Here's How to Design Cities Where People and Nature Can Both Flourish

by Georgia Garrard, RMIT University; Nicholas Williams, University of Melbourne, and Sarah Bekessy, RMIT University, The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/heres-how-to-design-cities-where-people-and-nature-can-both-flourish-102849

An impression of biodiversity sensitive urban design (BSUD) developed by the authors in collaboration with Mauro Baracco, Jonathan Ware and Catherine Horwill of RMIT’s School of Architecture and Design. Author provided

Urban nature has a critical role to play in the future liveability of cities. An emerging body of research reveals that bringing nature back into our cities can deliver a truly impressive array of benefits, ranging from health and well-being to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Aside from benefits for people, cities are often hotspots for threatened species and are justifiable locations for serious investment in nature conservation for its own sake.

Australian cities are home to, on average, three times as many threatened species per unit area as rural environments. Yet this also means urbanisation remains one of the most destructive processes for biodiversity.

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Read more: Higher-density cities need greening to stay healthy and liveable

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Despite government commitments to green urban areas, vegetation cover in cities continues to decline. A recent report found that greening efforts of most of our metropolitan local governments are actually going backwards.

Current urban planning approaches typically consider biodiversity a constraint – a “problem” to be dealt with. At best, biodiversity in urban areas is “offset”, often far from the site of impact.

This is a poor solution because it fails to provide nature in the places where people can benefit most from interacting with it. It also delivers questionable ecological outcomes.

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Read more: EcoCheck: Victoria's flower-strewn western plains could be swamped by development

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Building nature into the urban fabric

A new approach to urban design is needed. This would treat biodiversity as an opportunity and a valued resource to be preserved and maximised at all stages of planning and design.

In contrast to traditional approaches to conserving urban biodiversity, biodiversity-sensitive urban design (BSUD) aims to create urban environments that make a positive onsite contribution to biodiversity. This involves careful planning and innovative design and architecture. BSUD seeks to build nature into the urban fabric by linking urban planning and design to the basic needs and survival of native plants and animals.

Figure 1. Steps in the biodiversity sensitive urban design (BSUD) approach (click to enlarge). Author provided

BSUD draws on ecological theory and understanding to apply five simple principles to urban design:

1. protect and create habitat
2. help species disperse
3. minimise anthropogenic threats
4. promote ecological processes
5. encourage positive human-nature interactions.

These principles are designed to address the biggest impacts of urbanisation on biodiversity. They can be applied at any scale, from individual houses (see Figure 2) to precinct-scale developments.

Figure 2. BUSD principles applied at the scale of an individual house. Author provided

BSUD progresses in a series of steps (see Figure 1), that urban planners and developers can use to achieve a net positive outcome for biodiversity from any development.

BSUD encourages biodiversity goals to be set early in the planning process, alongside social and economic targets, before stepping users through a transparent process for achieving those goals. By explicitly stating biodiversity goals (eg. enhancing the survival of species X) and how they will be measured (eg. probability of persistence), BSUD enables decision makers to make transparent decisions about alternative, testable urban designs, justified by sound science.

A striped legless lizard. John Wombey, CSIRO/Wikimedia, CC BY

For example, in a hypothetical development example in western Melbourne, we were able to demonstrate that cat containment regulations were irreplaceable when designing an urban environment that would ensure the persistence of the nationally threatened striped legless lizard (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Keeping cats indoors greatly enhances other measures to protect and increase populations of the striped legless lizard. Author provided

What does a BSUD city look, feel and sound like?

Biodiversity sensitive urban design represents a fundamentally different approach to conserving urban biodiversity. This is because it seeks to incorporate biodiversity into the built form, rather than restricting it to fragmented remnant habitats. In this way, it can deliver biodiversity benefits in environments not traditionally considered to be of ecological value.

It will also deliver significant co-benefits for cities and their residents. Two-thirds of Australians now live in our capital cities. BSUD can add value to the remarkable range of benefits urban greening provides and help to deliver greener, cleaner and cooler cities, in which residents live longer and are less stressed and more productive.

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Read more: Why a walk in the woods really does help your body and your soul

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BSUD promotes human-nature interactions and nature stewardship among city residents. It does this through human-scale urban design such as mid-rise, courtyard-focused buildings and wide boulevard streetscapes. When compared to high-rise apartments or urban sprawl, this scale of development has been shown to deliver better liveability outcomes such as active, walkable streetscapes.

