Can the design of the built environment help the obesity crisis?

It is difficult to open a newspaper without finding an article about the obesity crisis, a crisis arising from a combination of food industry marketing/chemistry and changes of life-style, fed by deep-seated physiological drivers.

The current cost to the NHS and businesses are huge and it is said that life expectancy in the USA has already dropped by 10 or more years. Not surprisingly Government Departments are urgently seeking solutions while the Supermarkets reposition themselves competitively. Typically, on 11th September the Guardian carried an article in the Financial section headlined ‘Sainsbury’s backs a drive over childhood obesity.’

While in many cities and in many countries the decline in the quality of the design of the built environment and its maintenance has coincided with the rise in obesity and while much of CABE’s energies are spent on promoting a better built environment and better public space, the question we wish to explore with you is to what extent can the built environment help solve the obesity crisis; or is it only of marginal significance?

This debate was chaired by Mark Whitby, co-founder of the multi-disciplinary engineering practice whitbybird and former President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. The outcome of this debate fed into a joint Foresight/VCABE workshop to held on 30th November 2006 as part of the DTI’s Foresight Tackling Obesities: Future Choices Project

Speaker 1:

Christine Hancock, European Director of Oxford Health Alliance, one of whose workstreams focuses on the way ‘Designers, architects and urban planners can assist in creating an environment in which healthy choices are the easy choices.’

Speaker 2:

Nick Cavill, Director of health promotion consultants Cavill Associates and a research associate of the National Heart Foundation

Speaker 3:

Tim Chapman, Director of HUDU, the NHS London Healthy Urban Development Unit in association with the LDA

Notes from the debate

The debate focused on the Chinese Eco-City of Dongtan, its ambitions and lessons it brings for more environmentally-responsible developments in Western Europe, and London in particular.

The debate was chaired by London’s former Deputy Mayor Nicky Gavron.

Paper 1: Dongtan (pdf)

Peter Head, Arup Director responsible for the design and delivery of this brilliantly ambitious self-sufficient city at the mouth of the Yangtse River. Dongtan will house 50,000 people by 2010. Peter outlined the challenges.

Paper 2:

John Hopkins, Director at LDA Design, a broadly-based environmental, planning, urban design and landscape architecture practice. John has carried out extensive studies of the Thames Gateway area and he reviewed the opportunities for the Thames Gateway in this debate.

Paper 3:

Michael Brown, Deputy Chief Executive of the Chartered Institute of Building and Director of International Policy & External Relations. The CIOB has a 6-year co-operation programme with the Chinese Department of Education Personnel & Labour at the Ministry of Construction.

Notes from the debate

In previous debates we have looked at how resources — oil, uranium and atmosphere — are finite (although we do not seem to have taken on board the fact that we don’t have the atmosphere to burn the oil that is left).

We have also looked at what needs to be done: the 60% cuts in CO2 emission targets still seem impossibly far away. Meanwhile, the goalposts have shifted and 90-100% cuts are now seen as being much more realistic.

When we started these energy debates last year the CO2 atmospheric content was 380 ppm. Now it is 381 ppm. The upper limit of 400 ppm, agreed at the 2005 Exeter Conference, is getting ever nearer and we still seem to be in denial.

This debate is about asking whether energy is the problem or is it our assumptions and expectations about growth. How can we achieve a new balance and live within our means?

The debate was chaired by Peter Guthrie, Professor of Engineering, University of Cambridge.

Speaker 1: Aubrey Meyer: Director of the Global Commons Institute

Speaker 2: Lord Oxburgh: Former Chairman of Shell UK

Links & Downloads:

Event invite

Notes from the debate

Jeremy Leggett notes

Edge summary report

The energy demand debate is about how much energy we can afford to use and what we can do to keep within the limits we set ourselves. While there is some dispute about how much CO2 the atmosphere can absorb, few doubt that there is an upper limit within the range 400-500 ppmv.

Now at 380 ppmv, if we take the lower figure it means we have only 5% of the atmosphere left and at current consumption we will fill this in 15 years. The higher figure gives us a longer time before we hit the buffers but should expect things to become dangerously non-linear before we reach the threshold.

Stringent cuts in fossil fuel consumption are needed — either by doing without or by using other forms of energy. With so much of CO2 coming from the built environment this sector has an opportunity to show how the built environment could function with the 60% or greater reductions in CO2 now being called for.

This debate is about asking whether the 60%+ cut is possible and affordable and, if so what steps this sector should take to demonstrate this by way of strengthening government’s hand in the next round of climate change negotiations.

The debate was chaired by Peter Guthrie, Professor Engineering, University of Cambridge.

Paper 1: Colin Challen MP

Paper 2: Chris Beauman: Climate Change Frameworks for Policy and Action (pdf)

Paper 3: David Fisk, BP/RAEng Prof Engineering for Sustainable Development, Suppose market based instruments don’t work? (pdf)

Notes from debate

More notes