Archive for the ‘Research’ Category
Research refers to reports by organisations or research by academic institutions relating to urban sustainability issues. If you have research that relates to urban sustainability issues and could benefit people and organisations that are relevant to cities around the world, please post this information on SustainableCitiesNet.com. To do so visit the “How to use this site†page and follow the prompts.
Collaborative Democracy
Posted in Research, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on September 3rd, 2010
Source: Worldchanging.com
Image: infomatique from flickr CC
This article is from a remixed talk by Beth Noveck’s on “Transparent Government“. The talk was given as part of the Long Now Foundation‘s Seminars about Long-Term Thinking. The talks were remixed by Hassan Masum, are made available under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa 2.5 license.
The talk describes a social experiment “which seized upon the truth that each of us is an expert in something” that was designed to investigate ways of re-energising democratic decision making. It started from the following point,
We have been concentrating decision-making power in the hands of too few people – whether legislatures, or cabinet officials, or bureaucrats and agencies like the patent office. We construct our institutional practices around the notion that this is the best way that we have to make decisions. Even though we do not have a system of monarchy or aristocracy, we still believe in the notion of political expertise, and the notion that we have to rest power at the center.
What exacerbates this problem is that we are making long-term decisions that affect the fate of our planet. The fate of our economy, and of major systems of health care and education and environment, are being decided by people who are in short-term political positions. We have a disconnect between the long-term effect of what we do, and short-term electoral cycles.
We have to look at the ways we can reengineer our institutions to take advantage of the expertise that comes from outside the center, and bring it into the way that we make decisions.
Read the full article on Worldchanging
Floating Home
Posted in Research, Visions by Kate Archdeacon on August 27th, 2010
Source: Metropolis Magazine
A competition proposal to develop a floating city has developed into ‘the world’s first off-the-grid floating building’ in Rotterdam.
Towed into place in the Rijnhaven harbor late this spring, the 10,764-square-foot pavilion is made of three geodesic domes designed by Bart Roeffen, a local architect. It grew out of a competition proposal for a floating city developed by Roeffen and fellow students at the Delft University of Technology. “We thought it was a brilliant idea to promote Rotterdam as a city on the water to anticipate the effects of climate change,” says Arnoud Molenaar, program director of the Rotterdam Climate Proof Program.
The city is expanding its current harbour by 20% and this expansion has created the space for up to 5000 similar floating structures that could potentially use the harbours and docks that are being superseded.
Original article by Cathryn Drake on Metropolis Magazine
Building Niches for Biodiversity
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on August 26th, 2010
Source: Treehugger
From “Biodiversity for Low and Zero Carbon Buildings: A Technical Guide for New Build (Book Review)” by Kimberley Mok:
With major declines observed in bee, bat, bird and other critical species, it makes sense that newer built environments now being designed with zero- or low-carbon status in mind should also integrate ways to boost wildlife diversity as well. That’s the premise of Biodiversity for Low and Zero Carbon Buildings: A Technical Guide for New Build by Dr. Carol Williams.
Dr. Williams, who is associated with the UK-based Bat Conservation Trust (BCT), points out that imperfections in the craftsmanship of traditional buildings allowed certain species to find ecological niches and roosting opportunities right alongside humans. Not so with newer, ‘air-tight’ construction, hence the need to accommodate and integrate built-in habitats for now-threatened species ranging from certain bats, owls and peregrine falcons. Thus, the book is apparently the first of its kind to consciously target biodiversity enhancement in new developments, rather than retrofitting existing structures.
Unless biodiversity is considered early on in the design process, these ever more stringent demands for increased energy efficiency of buildings will lead to losses in the biodiversity that have shared our built environment for centuries. This book addresses this issue because if we do not, there will be very few, if any, future roosting opportunities for bats or nesting opportunities for birds in our buildings. Without these measures, key species will be adversely affected by new developments; not only meaning a failure to achieve truly sustainable building, but also an erosion of the quality of life we all hope to experience in our working and home environments.
With a focus on the sustainable building process and wildlife in the United Kingdom, the book is practical in its scope, providing plenty of tables and technical information on how to size and orient suitable building elements that each particular species could call home. There’s also valuable information on prefabricated wildlife-friendly components from various manufacturers, plus a chapter on living walls, roof gardens and artificial lighting. Full of clearly annotated architectural drawings, colour photos and well-organised information, this book will be an excellent reference for architects and developers in the sustainable building industry.
Original article by Kimberley Mok on Treehugger.