Mid-rise, courtyard-focused buildings and wide boulevard streetscapes created through a biodiversity sensitive urban design approach. Graphical representation developed by authors in collaboration with M. Baracco, C. Horwill and J. Ware, RMIT School of Architecture and Design, Author provided

By recognising and enhancing Australia’s unique biodiversity and enriching residents’ experiences with nature, we think BSUD will be important for creating a sense of place and care for Australia’s cities. BSUD can also connect urban residents with Indigenous history and culture by engaging Indigenous Australians in the planning, design, implementation and governance of urban renaturing.

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Read more: Why ‘green cities’ need to become a deeply lived experience

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What needs to change to achieve this vision?

While the motivations for embracing this approach are compelling, the pathways to achieving this vision are not always straightforward.

Without careful protection of remaining natural assets, from remnant patches of vegetation to single trees, vegetation in cities can easily suffer “death by 1,000 cuts”. Planning reform is required to move away from offsetting and remove obstacles to innovation in onsite biodiversity protection and enhancement.

In addition, real or perceived conflicts between biodiversity and other socio-ecological concerns, such as bushfire and safety, must be carefully managed. Industry-based schemes such as the Green Building Council of Australia’s Green Star system could add incentive for developers through BSUD certification.

Importantly, while BSUD is generating much interest, working examples are urgently required to build an evidence base for the benefits of this new approach.

Georgia Garrard, Senior Research Fellow, Interdisciplinary Conservation Science Research Group, RMIT University; Nicholas Williams, Associate Professor in Urban Ecology and Urban Horticulture, University of Melbourne, and Sarah Bekessy, Professor, RMIT University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

U.S. Mayors Agree that Everyone Needs a Great Park Within a 10-Minute Walk: Non-profits, 134 Mayors Launch National 10-Minute Walk to a Park Campaign

by Adrian Benepe, Children and Nature Network: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/us-mayors-agree-everyone-needs-a-great-park-within_us_59dbb212e4b0a1bb90b83001

JENNA STAMM

Children play in a schoolyard converted to a community playground in Philadelphia.

At a time when Americans are fractured by politics and policies, there is one thing
most of us agree on and which has broad, bi-partisan support—convenient access
to a high quality park.

Today, The Trust for Public Land (TPL), the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA), and the Urban Land Institute (ULI) launched the
10-Minute Walk to a Park Campaign with the support of 134 mayors from cities 
across America and from both sides of the political aisle. These mayors signed on during the past year, endorsing the goal of providing every neighborhood with a 
quality park that improves life for city residents, serves as a safe place for people to gather, and adds to the beauty of the city.

Great parks are one of the anchors of healthy, sustainable communities and vibrant American cities. Today, more than 85 percent of the US population lives either in a
city or a suburb, and the research is clear that close-to-home parks boost the
wellbeing of entire neighborhoods. Parks play vital roles in enhancing
environmental sustainability, absorbing carbon and other air pollutants, lowering temperatures, and capturing storm water runoff. They are also crucial to public 
health—data show that when people live near parks they exercise more. Parks also enhance property values, and create community cohesion by bringing diverse
people together in social settings. Cities that invest in parks and open spaces are directly benefiting local residents and their physical and mental health by creating
life-enhancing ways to get outdoors and be active.

In cities across America, mayors and park directors are working with other elected officials, citizens, and non-profit partners to come up with visionary ways to pay for
new parks, and improve existing parks.

For example, the city of Houston has made a bold and ambitious goal to increase
the number of residents who live within a 10-minute walk of a park from 48 percent
to 75 percent by 2040. To do this, they have made improved access part of its
official park master plan. Working with a non-profit partner known as Spark Parks,
city officials are identifying scores of schoolyards that could be converted into community parks. Likewise, in hundreds of cities across the country, underused schoolyards represent the “low-hanging fruit”—land already owned by the city,
possibly not even needing major improvement—just the stroke of a policy pen to
make them “joint-use’ facilities and creating more nearby outdoor spaces for tens of millions of Americans.

SPARK SCHOOL PARK PROGRAN

Matthys Elementary School Park in Houston, newly renovated and opened to the community through the SPARK Parks program.

