not be possible to condense them into a single narrative and strategy.

I also believe that focusing on resilience and adaptation holds the most potential... and this can be addressed outside of any coherent international framework.

Green Buildings 2.0

The green building movement has been shaping our built environment for a decade and a half, and there can be no doubt that it has been a commercial and marketing success. Recent reports from Australia indicate property value premiums of as much as 12% and rental premium of 5% for Green Star certified buildings in Australia. This is consistent with much of the research emerging from the USA over the last decade.

However the commercial success of Green Star must beg the question on its environmental performance: if we filled our cities with Green Star or LEED certified buildings, would we be a significant step closer to addressing the major sustainable development challenges that face our country, our continent and our planet? A list which includes, but is not limited to poverty alleviation, health, education, social justice, ecological health, food security and climate change adaptation. And I'm afraid that at this point, the answer to that question must be no.

The framing question for modern green buildings has been "how can we reward the design and construction of buildings that have a smaller impact on the natural environment?" This question has led us down the current path of green building rating tools such as LEED and Green Star; tools which have started with a broad assessment of the environmental impacts of buildings and then rewarded discrete improvements in efficiency and process. This has allowed relatively straightforward decision-making around "green" initiatives, but has not been able to reward the resilience of complex systems that do not fit the mould of individual credits.

The question of simply reducing impact is not sufficient to deliver the sustainable cities on which our continued prosperity depends. Modern green buildings have typically improved their resource efficiency, resulting in lower stresses on city infrastructure, but without making significant contributions to sustainable cities. No longer is it sufficient to design buildings which look inward and seek to be "less bad" (as Cradle to Cradle author Bill McDonough has termed them). Rather we need to reframe our approach and ask: What kind of buildings do our future cities need? I believe this question could frame the development of Green Buildings 2.0.

Without the context of functional cities (ecologically, socially and economically), modern green buildings are unlikely to deliver the sustainable urban spaces that we pictured when first imagining green buildings. Similarly, if we rely on precinct tools which ask the same questions as building tools, just at a bigger scale, we will never see our existing cities transformed. We must accept that our cities are primarily made up of privately held plots and buildings, each separate, yet with a profound effect on the common urban landscape and functionality. We cannot look at buildings with impermeable boundaries any more, we must consider the spaces in between. To see our picture made real, we need to reward buildings for providing the spaces and services that our cities need beyond their immediate boundaries.

Primarily, we need buildings that are multifunctional. They must meet their primary function of providing places to work, trade, live and play. However, further to that our buildings must have secondary roles of providing decentralised services to our cities (water, power and waste services); and tertiary functions relating to the creation of excellent public space, enhanced opportunities for education and fostering of urban ecosystems.

On the topic of resource efficiency, it is not sufficient for buildings to simply reduce resource intensity or tie into existing green infrastructure. We should reward buildings that provide basic services (clean energy, waste treatment, clean water, nutrition) to their neighbourhoods, cities or villages. We must have tools for rewarding restorative buildings, and stop rewarding variations on the status quo.

Buildings that are premised purely on economic return in the private sector are typically poor at creating exceptional urban spaces. We must reward buildings that provide public services to their communities. These could include health services through the integration of clinics with retail, public amenities and education through both the construction and operation processes. Buildings should empower women in their function through the provision of child-care facilities and minorities in their expression of culture. When we recognise leadership in the development of our urban spaces, these are some of the things we could consider...

It is insufficient for buildings to act simply as investments for large funds, premised on the current global financial indicators. Buildings are too big a part of our lives to only provide prosperity to a single sector. We should reward "green" buildings that are economically functional across a range of city sectors, considering job creation, poverty alleviation and micro-business.

Finally, buildings that are only functional are not sufficient for our cities. We must reward buildings that are a delight for residents and visitors alike. We must reward decision-making that is based on the place-making potential of our buildings, and not just their revenue-generating potential.

So, how to move forward... Are our existing tools too far gone, requiring an alternative; a green building revolution? Or can we take our existing tools and re-imagine them to be more relevant to sustainable cities - a green building evolution? Being of Darwinian persuasion, I feel that evolution is the most appropriate way to go. It would allow us to stand on the shoulders of giants (for in their time, our present tools were indeed giants to an industry without even a starting point for sustainable development) while maintaining the industry legitimacy of the current establishment.

I intend to explore how this might work in more detail in future posts, but my framework that could allow us to both simplify and broaden building assessments follows.

1. Start with the status quo - categories of environmental impact (energy, water, construction management, materials, emissions, transport, IEQ, land use) as these remain key areas for contribution instead of simple mitigation.

2. Add to them key missing links, including, but not limited to:

•   Biodiversity and eco-system services

•   Public amenity

•   Broad economic activity

•   Planning

•   Heritage

•   Social services

3. Instead of looking down and in, look up and out. Instead of devolving into credits, describe broad performance criteria which will enable sustainable cities. Create benchmarks of contribution to the city, not benchmarks of reduced impact on the environment.

One of the cornerstones of such a strategy is to move away from rewarding specific initiatives and instead reward the broad contribution to our cities. A good starting point for the style and format would be the Living Building Challenge (LBC 2.0) by the Cascadia GBC; however the content would be informed more by sustainable urban design and broad systems thinking than living within the natural footprint of the building.

My hope is that we can move away from line by line checklists, which are only able to reward incremental improvements in the efficiency of our buildings; and towards a system able to reward design which is cognisant of- and makes a contribution to- the real, complex, messy systems which are our cities.

For only once they are able bridge the areas between our buildings, will green certification tools be much use in delivering sustainable cities of the future.