If the UK is to reach carbon net-zero by 2050 and its homes are to withstand the changing climate, sustainability needs to be ‘baked into developments’ from the outset. Isabella Krabbe of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) tells Jack Wooler why planning will be key to success in a challenging context.
The transition to a zero carbon society – meeting the Government’s 2050 targets and developing the resilience necessary for homes to face up to the changes the climate has already seen – will involve every part of the construction sector, and planning is no exception to this.
Planning will in fact play one of the most crucial roles in this transition, according to Isabella Krabbe, the Royal Town Planning Institute’s (RTPI’s) climate change research officer, who believes that engaging communities and enabling environmentally friendly choices from the very start of projects will be key to success.
“By minimising the carbon emissions of development through finding sustainable locations which are integrated with low-carbon infrastructure, planning can ensure design delivers climate adaptation and mitigation from the outset,” she says.
“Planning can also do this as part of a wider democratic conversation with the local community, helping to both reduce emissions and build resilience to extreme weather events.”
As outlined in its recent Plan the World We Need report, Krabbe and the RTPI argue that a well-resourced planning system has the potential to not just play a key role in meet net-zero targets, but revive the economy and “seize the opportunity to tackle inequality and deliver a sustainable recovery post-Covid.”
Challenges
When it comes to reducing emissions, Krabbe believes that one of the key challenges is to bring local plans in line with the carbon budgets set out by the Committee on Climate Change.
She argues that a revised National Planning Policy Framework should set out a “clear pathway” for carbon accounting, monitoring and reporting, and that local authorities should monitor and report on the performance of local planning policy in meeting carbon budgets for the area.
Delivering energy efficient homes also needs greater clarity, says Krabbe: “The repeal of the Zero Carbon Homes standard in 2015 caused widespread confusion across the industry, and has resulted in a large number of homes continuing to be built that will require costly retrofit.”
While the RTPI “welcomes” the commitment to the Future Homes Standard (FHS), Krabbe says it is “unacceptable” that new homes built today must rely on the decarbonisation of the grid to reach net zero.
“The FHS should act as a ‘floor’ rather than a ‘ceiling,’ with room for ambitious local authorities to set higher targets before the implementation date of 2025.”
Next on the list of challenges Krabbe cites is a lack of focus on lifecycle emissions and embodied carbon, particularly given the drive for new housebuilding in the Planning White Paper. She argues that the carbon emitted in the construction of new houses, and other buildings and associated infrastructure, must be reduced through a greater focus on the use of sustainable construction materials such as timber, stone and slate.
“Policies need to be developed to monitor the ‘as-built’ energy performance of new developments and close the performance gap,” she says. “Smart technology could play a key role in performance monitoring, allowing LPAs, developers and Building Control Officers to access live information about building performance.”
Retrofit of existing stock also continues to be a major challenge, to meet which Krabbe proposes a “national retrofit” strategy, with a stronger regulatory framework alongside powers and resources for local authorities.
Demand for energy and water will also need to be reduced to meet targets, and the RTPI believes that local authorities should have the power to align the investment strategies of utility providers with local strategies for growth and regeneration.
Lastly, Krabbe notes the challenge of reducing transport emissions at the scale and pace required. She believes it will need to be completely integrated with the approach to transport and land use planning – with a focus on developments that reduce travel demand and facilitate the rollout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Building resilience
Beyond these challenges in reducing further emissions in the longer term, she also believes it is vital that new homes be resilient to the impacts of climate change that are happening now.
“Climate resilience refers to the ability of cities, as ecological, social, and economic systems, to resist, recover from, and continue to develop despite climate-related shocks,” explains Krabbe.
‘Resilience’ is often used as an alternative term to ‘adaptation’ as it recognises the need for a holistic consideration of the impacts of climate change from flooding to heat stress, she says. “It highlights the need for a consideration of not only geography but also the social and economic factors that make some communities particularly vulnerable and the impact this has in terms of economic stress and health and wellbeing,” she adds.
While flood risk is often a top priority in the UK, Krabbe says that effective adaptation strategies will require a holistic approach, which considers a range of climate impacts from flooding to heat stress.
“Local plans should consider adaptation measures across spatial scales, from individual buildings to future patterns of development and consider the future impacts of climate change on time horizons of 50 to 100 years,” she says.
“A consideration of why levels of vulnerability to climate change vary, and how policies benefit or disadvantage particular groups is crucial when developing climate adaptation or mitigation policies.”
She notes that Section 19(1A) Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2004 already sets out that “Development plan documents must (taken as a whole) include policies designed to secure that the development and use of land in the local planning authority’s area contribute to the mitigation of, and adaptation to, climate change.” This is echoed in paragraph 149 of the National Planning Policy Framework which states “‘Plans should take a proactive approach to mitigating and adapting to climate change.”
Both adapting to and mitigating climate change should therefore be an essential component of both plan-making and development management decisions, says Krabbe.
Intervention
According to the RTPI’s Isabella Krabbe, the climate crisis requires stronger collaboration between Government, local authorities, infrastructure providers and housebuilders to plan and develop low/zero-carbon places.
“Local authority planners continue to face challenges in ensuring the quality of development outcomes, such as around sustainable locations and low-carbon design, due to targets which focus on speed and quantity,” she says.
She notes a new report by the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE), led by the University of Glasgow. ‘Delivering Design Value: the housing design quality conundrum.’ This makes clear that the responsibility for delivering good design is shared by both planners and housebuilders and developers.
The report finds that housebuilders can be resistant to investing in areas of low land value and continue to use layouts and house types which lack design value. This is reportedly compounded by local authorities feeling pressure to approve poor designs, due to a fear that developers will simply go elsewhere.
Krabbe believes this is part of the reason that the delivery of climate adaptation and mitigation ‘on the ground’ is generally poor, however she argues that Government has also played a “fundamental role in this inaction.”
“Constant changes to Government policy have resulted in widespread confusion, national policy has become overwhelmingly focused on housebuilding at the expense of place-making, and planning departments across the UK have faced severe under-resourcing,” she says.
“Government intervention is therefore crucial in driving climate action through strong and clear political leadership which champions and prioritises climate action and ensures the planning system is properly resourced to deliver the affordable homes we need.”
Resourcing strategic planning
Climate change of course poses a problem which crosses local authority boundaries, and as such will require an approach which can consider multiple issues on a strategic scale. Strategic planning will therefore play a crucial role in delivering climate resilience.
In November 2020, the RTPI published ‘Strategic Planning for Climate Resilience’, which highlights the necessity of strategic planning for delivering climate resilience and provides guidance on how to deliver climate resilience through strategic planning.
The report was produced to inform the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority’s creation of its Spatial Development Strategy, which is potentially the first city regional strategic plan of its kind in England.
One of the most notable findings in the publication is that planning departments across the UK simply “do not have the resources to effectively deliver on both climate adaptation and mitigation, and many do not have the resources available to generate the evidence base required to model the risks of climate change and respond with appropriate adaptation measures.”
If targets are to be met in construction and these challenges risen to, Krabbe concludes, this needs to change.