In Los Angeles County last year, residents approved Measure A, which will
generate at least $1.8 billion—$100 million a year, indefinitely—for new and
improved parks across the county. In Boston, voters also last year approved a
Community Preservation Act measure that will generate $20 million for the same 
cause, and New York City has allocated $300 million to renovate 70 small parks and playgrounds in under-served areas. In Minneapolis and San Francisco (which 
recently became the first city in America where 100 percent of its residents have a 
park within 10-minute walk), park leaders worked with community residents and 
local leaders to solve equity problems, and to make sure everyone, regardless of income or race, has access to high quality parks. Both cities have set aside large amounts of funding to ensure equitable park quality.

ALEX RANDOLPH

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee announces that his city is the first to have 100% of its residents within a 10-minute walk of a park at an event in Hilltop Park.

So, where did the “10-minute walk” idea come from? For several decades, city
planners and social scientists have measured distances people will travel on foot to basic services such as shopping, schools, or transit. They concluded that half a
mile is about as far as people will reasonably walk. Though walking speeds vary,
the U.S Department of Transportation agrees that most people can walk a half-mile
in 10 minutes.

Nearly 17 years ago, at an all-staff gathering of The Trust for Public Land, Will
Rogers, who still serves as the organization’s President, talked about headlines he hoped to see in the next decade. One of those headlines was his prediction that the NRPA and US Conference of Mayors would join TPL in working to ensure that no
one lived “more than a 10-minute stroller ride from a park or playground.” A few
years later, in an article penned for the American Planning Association Journal in
2004, Peter Harnik documented cities that had standards for how far residents 
should have to walk to get to a nearby park. Harnik, then Director of The Trust for 
Public Land’s Center for City Park Excellence, found that most cities had no 
standards, and those that did ranged from a tenth of a mile to a mile, with about half having a half-mile as the standard.

A year later, Jack T. Linn, Assistant Commissioner in the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation, developed a new standard for the ideal walking distance to a 
park. He determined that it should be measured in time, not distance, and proposed
that every New Yorker should have a park or playground within a 10-minute walk.

That standard was adopted two years later in PlaNYC—the sustainable 
development plan for New York City under Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

As a centerpiece of PlaNYC’s park and environment program, the Mayor called for converting 250 part-time, asphalt schoolyards into full-time community playgrounds,
used by schools during school hours but available to neighborhood residents after school and on weekends. That move, accompanied by $150 million to improve the playgrounds, led to a 15 percent increase in the number of New Yorkers who had a
park or playground within a 10-minute walk.

NOMI ELLENSON

The old asphalt schoolyard at La Cima Charter School in Brooklyn, NY was converted by The Trust for Public Land to a green community playground that also captures stormwater runoff.

Last June, the US Conference of Mayors (USCM) validated Will Rogers’ prediction
by officially endorsing the 10-Minute walk in a resolution introduced at its national gathering. The USCM resolution said, in part “that the United States Conference of Mayors supports the goal for cities to increase the number of people in urban
America who live within a 10-minute walk of a high-quality park; that the [USCM] will celebrate mayors that make quality parks and access to them a first-tier solution to
their municipal challenges; and that the [USCM] supports investments in parks and
open spaces with the goal for everyone in urban American to live within a 10-minute walk of a high-quality park.”

There was another major challenge for the 10-Minute Walk partners when they
launched the campaign nearly three years ago: How could they know how many
people had 10-minute walk access to a park in the 14,000 communities within the
3,000 areas defined as “urban” by the U.S. Census Bureau? The answer came in
TPL’s award-wining Geographic Information Systems (GIS) unit, which created ParkServe, an effort to find and map all the parks in those 14,000
communities, and then to figure out how many lived within or outside of the
10-minute walk “service areas” of those parks. Working with the help of Esri, the
world’s leading GIS mapping company, and using their Network Analyst software,
they are tracing the street network to determine if and how someone could walk to a park—without encountering barriers such as freeways, rivers and canals, or railroad tracks.

ParkServe, now underway for two and a half years, has already surveyed 7,600 of
the 14,000 communities, encompassing 67 percent of the U.S. population. Based
on preliminary analysis, they estimate that as many as 150 million Americans may
not have a park within a 10-minute walk. ParkServe is also generating the nation’s
first-ever database of urban parks and providing tools that city officials and citizens
alike can use to help identify park deserts and the best ways to add green oases.

