Edge Debate 174:

The government is promoting the circular economy – how far can we go?

4th March 2025, 10.30-11.30

The ‘circular economy’ is relevant for a number of the UN Sustainable Development Goals to which the UK government has committed itself to delivering. The ‘circular economy’ relates to several SDGs especially SDG 12 Sustainable Consumption and Production and this can directly impact on the issue of ‘waste’.

The UK regenerates about 222 million tonnes of waste each year of which (at 2018 figures) 62% comes from construction, 19% from commercial and industry, 12% from households and 7% from ‘other’. As a recent report outlined: ““ It will take a strong partnership between individuals, businesses and governments to make the circular economy a reality. If successful, this transition could be a multitrillion-dollar opportunity that brings a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.” Various remediation methods are in place but there is still a gap to close – how will we do this? How can we transition to as close to zero waste as possible in 12 months, by 2030 and at the latest by 2035?

• Chair: Tina Paillet, Founder, Circotrade and Past President, RICS

  The role of the planning system in the circular economy

• Tom Ash, Senior Policy Officer, Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL)
  Circularity in practice – how far and how fast can it decarbonise the built environment?

• Brogan MacDonald, Head of Sustainability (Building Structures), Ramboll

  Optimistic innovation

• Sophie Thomas, Founding Partner and Chief Technology Officer, etsaW Venture

  How investors can drive the circular economy transition

• Katerina Papavasileiou, Director, ESG and Responsibility, Federated Hermes

Edge Debate 175:

How the circular economy and degrowth can avoid catastrophic tipping points

4th March, 12.00-12.45

We have known about ‘limits to growth’ since at least 1972. We know that society’s use of materials for all purposes has increased from 7 billion tons in 1900 to 92 billion tons in 2017, and this is just not sustainable. We can recycle as much as we can but if we keep trying to grow GDP no matter the environmental and social costs, we risk missing our climate targets and triggering catastrophic tipping points. We then try to put a price on nature that doesn’t prohibit growth. Thinking ‘circular’ goes ‘beyond waste’ and should influence every decision that we make particularly for those working in the built environment. Time for an honest conversation about where we should be in 12 months? By 2030? by 2035?

• Chair: Smith Mordak, Chief Executive, UK Green Building Council

  Getting products right within the circular economy

• Elwyn Grainger – Jones, Executive Director, Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute

  The economics of a circular economy and how it can create value

• Teresa Domenech, Professor in Industrial Ecology and the Circular Economy, Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College of London (UCL)

  Putting the circular economy into practice

• David Greenfield, Managing Director, SOENECS and Vice President of the Circular Economy Institute

Edge Debate 176:

Design for reuse for resource resilience and a circular economy

4th March 2025, 13.15-14.15

Construction in the UK not only accounts for 40% of green-house gas emissions but, according to Defra, the UK construction industry produces 100 million tonnes of waste a year (62% of the UK waste generated annually) and, despite best efforts, 5 million tonnes still go to landfill each year. Industry actions should include:

• -  Taking a regenerative design approach to live within planetary boundaries – moving from “recycle, reduce and reuse’ to “restore, renew and replenish.”

• -  Reducing waste in the first place with choices made for materials for both structures and interiors.

• -  Avoiding future waste creation by designing and building inflexible buildings which cannot be repurposed at a later stage if required and so force further demolition and new build.

How can we transition to a zero-waste construction industry and what should we achieve over the next 12 months? By 2030? By 2035?

• Chair: Dan Cooke, Director of Policy, Communications and External Affairs, Chartered Institution of Wastes Management (CIWM)

  Why we need regenerative design and how to do it

• Kat Scott, Sustainability and Climate Change Officer, Hackney Council and Architects Declare 4

  From Dundee Gasworks to Eden Earthworks – the practical challenges and solutions

• Rachel Sayers, Partner, FCB Studios
  Buildings as materials banks and materials passports

• Katherine Adams, Director, Reusefully

  The value to real estate

• Hugh Garnett, Senior Programme Manager, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC)

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 work

• Dani 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

Edge Debate 181:

What should the New Towns Taskforce consider to deliver the best outcomes?

6th March 2025, 13.15 – 14.15

For this session, let us imagine that we have that ‘comprehensive land use framework’ as discussed in an earlier session, with its attendant broad spectrum of data along with integrated national infrastructure, transport, energy and industrial and green framework strategies and so can now consider what the New Towns Taskforce should take into account in identifying where to site new towns. In order to make the right decisions it is essential to assess the risks involved and many of these may be interrelated i.e. having the right infrastructure capacity such as the national grid, having effective sustainable transport and active travel routes, having the necessary resource capacity especially water and sewerage, having access to jobs and employment and, very importantly, ensuring that development both protects and improves nature and green infrastructure connectivity as well as ensuring that the new town citizens have abundant access to nature for their health and well-being.

• Chair: Lord Matthew Taylor, Executive Director, Taylor and Garner

  What we have learned from developing new towns in the past

• Duncan Bowie,

  Employment and economic opportunities

• Jackie Sadek, Chair, UK Innovation Corridor

  Thriving nature, thriving places, thriving people

• Clare Warburton, Deputy Director for Sustainable Development Natural England

  Ensuring that the critical infrastructure is in place

• Judith Sykes, CEO, Useful Simple Trust, Senior Director, Expedition and Member of the National Infrastructure Commission’s Design Group

Edge Debate 182:

Looking back, looking forward – are we doing enough?

6th March 2025, 14.45-15.45

Reviewing 20 years of Futurebuild/Ecobuild conference programmes we see that steps have been made towards achieving sustainability, climate change and nature goals, this last being a feature of more recent years, and then a concerning number of steps backwards.
The UK established world leadership in climate action with the passing of the Climate Change Act in 2008 along with the establishment of the Climate Change Committee (CCC), a non- departmental public body which advises the government on emissions targets through the carbon budget and reports to Parliament on progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In its report of July 2024 the CCC said that

“Our assessment is that the previous Government’s policies and plans were insufficient to

achieve the UK’s targets in the 2030s. There were a few good developments in some areas in the

past year. However, policy reversals and delays in other areas, together with inconsistent

messaging, have hindered progress just when acceleration was needed. With the 2030 target

only six years away, and the impacts of climate change intensifying, rapid action is needed to

get things back on track.”

In his speech to COP 29, the Prime Minister confirmed that the government will meet the targets of an 81% cut in emissions by 2035 as set by the CCC.

Meanwhile 2024 was the hottest year on record impacting both human health and wellbeing and accelerating habit loss.

So, what have we achieved (or not) to date and how can we now make the progress that is urgently needed? As we said in the introduction to this Arena programme “this is no time for dithering”.

• Chair: Smith Mordak, Chief Executive, UK Green Building Council

  The energy challenge

• Tadj Oreszczyn, Professor of Energy and Environment at the UCL Energy Institute, founding Director of the UCL Energy Institute (2009) and the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER) (2014)

  The biodiversity and nature restoration challenge

• Anusha Shah, Senior Director, Resilient Cities and UK Climate Adaptation Lead- Arcadis,

  The climate adaptation challenge

• Polly Turton, Head of Climate Action and Public Health at Love Design Studio/Shade the UK

  The construction industry challenge

• James Low, Global Head of Responsible Business, Mace (confirmed)

  The Carbon Budget Challenge

• Dr Emily Nurse, Head of Net Zero, Climate Change Committee