‘Green Development?’ only if the planning is right.

In the US, certification of buildings as energy efficient has been a huge success, particularly since LEED (Leadership in Energy Efficient Design) developed a standard that could be built
to and shown off.

Now that builders and architects are familiar with the requirements of LEED it has become a standard offering, particularly for high quality space: people are at last putting a premium on well designed comfortable and healthy space.

This trends is great news, and as it spreads further into the building sector as a whole, and internationally it looks set to make a significant impact on carbon emissions.

However, there is one further step to green building. Namely, accepting the fact that a green building miles from work is not truly green. Site has to be considered. Compact urban development is the most sustainable form of growth. Enter LEED New Development
(LEED-ND).

“Just as other LEED systems have improved building efficiency and energy performance, LEED-ND will reward efficient use of land and the building of complete and walkable communities,”

said John Norquist, President and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism.

“It is helping to reinforce a more complete understanding of sustainability that extends all the way from the individual building to the neighborhood and community.”

Relevant Links:

• LEED-ND Report (describes the features for a sustainable building development).
• Comments on the draft report where taken: a summary response is available, this gives a superb short overview of the key tensions in the LEED-ND concept.
• USGBC: the home of LEED-ND
• Health and LEED-ND: Illustrates the health benefits of sustainable communities.

Virginia Tech New Metropolis Lecture Series

I think i prefer listening to podcasts than reading, i linked to the City of Sydney’s City Talk Podcasts the other day…particularly a talk by Jan Ghel.

I have just found another great series of podcasts and i`m wondering how many more are out there.

Lectures focus on cutting-edge topics and ideas about metropolitan development in the United States and abroad. Once a month, Virginia Tech invites speakers of broad regional, national and international reputation in scholarship, research, and policy.

My favorite from this series would have to be the following:

August 29, 2007
The Dollars and Sense of Sustainable Development – Ed McMahon, Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute.

Big and green?

There is a very interesting debate going on over at Grist.

A “speculative 15,000 square foot mansion in Manalapan, Fla., will be the first home of its size to be certified green by the U.S. Green Building Council and the Florida Green Building Council.” Is that a good idea for USGBC? That’s my question to you. Obviously people are going to build big homes — and it is better if they have green features. But should USGBC single out such “eco-mansions” for positive recognition?

My response to this is bellow, i agree that a low energy home is better than a high energy one but i think there is a more important argument.

It strikes me that when we talk about many topics such as: 1. Business Energy Usage 2. Green Buildings 3. National ‘Intensity’ targets. We are talking about emissions relative to the past. We need to talk about emissions relative to our planet, in other words, one big paradigm change of the climate challenge is saying no to relative targets: we dont live a a relative planet the logic dosent work. If we accept relative targets for buildings (90% bigger than that size, when smaller sizes are possible) then why not for businesses? If for businesses then why not for countries? If for countries then why not for the world…answers are all the same.

Urban Management In Asia: Recommended Reading

My interest for the last week or two has been urban planning and sustainable transport. Well, to be honest it was sustainable transport and has broadened out into planning.

In particular i have been reading about bus rapid transit, cycle cities, suburban sprawl, transport and health etc., I have been reading about cases from all over the world but i thought i would be nice to look at what is (or could be) happening is Asia.

The institute for global environmental stratgegies (IGES) has done pioneering research on post-2012 priorities for Asian nations. It does, however, get a touch less theoretical.

There are a great series of report/articles/papers on climate change and urban development on this page. Including entire books for free download!

A few highlights:

‘Air pollution control in the transport sector‘ is a publication most interesting to me for its case studies, which i ususally find to be far more interesting than discussion in the abstract. Atleast for an amateur it is easy to understand the issues through comparison.

The fourth chapter consists of six case studies and one comparative analysis on policies related to transport and environment in Asian cities.

‘Urban Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Asian Mega-Cities‘ is a lot broader than transport policy however it maintains the comparative approach and takes care to analyse the data. If you can see the numbers then there is a good chance you can realistically appraise the issues for yourself. As with many issues related to climate change good data is really the start.

[the report] aims to quantify CO2 emissions from energy use and analyse their driving factors for selected Asian Mega-Cities-Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Shanghai.

Help stop destructive road proposal

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URGENT ACTION ALERT – help stop destructive road proposal
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2 minute email action: Here

Along with local communities, Friends of the Earth Scotland, WWF Scotland, the Woodland Trust, Campaign against Climate Change and many other groups are opposing plans to construct the environmentally-damaging Aberdeen bypass.

What is the problem? This £300 million road will simply encourage more car traffic and increase climate pollution. It would also cut a swathe through 46 km of countryside – much of it designated greenbelt and rich in important wildlife.

What should happen instead? Plans for this road should be shelved. The money should be spent on an integrated transport system that has a focus beyond cars.

More information: http://www.stopthebypass.com

What can I do?

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No matter where you live in the world, we need you to formally object to this road scheme by Friday – the 9th February 2007.

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My take on this fiasco…

There are several bizzare aspects to this project. The foremost is that there really isn’t much need for a bypass of Aberdeen. It sits by the east coast and has little through traffic. If congestion could be solved by building new roads then in the case of Aberdeen these would be wider trunk roads.

The second factor is the price, oficcially £200-400 million, analysis carried out on behalf on one of the main opposition groups estimates nearer to 800 million. The exact figuers are not important, there magnitude is. Aberdeen is a city of 200’000. I can’t think of another area where funding of £1-2000 per person would be allocated (to take official figuers). And this outlay would benefit the tiny percentage of the traffic that does not want to actually want to go into Aberdeen. And this benefit, judging by past experiance of road building, won’t last long.

The final factor is the reason for this sites existance, climate change. Whilst many are worrying about how society will cope when it inevitably starts to decarbonise in a meaningful way, authorties are outlaying huge sums of cash to allow the implementation of what may euphemistically called ‘poor transport policy’.

In some of the worlds great cities climate change and integrated transport systems have been recognied as the challenges opportunities that they are. In London, car ownership has started to decline as disincentives are put in place alongside well developed alternatives. Public transport such as buses, trams and local rail services provide some of the answers, whilst active transport such as cycling, walking, rolar blading etc, provide the other important element. All of these have serious benefits for both the health of the planet and it’s people. In a society of epidemic obesity it might have been thought that getting people onto there bikes would have recieved slightly higher priority. Indeed, if these alternatives are provided for with safe cycle lanes, a certain degree of pedestrianisation, a well funded public tranpsort system and facilities that enable these to be used in combination then you have the start of an integrated tranport system that allows for higher mobility, fewer emissions, and a healthier population.

This year in a city of 8 million, London will achieve a great deal with £150 million in funding. If Aberdeen where to spend even a fraction of the officially estimated £400 million on such policies then it would be the greenest city in europe and amongst the most mobile.

Please support this campiagn to throw out the vested interests and inneficiecies of the past and move to a cleaner, healthier and more mobile future.