So now that the campaign is officially launched, and is supported by 134 mayors,
how do we close that gap for so many Americans?

First, the three partners, TPL, NRPA, and ULI, working with other non-profit organizations, will engage with mayors and cities to deploy tools and strategies to
help them increase access to new parks and improve existing parks, building on successful models and strategies already in place. TPL and ULI experts in
conservation and urban park finance are working with cities to identify both
traditional and new sources of funding for park creation and improvement, from
voter measures and bonds to tax-increment financing and social impact bonds. ULI
will use its 51 regional councils to work with local leaders and deploy advisory
panels representing developers, planners, financiers, economists, and public
officials to provide practical and objective advice to cities.

The campaign soon will launch a competitive grant program, challenging cities to
come up with innovative approaches to adding and improving parks. This program
will build on traditional NRPA strengths in research on best practices, case studies,
and comprehensive data, including its Safe Routes to Parks program, to help make
the case for expanded park funding.

So, with all this effort and energy, Americans in cities and suburbs across the
country may soon have close-to-home access to the aspect of city life that may
best define quality of life: a high-quality, green, and safe park for all to enjoy.

Why the Eco-City Needs to Be a Just City

Why is it easier to imagine a green ecocity than a just city where everyone belongs? the yes man/flickr, CC BY

Stephen Healy, Western Sydney University
This is one of a series of articles to coincide with the 2017 Ecocity World Summit in Melbourne.

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Why is it easier to imagine an ecocity – full of lush green spaces and buildings, footpaths and bike lanes, outdoor goat yoga and dog parks – than a just city where everyone belongs? Why is it difficult to imagine a city where there are no great disparities of income or of access to convivial life because these have been equitably distributed?

The prospects for rebuilding the city along ecological lines is enchanting. But ecocities, like smart cities, frequently devolve into a techno-fetishist fantasy, (un)wittingly abetting gentrification – from the sell-off of public housing in cities like Sydney to violent informal housing eradication in places like Jakarta.

Part of what’s required here is to connect the currents of imagination shaping the ecological future of cities with other conversations that are more focused on the future of employment and industry and the possibilities for greater equity. Thinking these disparate ideas together will take some work. Fortunately, it’s well under way in cities around Australia and the world.

The Centre For Future Work and the Australia Institute organised a summit last month at Parliament House to consider the future of manufacturing in Australia. Much of the day was spent exploring how targeted government procurement practices can help rebuild a sector that could play a vital role in building ecocities alongside new employment opportunities.

Co-operative ways to build community wealth

Non-profit institutions and the private sector can play a similar role. The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative in Cleveland, closing in on its tenth year, used the demand for services from hospitals and universities to start worker co-operatives.

These meet the need for green laundry services, food and energy while creating ownership opportunities for low-income residents. Guaranteed downstream markets increase business viability. This ensures easier access to start-up capital.

Dozens of US cities have developed similar initiatives in the past decade. Among these are union-supported initiatives in Cincinnati, Ohio, municipal initiatives in Richmond, California, and multi-stakeholder co-operatives in Springfield, Massachusetts.

In each instance the guiding principle is that worker co-operatives are tied to place by the people who work in and own them. They distribute profits in ways that benefit worker-owners, other local businesses and the broader community.

In Australia, Earthworker Coo-perative has tirelessly pursued a similar initiative. It aims to connect Australian manufacturing capacity, eco-friendly technologies, unions and the environmental movement as a basis for starting worker co-operatives ready to meet the demand for green technology.

Organisations like the Mercury Co-Operative and the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals are working to support and spread co-operative ownership in Australia.

In September, a second New Economy Conference, open to the public, will consider what sort of legal and social changes are needed to support efforts like Earthworker.

More ambitiously, even the emergent disruptive technologies that are enabling the “gig economy” can be repurposed for co-operation and community wealth creation.

While new platform technologies concentrate wealth in companies like Uber and Airbnb, these could just as easily function on a co-operative basis, sustaining communities in the process. Such ideas are being actively considered in Melbourne and in Sydney at last year’s Vivid festival.

