Water & Environment 2012: Green Revolution: are we there yet? by Christina Dian Parmionova

Green Revolution – are we there yet? Bob Earll & Lauren Goozee Version 15th May 2012

Executive Summary 1. Introduction When it came to power in May 2010 the UK Coalition Government pledged to be the greenest government ever. We have been promised a ‘green revolution’ for a green economy, for green jobs and for low-carbon living, but how far have we come? What more do we need to do? And how do our international counterparts compare? The 2012 conference theme prompted a rich reward of over 50 inspiring and brilliant speaker presentations and a gold mine of information which can be viewed on the CIWEM and CMS websites. This report highlights some of the main outcomes of Water & Environment 2012: CIWEM’s Annual Conference raised by both speakers and delegates.

2. Green Revolution – Why promoting sustainability is key

The theme of the event was used to help focus the conference on key issues. To the question - are we there yet? - there was a unanimous and resounding ‘no’. The term revolution implies radical and rapid change and there were lots of discussions about the speed of this change. There is no doubt that we face a huge array of challenges and there was an overwhelming sense that we need to be taking more positive action to meet the green agenda. There are clearly issues with ‘Green’ as a prefix and its sometimes cynical use, problems which also apply to the idea of sustainability. The conference demonstrated that we are now coming to terms with terminologies and methodologies of sustainability and its application in many projects described at the conference including the 2012 Olympic Games.

3. UK Government – Part of the Problem?

The role of the UK Government and its position on Green issues was a key discussion point at the conference. Clearly we are in an economic mess and as a result Government is trying to rationalise, however on environment and sustainability it is sending out mixed messages and regressing on progress made over the last 20 years. Although it was evident from the conference presentations that a lot of progress is being made despite the lack of Government leadership, we do need an awareness and sense of direction from above. Legislation and good leadership turns best practice into common practice and green industries are one of the few growth areas in the economy. UK Government is becoming part of the problem and diverting attention from the major challenges that need to be addressed.

4. Major Challenges

Four major challenges stood out in the presentations for different reasons. Whilst our understanding and awareness of climate change and our technical responses to it are deeply embedded in this community and many responses were highlighted, the exact opposite is true of the other major slow burner, population growth. Population is a huge issue that many people referred to in passing. We need to understand much more clearly the technical challenges we face from this issue. Water resources and its management in England after a 2nd dry winter are prompting considerable thinking not least because a recent EA report shows that this is likely to become the norm. Shocks to the system (whether flood, drought or economic) are likely to require massive interventions that adopt an integrated approach.

5. Sustainability

The conference highlighted a widespread adoption of sustainability and acceptance of the key ideas, with vast numbers of projects demonstrating this thinking. We are developing a variety of tools to enable us to better understand future options and then plan and work through life cycle (cradle to cradle) solutions. The importance of considering a full range of options at the start of a process given the long life of developments was stressed, as was the growing recognition and ability to deliver projects of all scales with multiple benefits.

6. Integration of Disciplines and People

Integration is one of the powerful principles of sustainability and was illustrated in many presentations. There were plenty of examples of project working between interests operating within the water sector and between the water and other sectors; waste, energy and food. There were also clear messages, from major projects such as the 2012 Olympics Games to many smaller projects, of how organisations can work more effectively for collaborative advantage.

7. Engaging People

There is no point preaching to the converted, we need to ensure that the wider community understand and respond to the challenges . It was evident from the speaker and delegate feedback that education and raising public awareness is fundamental to this and crucial to changing behaviour. There were also examples of where people are brokering deals in other countries that delivered important projects. UK Plc is good at this and so we need to be aware of arising business opportunities and engaging with people abroad.

9. Technologies and Innovation

We have seen that there is a lot going on despite the lack of leadership and support from the Government (Jonathon Porrittâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s praise for the Ecobuild1 exhibition) but as mentioned previously a sense of direction and investment into R&D would move things forward more quickly and easily.

8. Rural and Urban Case Studies

Speakers focussing on the rural environment demonstrated how the Catchment Based Approach is being implemented to deliver measures at a local level, with the active engagement of the wider community and stakeholders, to deliver multiple benefits. It is evident that restoring, enhancing and preserving rivers has environmental and social benefits but we also need to raise awareness of the cost-effective benefits that restoring rivers and flood plains can bring about. A key message from the speakers looking at urban planning was that in all situations green solutions and thinking should be included in the outset of a project and not as a bolt on. Whether we are looking at rural or urban environments, there are some clear messages; integration, engagement, joined up thinking, knowledge sharing and long term planning that are fundamental to our response.

