Day 3 of the Conference examines how we can stimulate and encourage the degree of change needed: through education, AI, local actions to lead the future and getting net zero right.

Edge Debate #163: 10.30-11.30

The role of education in climate awareness

What role can education play in creating an informed climate-literate citizenry?

From nursery schools to lifelong learning education must pave the way for better understanding of environmental issues.  Within the built environment, numerous initiatives are driving change, including the Climate Framework, the ACAN Education working group, Zero Construct and the CIC Climate Change Committee toolkit for professional institutions.  Mobie encourages young people to engage with construction.

Teach the Future prepares children starting school today to be climate and ecologically literate to enter the workforce or further education by 2035 and as Teach the Future supporter, Nadia Whittome, MP reports “Labour has adopted my Climate Education Bill in our draft policy programme.”

Moderator:

Django Perks, Teach the Future

Speakers:

Our main asks

• Niamh Crisp-O’Brien, Teach the Future

• Inspiring young people to build the homes of the future

• Gerry Ruffles, Head of Education, Ministry of Building Innovation and Education (MOBIE)

Climate and ecological literacy led initiatives for the construction industry

The Climate Framework

• Mina Hasman, founding member of the Climate Framework, Sustainability Director, SOM and author of the RIBA Climate Guide and CIC Climate Change Committee

The CIC Toolkit for professional institutions

• Aled Williams, Chair, CIC Education & Future Skills Committee and Executive Director, Innovation & Partnerships UCEM

The Competence Framework

• Simon Foxell, the Edge

Edge Debate #164: 12.00-13.00

For better or for worse: the role of AI as an industry disruptor

Discussions of artificial intelligence (AI) range from championing its positive gains to extreme caution about dire unintended consequences. This debate examines the issues.

Chair:

Dr Olli Jones, Head of Sustainability and Innovation, Cundall

Speakers:

All systems go

• Martha Tsigkari, Head of Applied R & D, Foster & Partners

• Mike Moseley, Knowledge Transfer Manager – Construction, BridgeAI

versus

Proceed with caution

• Aaliyah Pollock, Data and Tech Analyst, RICS

• Brian Hills, CEO, The Data Lab

Edge Debate #165: 13.30-14.15

Hustings / Call for action. The Future is local for a just transition

Many local authorities, organisations and businesses have declared climate and biodiversity emergencies. While central government has seemingly lost direction on these critical issues, regional governance and action is leading the way.

A recent report by the Mission Zero Coalition, The Future is Local, identified over 30 recommendations on how the Government can give greater agency to local authorities to deliver net zero.

Mayors, local leaders and community activists from across the country are here to tell us more.

Chair:

Julia King, The Baroness Brown of Cambridge and Chair of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Independent Commission on Climate Change

Speakers:

Combined authorities as agents for change

• Dr Nik Johnson, Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority

Making our net zero goals real – all new build to be net zero carbon by 2025

• Cllr Louise Upton, Cabinet Member for Planning, Oxford City Council

People-power to create a zero carbon, socially just and nature friendly city

• Anzir Boodoo, City Plan Lead, Climate Action Leeds

How the civic movement can deliver the climate change agenda

• Ian Harvey, Joint Founder, Civic Voice  and Interim CEO, Institute of Place Management

Edge Debate #166: 14.45 -15.45

‘PECHA KUCHA’: Getting Net Zero Right

Whatever the political outcome of the next election, we must act now for today and for the future. In this session, future leaders share their visions for how to get it right.

Chair:

Ramesh Deonarine, Team Leader – Built Environment, Climate Change Committee

Speakers:

Architect

• Gina Windley, architect/sustainability designer, Levitt Bernstein; RIBA Rising Stars shortlist 2023

Engineer

• Ellen Griffin, Senior Engineer, Volker Stevin and ICE Northwest Rising Star winner 2023

Natural Environment

• Chris Moss, Senior Consultant, Greengage Environmental Ltd and CIEEM highly recommended Promising Professional 2023

Sustainability

• Michelle Wang, Sustainability Manager, Deloitte Global Real Estate

Planner

• Dr Ada Lee, Infrastructure and Climate Change Specialist, Royal Town Planning Institute

Zero Construct

• Sam Burdett, Carbon Manager, Skanska and Co-founder of ZERO Next and Education co-lead, ZERO

Get it right initiative

• Gavin Ford, Project Handover Manager, Costain Group PLC and winner of the inaugural ICE Tom Barton Award, Get it Right Initiative

Day 2 looks at what can be done to deliver change. 2024 is an election year. What policies for net zero and nature recovery should industry put forward to move the dial from talking to doing?

Edge Debate #158: 10.45-11.45

Delivering net zero buildings in reality

Forward thinking clients are demanding net zero buildings in line with their ESG obligations but often lack a detailed understanding of how to achieve this in practice.

An important first step is the agreement of a consistent global definition of net zero and that delivering net zero should be a required professional duty.

The industry already has the knowledge and skills to ensure that any new buildings and the reuse of existing buildings achieve net zero carbon both in development and in operation. Professionals must step forward and work with clients and across project teams to ensure net zero outcomes at the scale needed.