These efforts to encourage social procurement, build co-operatives and develop new forms of sharing work readily combine with the ecocity agenda. In themselves they are not sufficient to ensure that ecocities are also equitable cities. As Labor senator Kim Carr pointed out in last month’s summit, what ideas like this do is fully open the question of what an economy is for.

In Australia, this question is an eminently urban one. Continuing to ask this question, and keeping the answer open, is one way of ensuring that ecocities are not merely oases for the wealthy.

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You can read other articles in the series here. The Ecocity World Summit is being hosted by the University of Melbourne, Western Sydney University, the Victorian government and the City of Melbourne in Melbourne from July 12-14.

Stephen Healy, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

How Small Cities can get Big Benefits from Flexible Bikesharing

by Cat Johnson, Shareable: http://www.shareable.net/blog/how-small-cities-can-get-big-benefits-from-flexible-bikesharing

Big cities, such as New York City, are celebrated for their successful bikesharing programs, with thousands of bikes and hundreds of smart docking stations. For smaller cities and towns, however, this is not a practical model.

Big and small cities have the same need for bikesharing: to fill transportation gaps, reduce traffic and parking congestion, promote sustainability, build a bike a pedestrian culture, promote active lifestyles, and support local business. They differ, however, in the following ways: small cities have lower densities, established driving cultures, and a smaller tax base.

In a recent webinar, bikesharing provider Zagster and the Shared Use Mobility Center, a public interest organization working to foster collaboration in shared mobility, spotlighted flexible bikesharing systems, in which the technology necessary to borrow and lock a bike resides in the bikes themselves rather than in expensive, fixed docking stations.

Flexible bikesharing offers an alternative that's more realistic for smaller budgets and ridership. Where traditional bikesharing systems can take millions of dollars and years to implement, flexible bikesharing, which uses lightweight kiosks or even bike racks as hubs, can be quickly and affordably tested and implemented.

The webinar was designed to give those living in cities with less than 50,000 people an overview of flexible bikesharing systems, including the benefits and challenges of launching one. Here are the key takeaways: 

Benefits of Tech-on-bike, Flexible Bikesharing

• There are fewer “ingredients” with flexible bikesharing. All you need is a bike, though kiosks and racks are helpful.
• Flexible bikesharing melds into the streetscape as it has a lower profile footprint
• The hardware is lightweight
• Data gathered from bikes during demos and pilot programs can inform project planning
• Riders can access to the bike system via an app
• Flexible bike sharing is easy and inexpensive to upgrade
• It’s an investment toward more bike infrastructure in cities
• It’s easy to install and move

Equity

Flexible bikesharing enables cities to diversify their fleet of bikes to include accessible bikes for riders that would otherwise be unable to participate in bikesharing. While flexible bikesharing is generally accessed with a smartphone, a smartphone is not necessary. You can use simple SMS/text messaging or even a code given out at a local library or community center. 

Funding

There are various funding models, including nonprofits, businesses, advocacy groups, government organizations, real estate organizations and universities. Fort Collins, Colorado is an interesting case study as its collaborative sponsorship model includes public funding, nonprofits, advocacy organizations, and businesses.

Grant funding sources at the federal level may include Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality (CMAQ), STP Transportation Enhancements, Transportation Investments Generation Economic Recovery (TIGER). Grant funding sources at a local level may include energy and R&D pilot funds, public health grants, parking credits, toll revenues and affordable housing funds. 

Scaling

Flexible bikesharing allows cities to easily and affordably test pilot programs before scaling. Scaling to more neighborhoods and surrounding municipalities is easier and less expensive than with traditional, docking bikesharing systems. Payment can be integrated with existing public transit payment systems, such as transit cards. 

Challenges of Flexible Bikesharing

• Flexible bikesharing is not as visible as traditional bikesharing systems with docking stations.
• It’s still relatively new so there’s limited data about sponsorship and models
• Long-term and/or high-volume durability is unknown
• Flexible bikesharing is less friendly for a tourist who may not be interested in downloading app and learning how the bikesharing system works.
• Small cities have to determine whether they’re targeting their bikesharing system for residents or tourists.

Download the webinar: Making Bike Share Work Outside of the Big City

More bike share resources from Shareable:

• Why Bike Sharing Benefits Everyone (Even If You Already Own a Bike)
• 5 Bikesharing Trends to Watch
• NACTO Report Links Station Density to Bike Share Usage, Equity
• 8 Cargo Bike-sharing Programs in Europe

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Photo: David Marcu (CC-0). 

