Matt Bridgestock is an architect and planner with John Gilbert Architects. He's an outdoor man.

There is general scientific agreement that humans and their CO2 emissions have caused the worlds climate to change. There is also broad consensus that we are approaching the peak of the worlds oil output . Both peak oil and a ‘point of no return’ in climate change terms are likely to be between 10 and 15 years away. As our buildings generally last for 50 years and our urban structures around 200 years, the case for radical change now should be clear to all.

The challenge is to maintain and improve the quality of life while substantially lowering carbon emissions and fossil fuel dependency. The target should be that all residents can live within their ‘fair share’, having a carbon footprint of no more than 2.1t/yr per person per annum. Planning should be at the forefront of tackling this question. What should our towns and cities look like in the future? How should they work? Can they work on a tiny fraction of current carbon emissions?

Yes, there are small steps being taken. Edinburgh Standards for Sustainable Building, Scottish Borders Council Supplementary Planning Guidance on timber in construction and the well meaning but poorly written SPP6 and PAN 84. Each is in itself groundbreaking, but do they go far enough? The answer is undoubtedly no. There are a number of cities that have already grasped this nettle firmly and are proceeding with ambitious, clear visions of the future :

• Curritiba in Brazil has been at the forefront of environmental city planning since 1965 implementing mass rapid transit systems, encouraging green technology firms, creating a walkable city and city scale recycling.

• Bo01, Malmo, in Sweden is aiming for 100% renewable energy from onsite and near site generation, principles built into the city district include sustainable mix of uses, transforming brownfield sites into attractive residential areas, parks and green public spaces, renewable fuels, efficient energy consumption, new technology for water saving and sewage treatment, material and energy recycling maximised, urban form to minimise car use combined with car pools and cycle paths, healthy building materials.

• The Dutch district of Nieuwland comprises about 5,000 homes and about 70 ha for industrial uses and is an experiment for new environmental techniques on a city scale. The new area has been designed around short walking and cycling routes with low carbon housing, district heating schemes, facilities and green spaces. There are innovative energy generation including large-scale PV installations.

These examples required great vision and leadership together with new skills in physical and environmental design. We should be equipping all our local and national planners with this knowledge and lobbying governments and councils to lead us on these vital long term issues.

There are no standard solutions: each region, city and neighbourhood needs to be considered in its context, transport, urban form, land use, energy generation, heating strategies and building standards. At the very least, the magnitude of the issues facing us warrant sustainability training as a mandatory component of the Royal Town Planning Institute's CPD annual requirement.

There are some themes and patterns of development we should reject immediately. We should be saying no to out of town development with token public transport, no to housing sprawl, no to dispersed communities and we must focus on a few simple patterns of densification of town / city uses, pedestrian first environments, creative use of spaces, innovative energy and heating solutions, clever transport proposals and vibrant towns and cities. The Sullivan Report prepared by the Scottish Government sets out a bold strategy for Scotland’s building fabric but does not address the planning issues.

We need that bold vision for planning. At a national scale and a more local level, it needs to be creative and backed up through political will, policy, local plans and funding. These big ideas should be generated from both grass roots and top down levels, new visions for the city, backed up with drawings, ideas, inspiration developed from open public charettes, workshops and big scale public events. Why not turf over George Square and bring citizens, academics and professionals together for a weekend of debate? Perhaps we should hold big planning competitions for new ideas for the future. Students of planning, architecture and urban design should be presenting their visionary ideas to council leaders and politicians. Innovative partnerships with energy providers and transport providers should be developed to power cities cleanly and without dependency on fossil fuels.

Planners need to think creatively and take the lead. The time for action is now and the need has never been greater.

References

• Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• The Oil Crunch Report from the Peak Oil Task Force
• The Zed book, Bill Dunster, 2007
• Wikipedia: Sustainable Cities
• Local Governments for Sustainability
• CITY OF TOMORROW, Malmö, Sweden
• Health and safety is now a mandatory component of Architects annual CPD,
• A Low Carbon Building Standards Strategy for Scotland  (The Sullivan Report)
• The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience, Rob Hopkins, 2008