Sustainability, social justice and transition
The UK has the highest levels of income inequality in the EU. Poor housing standards with 14% or 3.5 million homes failing the Decent Homes Standard is another indicator of inequality as is uneven access to green space with the more economically deprived areas tending to have the least access while often being urban areas with the poorest air quality.
The Labour government has come into power with a commitment to both provide affordable housing and protect nature.
There are questions to answer if we are to achieve these commitments starting with how should we use our land ? Where should we develop? Are new towns the answer? Locations for renewable energy? For sustainable transport routes? Impacts of climate change on the land? Suitable land for food growing? Biodiversity network connectivity? Ensuring that 30% of the land is given to nature? What should those working in the built and natural environment do to effect significant change? Assess to employment? Access to services? How should planning respond to integrate all these issues into sustainable solutions?
The other drivers for sustainability, social justice and fairness are the UN Sustainable Development Goals which were adopted by member states in 2015. The UK government has made a commitment to deliver these by 2030, but enthusiasm by the construction industry appears to have waned despite the Institution of Civil Engineers Global Engineering Congress held in 2018 with its Sustainability Route Map for the global engineering community to better engage with the UN SDGs. What is our progress to date? How can the industry have a greater focus on these critical ambitions?
Edge Debate 177:
Tackling the polycrisis – can we fix housing, climate, nature and health?
5th March 2025, 10.30-11.45
The government wants to build thousands of new homes in urban and rural areas to try to fix the housing crisis. So why talk about a polycrisis?
Developing homes – how many, where, how it’s done – is inextricably interconnected with three other crises, in nature, the climate and health. Solving one crisis only to make the others worse would be criminal. So, how can we:
Ensure that healthy homes in healthy places are provided for human health and wellbeing.
Ensure that all new housing is delivered within carbon budgets
Ensure that all new developments support and enhance nature and are carried
out within nature’s carrying capacity.
Achieving the desired outcomes needs an open and realistic national conversation.
Chair: Richard Simmons, Visiting Professor, Bartlett School of Planning (confirmed) Spatial, strategic planning, new towns, cracking housing crisis but will they do this...?
How the government plans to deliver new housing in ways that are positive for the climate, nature and health.
Baroness Taylor of Stevenage, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing and Local Government, MHCLG
How to turbo charge nature recovery while building the houses the country needs
Alan Law, Chief Officer Operations, Natural England Building homes within our carbon budget
Yolande Barnes, Professor of Real Estate, University College London Planning for healthy places
Flora Samuel, Professor of Architecture, University of Cambridg
Edge Debate 178:
10 years on from their adoption to deliver the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, what is our progress and how is the industry responding to its responsibilities to do this for greater equality for all?
5th March 2025, 12.00-12.45
The government has made a commitment to deliver these by 2030 with a focus on tackling global poverty, instability and the climate and nature emergency. This also applies to what we achieve within the UK. What is our progress to date? How can the industry have a greater focus on these critical ambitions as all 17 goals have a relevance for all those working in the built and natural environment particularly goals 3, 9,11,13, 14, 15 and 17 focusing on health and wellbeing, climate change, conservation and biodiversity, developing sustainable cities and communities, building resilient infrastructure, promoting sustainable industrialisation, fostering innovation and based on partnership and collaboration. Would delivering the SDGs improve social equality in the UK?
Chair: Sue Riddlestone, Chief Executive, Bioregional
SaulHumphrey,VicePresident,CharteredInstituteofBuildingand Professor of Sustainable Construction Management at Anglia Ruskin University (confirmed)
Will Arnold, Head of Climate Action, Institution of Structural Engineers
Cressida Curtis, Group Sustainability Director, Wates (confirmed)
This session is curated by the Edge with partners Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB), Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE) and Bioregional
Edge Debate 179:
Putting land use at the heart of our decision making
5th March 2025, 3.15-14.15
We have a finite amount of land and we ask a huge amount of it including supporting biodiversity and nature recovery. Given that the government is committed to: protecting 30% of the land (and sea) for nature by 2030, the restoration of our river ecosystems, nutrient neutrality in development projects, providing space for food and food security, renewable energy, carbon capture through our soils, trees and peatlands, water management, transportation, housing development - both rural and urban - and waste management, progress is severely hampered by much of the readily available information on land ownership and use being fragmented, incomplete and held by disparate organisations.
The House of Lords inquiry into land use concluded that “these challenges are best addressed through a land use framework and propose that it be developed, overseen and monitored by a new English Land Use Commission” (December 2022).
We will be addressing it (the competing balancing of land uses) through the land use framework, which will be delivered in the next couple of months. Of course there are trade-offs. There are a range of pressures on our land, in respect of housing, food, energy and so many other things. We need to have a rational way of making those decisions, and that is exactly what we will introduce”. (Citation: HC Deb, 4 November 2024, c37).
will explore why we need a comprehensive national land use framework and how it could deliver in practice.
Chair: Baroness Young of Old Scone
Land use data to inform decision making – how it could workDani Arribas-Bel, Deputy Director of Urban Analytics, The Alan Turing Institute
Overview of the benefits and value of effective strategic spatial planning
Maya Singer, Senior Research Fellow,
Local understanding, local decision making – better for land use and economic development
Stephen King, Head of Infrastructure & Planning, London Councils (
Why a national land use commission or authority is critical for delivering an effective land use framework
Stephen Hill, Founder, Founder - C2O futureplanners
Edge Debate 180:
We, the housebuilders, will provide the quality, affordable, net zero carbon, healthy homes in well-connected places that work for people of all ages.
5th March 2025, 4.45-15.45
House builders, for both the public and the private sector, are centre stage when it comes to providing 300,000 new homes each year but these ‘homes’ must fulfil multiple needs of quality, affordability, sustainability, good connectivity and support human health within nature rich environments while safeguarding the natural environment. Taking a reformed planning system as read, this numbers driven brief may be challenging, but we can do it.
Chair: Lisa Tye, Partner and Co-head of Planning, Shoosmiths and Commissioner for the Radix Big
What do we mean by quality housing design?
Matthew Carmona, Professor of Planning and Urban Design, The Bartlett School of Planning, Faculty of the Built Environment, University College London
Nature-rich living places
Michael Copleston, Director for England, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB)
How we are going to meet the targets for new-built, quality homes each year
James Stevens, Director for Cities, Home Builders Federation (HBF)
Richard Partington, Design Champion, Melius Homes