Three Cities: Seeking Hope in the Anthropocene

by Rod Oram, Pure Advantage: http://pureadvantage.org/news/2016/08/16/three-cities-seeking-hope-anthropocene/ 

With economies stagnating, politics polarising, societies shattering and ecosystems suffering, I felt an urgent need to go walkabout last September. 

It was my best chance of making some sense of the news from around the world. I travelled to Beijing, London, and Chicago, three cities that have profoundly shaped my life, as much so as Auckland has these past twenty years. 

I came home from my walkabout feeling in some ways more despondent. The damage being done is so rampant, the vital changes needed so radical, the time left so fleeting. Righting our utter unsustainability seems impossible. Yet if we give up we are already lost.

Thankfully, I also came home feeling more optimistic and purposeful, with a deep appreciation for the people I had met and the work they do.

They are recovering a sense of boundless opportunity, optimism, common good and, above all, values and moral purpose. They are keeping alive rationality, engagement, enterprise and freedom. They are creating political systems, social structures and business models that will help us achieve an unprecedented speed, scale and complexity of change.

They are giving us half a chance to work with the ecosystem, not against it. They all work in small communities of interest with deep knowledge and skills, while networking widely. These are strong, learning communities with the essential attributes of common sense (understanding what’s going on), common purpose (responding effectively) and common wealth (sharing the economic, ecological and societal benefits).

In such communities, individuals are valued, helped and encouraged. In return, they participate and change, and help others change. In my new BWB Text, Three Cities: Seeking Hope in the Anthropocene, I discuss three concepts that help show us how we can achieve this.

First, the Doughnut Economy situates the ideal economy between two circles, the outer one labelled ‘environmental ceiling’, the inner one ‘social foundation’. In between lies ‘the safe and just space for humanity’. Created by British economist Kate Raworth, this concept lays out the strong social foundation required for transformational change, and the environmental limits within which we must live.

The second concept is the Circular Economy in which the waste material from making one product becomes the raw material for making another. This guides us towards returning to nature everything we take from it, ensuring we work with the ecosystem, not against it.

The third is China’s long-term vision of Ecological Civilisation which involves wise use of resources, environmental protection and ecological preservation. This informs the values we need to achieve deep sustainability in environmental, social, cultural and economic terms.

While the concepts are new, some elements of them were once embedded in New Zealand society. We used to talk about equality of opportunity. But now we create growing inequalities in health, education and welfare. We used to conserve some of our local ecosystems. But now we systematically degrade all our land, water and air.

Now, though, we have to embark on deep change so we can achieve the biggest goal humankind has ever attempted. It is not to save the planet. It will survive the Anthropocene - even if we don’t. It will adapt as it has to previous geological eras. Over tens of millions of years a vastly different ecosystem will evolve, one shaped by prevailing conditions.

Our goal has to be to save ourselves. To do so we must give this ecosystem that gives us life the best chance it has to recover and to continue to support us. Achieving this enormous goal will take countless steps. The three most critical are minimising climate change, and making sustainable use of land and oceans. Each in turn will take myriad steps. This can be achieved if people are wise and effective, quick and committed.

Minimising climate change dictates we must drastically cut human triggered carbon emissions to net zero by 2040 - meaning, we reuse or capture and store enough existing atmospheric carbon to negate the new carbon we add. That requires radical changes to the way people design the built-environment and economy, the materials used to make them and the energy used to run them. Then we will have half a chance of keeping climate change to less than 2 ̊C.

We have to begin right now with communities, business and government working on ways to reduce our carbon emissions far more, and far more quickly, than the immorally minimalist target our government tabled in the 2015 Paris climate negotiations. Such transformation will create great economic opportunities for all.

Sustainable land requires equally radical change in the way soil and freshwater are used. For farmers, this means developing practices that improve the health of soil and water and increase biodiversity, while eliminating artificial fertilisers and chemicals. Deep science and technology are vital to helping people understand and work with the vast complexity and abundance of nature.

For city-dwellers, achieving sustainable land and water use means minimising urban footprints and bringing more of nature into our built- environments. This includes producing more food in towns, using natural processes to treat storm water, and greening buildings and streetscapes to enhance their biodiversity.