10. The Time for Action

There was a clear sense that we are starting to put the policies in place but simply need to get on with their practical implementation on the ground.

Introduction When it came to power in May 2010 the UK Coalition Government pledged to be the greenest government ever. We have been promised a ‘green revolution’ for a green economy, for green jobs and for low-carbon living, but how far have we come? What more do we need to do? And how do our international counterparts compare? In March 2012, CIWEM held a two-day Annual Conference that addressed multidisciplinary issues across all areas of the global water and environment sector. It had the key theme - “Green Revolution” and the conference considered our progress towards achieving this. The aim of the conference was to challenge and inspire the water and environment community by sharing knowledge and best practice, which is at the heart of meeting key global challenges for a low-carbon future. There was a mix of keynote speakers, offered papers, exhibitions and networking opportunities that meant this was the key event for water and environment professionals. We looked for offers of presentations covering topics embracing the green theme including: 

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“Futures” issues - “Tracking” future developments - Innovation and advancement - New business opportunities and models - Green investment - Change management Global water security and interactions with energy, food and carbon Integration and partnership working Regulation Case Studies – European/International – Global exemplars of brilliant and inspiring practice Valuing the environment and eco system services Earth Summit 2012: Rio +20 - http://www.earthsummit2012.org/ EC Blueprint for water Influencing Government “direction”

We were richly rewarded with over 50 inspiring speaker presentations which are a gold mine of information and can be viewed on the CIWEM and CMS websites. The aim of this short report is to highlight some of the main outcomes of the event that were raised by both the speakers and the delegates in their feedback to the conference. Lord Chris Smith, the first speaker of the conference, set out a structure that was to be repeated throughout the event. He and many others highlighted the scale of the challenges we face but in our response to these challenges, the need to see the opportunities that this poses too. We have split this report into two sections; The Challenges and Our Responses.

The Challenges The challenges we face were described by virtually every speaker, either as the specific driver to a project or as a part of growing awareness of the challenges we face in both in the UK and internationally. In this report some of the key issues are touched upon briefly as well as those which pull multiple drivers together.

Green Revolution – Why promoting sustainability is key

The term ‘revolution’ implies large scale change, and a fundamental shift in ideas and organisational structures. In selecting the presentations we looked for presentations demonstrating examples of innovation, integration and partnership working, new business opportunities, green investment and more. We asked speakers to directly address the theme in the presentations by answering the following questions:

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Green Revolution: are we there yet? If not, why not? And what do we need to do to get there?

Revolution or Evolution? The speed of our response

Although the term ‘Green Revolution’ is not often used and certainly wasn’t to everyone’s liking, the theme did help to focus the presentations and prompt the speakers to respond to the question, ‘are we there yet?’ The answer to this was a resounding ‘no’. There were however an interesting array of views on the speed of change that is needed and should be taking place, ranging from ‘business as usual’ to the need for greater urgency. Jonathan Porritt in his conclusion looked to a variety of optimistic and fast changing (revolutionary?) events that gave him hope for the future. He cited the Ecobuild exhibition1 where the sheer diversity and energy of people’s efforts, unbound by Government, were inspirational. He also highlighted the pace of technological change and the example of solar PV in China where they anticipate ‘grid parity’ with fossil fuels by 2015 or sooner, with the costs then falling even further and faster. Some people preferred the word evolution but this was contrasted by many speakers who highlighted the urgency and need to address the challenges we face and the window of opportunity that we have. There were lots of calls for us to take action and get on with the task in hand.

The Problem with ‘Green’

Richard Pagett highlighted the problem with ‘Green’ as a pre-fix. He expressed a widespread concern that it is used so generally it has become almost meaningless. It is very easy to be cynical about its use and the word greenwash has arisen to highlight those who deliberately set out to mislead; there is a clear need to be wary. But the reality is that it is very widely used and as a metaphor it encapsulates a wide range of ideas that the public and non-technical communities are coming to broadly understand. Whatever we think of the word ‘Green’ it is simply not going to stop being used. The best solution to this is to combine caution with a critical analytical eye of whatever is being proposed under this banner; if this is done systematically then some measures of status can be drawn. The same linguistic arguments can be applied to sustainability, yet speaker after speaker illustrated how the framework of thinking, developed over the last 20 years, is being translated into action on projects varying in scale from the 2012 Olympic Games, to the @One Alliance delivery programme for AMP5 through to much smaller projects. This conference demonstrated how the convergence of thinking and language of sustainability within the professional world is helping us both in the UK and abroad, work through the very real problems and emerge with developing multiple benefit and cost effective solutions. Sustainability is an ‘idea’ and it has attracted to it a powerful array of associated ideas not least because advocacy of whatever is the opposite of sustainability is completely unacceptable. It is evident that the idea is being applied very widely indeed, and of course that leads to inconsistencies however, the boundaries of both terminologies and methodologies as confirmed by this conference are now being set. If we want to be precise then we need tools to help us and Richard Pagett highlighted a new tool that would provide a more objective framework for testing claims for sustainability.