The most successful schemes champion sustainability from the outset all the way through to post-completion management. This means getting the brief right, tracking progress throughout and monitoring actual performance in use once a project is complete.

Chair:

Jamie Quinn, Sustainability Director, Argent Related

Speakers:

The client’s Net Zero Carbon strategy for newbuild and retrofit

• Richard Tetlow, Associate Sustainability Consultant, Buro Happold

Creating the right brief for net zero buildings and operations                                              

• Alexi Marmot, Founding Director, Alexi Marmot Associates – AMA  and  Founding Director, Global Centre for Learning Environments, Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, UCL 

Designing for net zero carbon – leading a collaborative team                              

• Peter Fisher, Director, Bennetts Associates

Operating ‘net zero carbon’ buildings                                                                      

• Stephen Hill, Associate Director – Sustainability Consultant, Arup

Edge Debate #159: 12.00 – 12.45

Call for action - Delivering Nature 2030

The UK’s extractive approach to natural resources has made it one of the most nature- deprived countries in the world. The irony of the outcry over the felling of the Sycamore Gap tree at Hadrian’s Wall is that the tree, while located in a visually bucolic setting, sits in a denuded landscape with limited biodiversity.

The Nature 2030 Campaign, developed by the Wildlife and Countryside Link coalition of over 80 environmental organisations, has put forward five key policies for nature recovery:

• A pay rise for farmers, doubling the support for farmers to make sure that they can deliver nature-friendly farming and nature restoration

• Making polluters pay, ensuring that businesses have nature and climate plans in place and setting new duties to drive private investment in species and habitats recovery.

• Making more space for nature, restoring more protected sites and landscapes by 2030, and creating a Public Nature Estate across England with the support of local and national partners.

• Creating more green jobs, delivering widescale habitat restoration and creating green jobs in urban, rural and coastal habitats and in species recovery through a National Nature Service.

• A Right to a Healthy Environment, establishing a human right to clean air and water and access to nature.

The Environmental Principles Duty, set out in the Environment Act 2021, came into force on 1 November 2023 and requires all ministers and policymakers to consider the environmental impact of new policies.

Four Prospective Parliamentary Candidates will set out their policy proposals.

Chair:

Richard Benwell, Chief Executive, Wildlife and Countryside Link

Speakers:

• John Cope, Conservative Prospective Party Parliamentary Candidate for Esher and Walton

• Carla Denyer, Green Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Bristol Central

• Polly Billington, Labour Prospective Candidate Parliamentary Candidate for South Thanet

• Pippa Heylings, Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for South Cambridgeshire

Edge Debate #160: 13.00-14.00 

Planning: mending the system

Planning plays a crucial role in shaping the future of both our built and natural environment and never more so than in this time of climate and ecological breakdown. What is the optimal planning framework to deliver a more equitable, climate responsive, nature-positive world?

Planning reform has been repeatedly in the news in 2023 with numerous calls to better align the planning system with net zero goals by setting specific guidance and more ambitious targets for carbon reduction. Schemes must be scrutinised for net zero delivery in practice. This will only be possible by upskilling officers and councillors so they are well equipped to assess schemes in a timely manner.

Policies, regulations, spatial plans, local plans: what have we got and what do we need?

Chair:

Helen Fadipe MBE, MRTPI, Managing Director, FPP Associates Ltd, Founder and Chair BAME Planners Network and Vice President, RTPI

Speakers:

What policies do we need for real zero?

• Paul Ekins, Professor of Resources and Environment Policy, Institute for Sustainable Resources, University College London (UCL)

What should the planning response to the climate crisis be?                         

• Hugh Ellis, Policy Director, TCPA

What policies, regulations and land use planning do we need for nature recovery?

• Sue Young, Head of Land Use Planning, The Wildlife Trusts

Doughnut Economics in the Council’s decision-making revisited

• Jane Cox, Council Strategy and Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager, Cornwall Council

Edge Debate #161: 15.00-16.00

Water – one of our most critical infrastructure challenges

The world has a water crisis and the UK is no exception. The National Audit Office has forecast that by 2034 total demand for water will exceed supply.

 Water has been undervalued as a resource as has the true cost of managing sewerage and storm water. The effective management of our water and sewerage is relevant for all working in the built and natural environment.

Since privatisation, water companies have paid dividends in place of investing in new infrastructure and maintenance. Reports of leaks, blocked drains, increased flooding due to changing weather patterns and polluted rivers are increasingly common.

The water challenge does not stand alone. Access to sufficient water impacts land use and many supply and waste solutions require an energy network to deliver it where it is needed.

Should we continue to build where water supply is most challenged?  How do we balance water use between people and agriculture?  To what level must we reduce personal water use? How can we ensure that sewerage management stops polluting our rivers?