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Solar is Cost-Competitive with Nuclear: Report
Posted in Movements, Research by Kate Archdeacon on August 24th, 2010
Source: Worldchanging
From “Scaling Up Solar: The Global Implications of a New Study that Says Solar Power Is Cost Competitive with Nuclear Power” by Olivia Boyd:
The sunshine of North Carolina, a state on America’s Atlantic seaboard, has long been a draw for tourists seeking a little southern warmth on the region’s beaches. But holiday companies are not the only ones trumpeting a good local deal. The price of the state’s solar-generated electricity has fallen so far that it is now cheaper than new nuclear power, according to a report published in July by researchers at the state’s Duke University. The authors say their figures indicate a “historic crossover” that significantly strengthens the case for investment in renewable energy – and weakens the arguments for large-scale, international nuclear development.
Solar power is usually branded as a clean but expensive energy source, incapable of competing on economic grounds with more established alternatives, such as nuclear. The outspoken pro-nuclear stance adopted by a raft of iconic environmental figures – James Lovelock, Stewart Brand, Patrick Moore – has helped to instill in policy making circles the sense that this is the only power source that can restructure our energy supply at the pace, scale and price required by the pressures of rapid climate change. This study, which was co-authored by former chair of Duke University’s economics department John Blackburn and commissioned by NC Warn, a clean-energy NGO with a firm anti-nuclear bent, challenges that view. “This report should end the argument for risking billions of public dollars on new nuclear projects,” says Jim Warren, NC Warn director.
The Story of Bottled Water
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on August 20th, 2010
The Story of Bottled Water ( and manufacturing demand…)
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Grow Different, Not Bigger: Animation
Posted in Opinion, Research by Kate Archdeacon on August 12th, 2010
From the Drucker Institute:
Wegmans, a regional (US) grocery chain with just 75 stores in five states, earlier this year beat out its much bigger rivals—Kroger, Publix and Safeway—to be named tops in its industry in a major consumer survey. The recognition caused one marketing expert to note that “you don’t have to be the biggest to be the best.”
In a world in which high-growth companies such as Google tend to grab the headlines, it’s an easy lesson to forget. But it’s one that Peter Drucker promoted. In a 1979 essay, Drucker advised that “nothing can grow forever” and that “today every business needs . . . ways to distinguish healthy growth from fat and cancer.”
British author and social philosopher Charles Handy also echoed these ideas in a 2009 Drucker Centennial lecture. In this short cartoon (under 3 mins), the Drucker Institute has brought Handy’s words to life, illustrating the distinction between healthy growth and unchecked “growth for growth’s sake.”
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The Positive Deviant: Sustainability Leadership in a Perverse World
Posted in Opinion, Research by Kate Archdeacon on August 6th, 2010
Source: Forum for the Future
Forum Founder Director Sara Parkin’s new book, The Positive Deviant: Sustainability Leadership in a Perverse World, is the first to bring together sustainability knowledge with the leadership skills and tools for leaders in the low-carbon economy of the future. It contains all you need to get started, and to continue growing your effectiveness, even in a world that remains perversely intent on the opposite. Whether you are new to the whole idea of sustainability, or reasonably well informed but not entirely confident about what to do for the best, this guide will help you ‘do’ sustainability. Free of checklists and policy recommendations, the focus is on you, and on developing your capacity to identify the right thing to do wherever you are and whatever your circumstances.
Download the introduction from Earthscan.
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Retro-Fitting Suburbia: TED Talk
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on July 16th, 2010
Source: TED
Images above: Suburban retrofits contribute to sustainability in a variety of ways, most of which are manifest at Belmar in Lakewood, CO. It replaces an auto-dependent, private mall with an urban, walkable, and bus-served mix of uses and public spaces. It provides a range of housing types, diverse architectural styles, and variety of cultural activities, including but not limited to shopping, with the intention that it function as a downtown. It also uses green bonds to finance rooftop photovoltaics and a small wind farm.
Ellen Dunham-Jones fires the starting shot for the next 50 years’ big sustainable design project: Retrofitting Suburbia – dying malls rehabilitated, dead “big box” stores re-inhabited, parking lots transformed into thriving wetlands. Ellen Dunham-Jones teaches architecture at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is an award-winning architect and a board member of the Congress for the New Urbanism. She shows how design of where we live impacts some of the most pressing issues of our times — reducing our ecological footprint and energy consumption while improving our health and communities and providing living options for all ages.