UK Government – Part of the Problem?

One of the prompts for this conference was the claim made by the Prime Minister David Cameron that this would be ‘the Greenest Government ever’ and yet it is the Government’s uncommitted and ambivalent attitude to the environment and the green agenda that is a major challenge. A recent YouGov opinion poll2 commissioned by Greenpeace and the RSPB showed that only 2% of the public currently agreed that this was the greenest Government ever; 53% thought it was about average. The delegates at the conference responding to the question, How do you rate the current Government’s ‘green credentials’?, replied as follows:

Rate 1: Nonexistent: 2 3: Fine 4 5: Excellent

No. of Delegates 12 68 6 1 1

David Cameron is in denial on these issues since as recently as late April 2012 he told a distinguished audience that the Government had met it Greenest Government commitment; but as a variety of speakers and the polls highlighted the reality is quite the opposite. Gavin Shuker MP, Shadow Minister for Water and Waste, made a strong case for the role of Government in helping society meet the oncoming challenges and few would question this. The difficulty is that at present the hard work of the last 20 years is being weakened by the Coalition Government who seem to not understand even the basics of sustainability, whilst at the same time showing no leadership. Two of our keynote speakers, Jonathan Porritt and Peter Jones OBE, were scathing in their assessment of the current Government’s approach in seeing ‘environment’ as impediment to economic growth. CIWEM’s report on ‘Mainstreaming Sustainability’3, which looks into the Government’s progress on mainstreaming sustainable development, also found that the commitment to putting sustainability at the heart of everything we do appears to be limited and is constrained by the obsession with perpetual economic growth and the lack of innovation in developing new economic models. We need to change thinking and prove we can tackle both the environment and the economy together. Clearly the overall economic situation has exacerbated the situation but Government’s actions speak volumes about its lack of commitment and understanding; some examples:      

The scrapping of the Sustainable Development Commission which had a proven track record of both holding departments to account and providing major cost savings The curbing of the role of agencies to comment on policy The U-turn on the sale of forests which highlighted the lack of understanding of the multiple benefits argument The fiasco of the National Planning Policy Framework with its emphasis on development at the expense of all else Caving in to the big energy companies on the subsidies to solar PV and legal chaos of the poorly handled consultation on this Eric Pickles MP’s attempts to turn back the clock on recycling

There are some areas that the Government have supported  The Catchment Based approach to the delivery of the WFD and to integrated catchment management is to be commended  The Green Investment bank is a delayed small step in the right direction  The NEA, Natural Environment White Paper, and Water White Paper have prompted some welcome thinking not least on the recognition of the wider benefits of ecosystems goods and services.

Major Challenges Shocks to the system & factors acting in combination

It is almost a given that governments ignore things until they have no or little choice than to take action. The most recent evidence of this is the UK floods of 2007 – the worst peace time emergency since the Second World War- and the assortment of responses this prompted. This forced water professionals to face up to the fact that we

were suffering routinely from surface water flooding caused by flash floods; until that point there had been institutional blindness to the issue. The reality of the future is that we are likely to suffer a wide variety of shocks that will have a dramatic effect on way we plan for the future. If we go into a third dry winter it will test water resource planners to the limit but will probably help make the recognition of the value of water all the easier. Many of the challenges we face are very closely interlinked and a variety of reports and illustrations from international case studies highlighted this (for example World Watch Report and The World Economic Forum Davos). Sir John Beddington4 has talked about the ‘perfect storm’ of food, energy and water shortages in the 2030s; we have been relatively insulated from this in the UK but this is a reality in many parts of the world now. Stephen Palmer illustrated how shocks from global events, in particular the 2008 economic collapse, have major effects on energy and food markets; such events are likely to play an ever increasing role in our thinking.