Chair:

Catherine Wenger, UK, India, Middle East and Africa Water Business Lead, Arup

Speakers:

The extent of the crisis

• Tim Smedley, environmental journalist and author of The Last Drop

Why we need to build resilience

• Nikki van Dijk, Technical Director, Climate Resilience, Mott Macdonald

The water-energy nexus - two sides of the same coin

• Andrea Gysin, Service Line Director, Water Strategic Advisory, WSP

Protecting our rivers and environment

• Erica Popplewell, Campaigns Manager, River Action UK

Day 1 of the Conference focuses on the need for assured action on housing, retrofit, buildings fit for the future, safe products and overcoming the systemic barriers to climate change

Edge Debate #154: 10.45 – 11.45

Net zero housing: the quality-affordability conundrum

Housing today must address a triple bottom line: climate resilience, health and affordability

The Climate Change Committee calls for all new homes to be net zero carbon. Climate resilient homes must also be located in the right places with adequate services, jobs and transport nearby. They must be more than ‘housing estates’ and promote healthy living, with green spaces on their doorstep or at least within walking distance.

With the dramatic increase in remote working, what a ‘home’ must provide has changed. Homes need to be more adaptable and ideally, they should include flexible workspace, though this can also be provided through work hubs in community facilities. The sharing economy can support social interaction and neighbourliness.

In areas where average house prices can be multiple times local incomes, affordability is a dual challenge: initial purchase price and ongoing maintenance. New housing must be durable for the long term and designed to perform so that energy use is predictable.

Chair:

Catherine Adams, Director of Building Systems and Net Zero’, Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC)

Speakers:

Standards, policies and action plans

The Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard

• Katie Clemence Jackson, Technical Project Manager, UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard

The Healthy Homes Bill for healthy, affordable homes

• Rosalie Callway, Healthy Homes Campaign Leader, Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA)

The long-term delivery plan responding to the challenges

• Ed Lockhart, Chief Executive, Future Homes Hub

What is really ‘affordable’?

• Cara Pacitti, Senior Economist, The Resolution Foundation

A developer’s perspective: the right homes in the right place 

• Andrew Day, Sustainability Director, Hill Group

Edge Debate #155: 13.00 – 14.00

Retrofitting our existing homes at scale

The UK’s approximately 28 million homes are responsible for almost a third of our CO2 emissions. The challenge is to develop realistic whole house retrofit strategies that can be rolled out at scale across a wide variety of housing types and tenures.

The establishment of the National Retrofit Hub creates a single platform to coordinate learnings and actions across this highly fragmented sector that is crucial to achieving both net zero and a just transition. Launched in March 2023, the Hub has assembled a dynamic and diverse team drawing together experts from industry, the professions and academia. 

Retrofitting homes delivers much more than carbon saving – it can dramatically improve health and wellbeing and reduce social inequality.  How do we value the social co-benefits: local jobs and skills, improved health and ultimately low or lower running costs?

And crucially how do owners and tenants find out what should be done and trust that it will be undertaken well?  For each individual home or archetype, what is the right balance between heat demand reduction and heat supply decarbonisation?

Chair:

Lynne Sullivan, Chair, National Retrofit Hub and Good Homes Alliance

Speakers:

What do we need to know? Lessons from Wales

• Chris Jofeh, Chair, Independent Implementation Group on the Decarbonisation of Existing Homes, Welsh Government

Housing types and their appropriate decarbonisation journey

• Sara Edmonds, Co-director, National Retrofit Hub

What is the finance? How do we estimate how much is needed?

• David Adams, Net Zero Strategic Consultant, UK Green Building Council (UKGBC)

Local delivery models and skills

• Brian Berry, Chief Executive, Federation of Master Builders

Edge Debate #156: 15.00-16.00

Post-Grenfell update: can better product testing improve building safety?

 In her report on the Grenfell tragedy, Dame Judith Hackitt highlighted the weaknesses in the industry’s current approach to product testing, labelling and marketing. About two-thirds of construction products are currently unregulated, according to the Independent Review of the Construction Product Testing Regime (April 2023) led by Paul Morrell OBE and Anneliese Day KC.

The Independent Review provided comprehensive recommendations for both industry and government to tackle the lack of accountability in the construction products marketplace.

What measures have been taken in the year since publication? What must be done next?

 Chair:

Caroline Gumble, Chief Executive, CIOB

 Speakers:

The report one year on:

• Paul Morrell OBE, Inquiry co-chair

A Code for Construction Products Information

• Peter Caplehorn, Chief Executive, Construction Products Association (CPA)

The Specifiers’ perspective

• Richard Harral, Technical Director, Chartered Association of Building Engineers (CABE)

Edge Debate #157: 16.15-17.00

Systemic barriers to tackling climate change

 Dealing with climate change is proving an intractable challenge. Is this a failure of public leadership as well as systemic challenges? What can unlock the barriers for change at the pace required? 

Who needs to make the changes? Where are the glimmers of hope?

•  Smith Mordak, Chief Executive, UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) in conversation with their guests,

• Danisha Kazi, Head of Economics, Positive Money

• Simon Sharpe, Director of Economics for the UN Climate Champions, Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute and author of Five Times Faster