Sustainable oceans are a still greater challenge, not least here in the South Seas. New Zealand is responsible for the fourth-largest oceanic zone in the world. It is more than twenty times our land area. Yet we know little about it. Given the great complexity of the marine ecosystem our fishery management practices are crude and probably not sustainable. Close to shore in places such as the Hauraki Gulf we are rapidly degrading the ecosystem by over-exploiting it and pouring urban detritus into it.

These ambitious goals can be achieved over coming decades if we commit right now to beginning the long adventure. Crucial first steps include the government making a much deeper international carbon reduction pledge than it did in Paris. 

Long-term, stable policies, devised collaboratively with companies and communities, would enable the country to meet that commitment. The policies would need strong cross-party and public support, based on a clear understanding of their benefits, and because of their intergenerational timeframe.

But treaties and policies are top-down. They alone can’t do the job. We must also have bottom-up complementary, voluntary measures to enable companies, communities and individuals to go above and beyond.

All of the above needs to be underpinned by a committee on climate change, like the UK’s, which gives independent, evidence-based advice to the government and parliament on carbon budgets and policies, while measuring progress on it.

New Zealand businesses need to play their part by following the lead of offshore corporates that are measuring and managing their carbon flows. This has become a fundamental business discipline, as much so as measuring and managing money. The London Stock Exchange, for example, requires listed companies to measure, report and manage their carbon footprint.

Likewise, carbon is increasingly a metric for company evaluations by investment fund managers. This helps them judge which companies will benefit most from engaging in the low-carbon transformation, and which are most vulnerable from not engaging. […]

All these projects would deliver substantial economic and environmental benefits. But at best only a few might happen, because society is so divided over how serious the current unsustainability is. And that won’t change until we understand how fundamental a transformation we need in our relationships with each other and with the ecosystem.

If we get them right, though, a galaxy of opportunities for our planet’s remedy and renewal will open up. 

About the author, Rod Oram

Rod Oram has forty years’ experience as an international business journalist. He has worked for various publications in Europe, North America and New Zealand, including the Financial Times and the New Zealand Herald. He is currently a columnist for the Sunday Star-Times; a regular broadcaster on radio and television; and a frequent public speaker on sustainability, business, economics, innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, in both New Zealand and global contexts.

VIDEOS: 13 Films About Post-Growth Economics: A Post-Growth Economy is Not Only Necessary for Planetary Survival, But Will Make Our Lives Way Better, Too. These Films Explain Why

by Films For Action, filmsforaction.org: http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/infinite-growth-on-a-finite-planet/

GDP is a terrible way to measure economic progress. A post-growth future is about growing things that actually matter: happiness, health and social well-being.

Every day on the TV, belt-way politicians and economists tell us the answer to our problems is more economic growth.

And yet, a growing number of indicators show that this kind of "progress" isn't progress at all. It's actually killing the planet - and isn't actually measuring the kind of progress that actually matters.

The kind of economic growth they keep talking about simply can't continue on a finite planet with finite resources. We could try to keep our extractive economy going till the ecological web we're a part of starts collapsing - but, I don't think that would end well for us.

It's time we throw this absurd economist logic out the door, understand some basic truths about our relationship to the planet, and start defining progress in a way that makes sense. 

These 13 excellent films point the way.

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The Impossible Hamster 1 min · What the impossible hamster has to teach us about economic growth. A new animation from nef (the new economics foundation), scripted by Andrew Simms, numbers crunched by Viki...

What If I Told You That The Economy Was Done Growing? Like, Forever. 6 min · Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments stagger under record deficits. Richard Heinberg...

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Growth is Not Enough 3 min · Our politicians are hung up on keeping the growth curve rising. But does GDP really tell us all we need to know about a country's wealth and well-being? In this new RSA Short...

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People Places: Localism, Social Enterprise and the Practicalities of a Popular Environmentalism

Community gardens in Clissold Park (Wikipedia)

by Shared Assets: http://www.sharedassets.org.uk/inspiration/people-places-localism-social-enterprise-and-the-practicalities-of-a-popular-environmentalism/

Community involvement in the environment is a people, planet and place-enriching strategy that has gained currency in planning and environmentalism circles in recent years, but how does one translate popular theory into lasting change?