Dunham-Jones is widely recognized as a leader in finding solutions for aging suburbs. She is the co-author of Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs. She and co-author June Williamson share more than 50 case studies across North America of “underperforming asphalt properties” that have been redesigned and redeveloped into walkable, sustainable vital centers of community—libraries, city halls, town centers, schools and more.
Watch the TED talk.
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Greening the Concrete Jungle: Report
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on July 14th, 2010
Source: The Ecologist
From “Trees a ‘low-cost’ solution to air pollution and biodiversity loss in cities“:
Native woods and trees in urban areas, including gardens, provide haven for wildlife, reduce air pollution, surface run-off and flooding Reversing the declining numbers of native trees and woods in cities would provide numerous benefits at ‘relatively little cost’, says a report from the Woodland Trust. As well as access to green space, the report, ‘Greening the Concrete Jungle‘, says trees provide a wide range of free ecosystem services including reducing the risk of surface water flooding and improving air quality that could save millions in flood defence and healthcare costs.
The UK has one of the world’s highest rates of childhood asthma, around 15 per cent, particularly amongst lower socio-economic groups in urban areas. Research shows asthma rates among children aged four to five falls by a quarter for every additional 343 trees per square km, as they help keep the air clean and breathable and reduce ambient temperature. Trees are also able to reduce the pressure on the drainage system during flooding. The University of Manchester has shown that increasing tree cover in urban areas by 10 per cent reduces surface water run-off by almost 6 per cent. A major international study published earlier this year, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), put the global value of services provided by forests and biodiveristy at between £1.2-2.8 trillion a year.
Despite these ‘invisible’ benefits, the report says urban tree cover is actually deteriorating in many areas, with concerns over tree safety and insurance claims as well as development. Many places have seen a decline in older trees with large spreading crowns, replaced with smaller, more manageable alternatives. Smaller crowned trees have less capacity to intercept rain. Fewer than 10 per cent of city dwellers have access to local woodland within 500m of their homes. Evidence suggests proximity to a wood encourages physical exercise, whilst a woodland walk lowers the heart rate and mental stress.
The Woodland Trust said socially disadvantaged groups were the most likely to lose out with around two-thirds of urban trees in private or less accessible public grounds. It is campaigning to plant 20 million native trees annually accross the UK for the next 50 years.
‘Towns and cities also tend to put into sharp relief some of the key problems we are facing as a society – physical and mental health problems, childhood obesity and asthma, differences between rich and poor, air pollution, soaring summer temperatures, flash flooding, energy conservation, diminishing wildlife – so they are a good place to start when trying to illustrate just where green space can deliver significant improvements for relatively little cost,’ said report author Mike Townsend.
Read the full article on The Ecologist.
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Better Decisions, Real Value: Business Toolkit
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on June 28th, 2010
Source: Forum for the Future
Forum for the Future is launching the Better Decisions, Real Value toolkit designed to help sustainability practitioners and finance professionals determine how sustainability can add financial value to their business. We believe that if companies are better equipped to assess this, they can make better decisions that create real value – for their investors and wider society.
The toolkit is the first output from over a year’s practical research with our Foundation Corporate Partners. We found that the complexity and uncertainty of sustainability created three barriers to determining the business case:
* the numbers are much ‘softer’ than decision-makers are used to;
* companies get stuck in a cycle of “no permission without a business case, no business case without permission”;
* financial tools are ill-equipped to deal with the ambiguities of how sustainability leads to value creation.
Our toolkit is designed so it can be used in any company or organisation to determine how sustainability can add financial value to the business. It includes a range of components.
* The Foundations tool helps you tackle the expectations gap by laying the foundations of the business case. It summarises the latest understanding of when there is (or is not) a business case, and why it is so hard to prove.
* The Entry Point guide offers a step-by-step guide to getting permission to explore your business case, helping you break out of the ‘no permission-no evidence’ cycle.
* The Pathways tool summarises the different ways sustainability can create financial value – from product differentiation, to staff motivation and risk reduction – with guidance on how you can collect evidence to make your business case.
* The Ready Reckoner tool helps you identify the pathways which are most important for your situation and calculate good-enough numbers to start the virtuous circle.
We are particularly keen to help our partners to use these tools, because we think it will help them create change and because we hope that by using the toolkit they can help us improve it.
Click here for more information about our Better Decisions, Real Value project. We will be making the tools available to the public on this page in July.
If you are interested in the Better Decisions, Real Value toolkit please email David Bent (d.bent@forumforthefuture.org) or call 020 7324 3662.
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