Practically Popular

The mounting interest in community involvement in the environment from think tanks, universities and government is matched by enthusiasm from communities themselves.

There is a rapid rise in demand for land from communities, be it for food growing, renewable energy generation, woodland management, greater control over a local area, or space for cultural and wellbeing events. A diverse and expanding landscape of communities and enterprises are trying out what ‘local participation in place-making’ means on the ground. 

Getting on With It

There are many organisations that are ‘just getting on with’ this work, without legislative backing or strong political support. The community food enterprise sector, for example, though bolstered by funding schemes and political interest in recent years, was formed by an assortment of grassroots citizens’ initiatives.

From food- co-ops to distribution hubs to community farms, sustainable squats or urban guerrilla gardening, it was small, practical organising and action amongst local communities that brought ‘popular environmentalism’ to life in this instance. Even in the face of obstructive policies ordinary people are not just calling for change, they are creating it.

This kind of direct action is shifting practice amongst landowners, too. For many public landowners, the pressure of austerity is cause for a re-think about the best methods available to manage the spaces they own.

Despite legislative support for these difficulties, change often takes place outside of the suggested framework, through new partnerships or ways of working. So it was when Wycombe District Council leased its woodlands to the Chiltern Rangers, a social enterprise that now manages the woods and runs educational, training and rehabilitation programmes onsite.

Shifts in approach, culture and practice can be highly effective tools for igniting local environmental participation. Indeed, as previously argued on this blog, the one-size-fits-all approach of national legislation may fail to take into account, and could even inhibit, the diversity and creativity that makes local environmental participation innovative, effective and enjoyable. 

Making It Last

This patchwork of shifting practice is becoming integrated into broader frameworks for change. Movements for ‘social enterprise’ and a ‘social economy’ have gained traction in recent years. Proponents are working to construct political, financial and legislative conditions that can help create ‘a UK economy that is better for society’.

Greater community access to, involvement in, and gains from land are often discussed as a part of this agenda, which recognises the importance of the UK’s natural assets to its people.

As with the Chiltern Rangers, social enterprises such as Hill Holt Wood- making an annual turnover of £1.2m and running educational programmes, sustainable design practice and hospitality services on their woodland site - integrate conservation with fundamental societal needs: food, fuel, jobs, knowledge and shelter.

This kind of deep integration of the social with the environmental moves beyond traditional environmental volunteerism and conservation based on enclosure, even highlighting a pathway for the short-term creative interventions of ‘place-making’ to be cemented into long term change that builds with current local populations, rather than drawing in newcomers that transform areas in excluding ways.

Forging connections between communities and place through fundamental needs can chain popular environmentalism to everyday life. The challenge is for the social economy and place-making agendas to work beyond the surface here, installing frameworks that create robust, lasting changes for our society. 

Common Barriers:

There are a host of barriers, however, to realising this dream. Most land- based projects remain informal. Structures and processes to move forward are all too rare. For many ‘popular environmentalists, the lack of established protocols amongst landowners - be they public, charitable or private - leads to broken promises.

With staff changes, budget cuts, or in instances when land management is fragmented across departments, even the best ideas for community involvement in the environment can fall apart as individuals’ commitments fail to materialise. Consolidating frameworks is key.

A connected issue is that of ownership. Much interest in community environmental involvement, the Localism Agenda included, is focused on communities owning the spaces they are to care for. These models may be useful in some cases.

Yet land and environmental assets are often not suitable for sale or transfer of ownership, and the added value that sharing management between an owner and the community can provide are rarely specified in green space management contracts.

Local authorities and the planning system, as well, play a pivotal role in shaping the UK’s land situation. In local planning, land is regarded simply as ancillary to buildings, protected for leisure or biodiversity, designated as agricultural, or seen as ‘green infrastructure’, often meaning a route for cycling or walking.

This prevents the flexibility and mixture of activities that many environment-focused community projects rely on, restricting the diversity, and potential viability, of projects.

Lastly, as our research into the management of local authority owned woodlands demonstrates, there is rarely good quality information on the land local authorities own and its management is often fragmented across departments. This results in a planning system that gives little consideration to community use of land or productive shared management arrangements.

It’s great to see excitement building around community involvement in the environment, but we’ve a long way to go before the vision of popular environmentalism is realised. Let’s get to work.