Population

As a technical community this is the issue we barely discuss and yet we seem happy to accept this. It was routinely alluded to but no single paper described this topic in detail. We need to be as clear about the technical issues of global population growth as we are about climate change if we are to plan effectively. The key point of many of the issues discussed was that world population growth will increasingly impact upon food, water and energy issues. The word security is increasingly and widely used in this context. Whilst at present the UK is relatively wealthy and can insulate itself (buy its way out) from the current challenges, as the BRIC countries develop this may not continue to be the case. Linked to this is also the issue of consumption. As Peter Jones noted, it is not just the increase in net world population growth that is the worry, but the increase in the affluent population with high consumption rates putting a bigger strain on the world’s resources.

Climate Change

Unlike population growth there is a very clear understanding of the science and technical implications of climate change. In this community of professionals the universal acceptance and clear understanding of the effects of climate change is a given. In spite of Government’s ambiguous current position, it seems that climate change is being factored into our thinking at nearly all levels of planning.

UK’s Future Water Resources

With the current drought situation in the UK it was not surprising that the challenge of securing future water resources was high up on the agenda at the event. Rather more worryingly however, was the recent work published by the Environment Agency showing that 2 or 3 year droughts are likely to become the normal situation by 2050. This means that we will need to fundamentally change our approach to the provision of water. Demand management will not be enough to cope with the likely changes.

Our Responses Sustainability Speaker after speaker provided powerful examples of how the language of sustainability, refined and developed over the last 20 years is now mainstream in terms of project thinking and delivery. Sustainability is a set of ideas which can be applied to small and large projects alike. Although these ideas are often packaged differently, very consistent points emerge: o o

A strong a clear view of the future The need to consider and integrate social, environmental and economic issues not least to reap the rewards of multiple benefits over time

o o

The need to engage people The need to take these elements and work them into an ongoing process

A Strong View of the Future and Process

The language and methodologies of the way we view the future from a technical perspective are becoming more robust. For example; the Delphi process (see Mike Woolgar), scenario testing – in simple or multiple simulation versions (see Julian Harou), the hard thinking needed by engineers for planning infrastructure assets that might need to last for 50100 years (see Tim Reeder).

The Starting Problem Several speakers (see Jan Brooke and Matthew Hunt) highlighted the need to think carefully about options at the start of a project because rushed decisions made early could limit and constrain options for the future. They highlighted the pressure from clients who want to rush to build, however for developments that might last at least 50 to 100 years great care needs to given to environmental issues and the need to build in flexibility, ambition and working with the environment whenever possible. Presentations reflected on the uncertainty about making decisions at this point (see Jaap Flikweert).

Multiple Benefits

The reality of thinking about the social, economic and environmental aspects of projects is that one starts to highlight the multiple benefits of achieving a successful project. The use of ecosystem goods and services – extended cost benefit analysis – provides us with a way of valuing the benefits more effectively. Again there were numerous examples of how when one thinks in this way hosts of benefits emerge – for examples see David Stubbs and the Olympic Park, Martin Ross and Upstream thinking, Euan Hall and Beam Parklands etc.

Process

If projects are developed with a strong view of the future and a clear idea of the multiple benefits transpiring from the economic, social and environmental elements, a variety of processes arise. This has been termed a life cycle approach or Cradle to Cradle® (with its emerging ISO assessment). In reality we know that management systems work through the assessment, build, operation and decommissioning phases and we plan these routinely into our thinking. The Cradle to Cradle® concept (see Matthew Hunt) looks at different ways to gain return on investment. In this way we contribute to the ecological ambitions of not only our own generation, but that of generations to come.

Integrating Disciplines and People Integration is one of the powerful principles associated with sustainability and both the need for integrated solutions and their demonstration was a powerful message re-iterated by many speakers throughout the event. The need for integration arises early not least because most projects involve economic, social and environmental elements; we are getting better at meeting these requirements (see Adrian Johnson). In this report we focus on two aspects, the integration of disciplines and how we work better together to maximise collaborative advantage.

Integrating Disciplines and Projects

A host of speakers referred to the challenges of better integrating issues between sectoral interests both within the water sector and with others sectors. Integration within the water sector:  Martin Ross talked about upstream thinking and demonstrated how working with nature at a catchment scale can have the effect of integrating water resource, flood and water quality interests in common cause  Jean Venables highlighted how the present drought discussions are challenging water resource and flood sectors to work more closely together  Flood peak storage to support wetlands and biodiversity  Reuse of grey water (2012 Olympics Games) Integrating Water with Waste, Energy, Food and other disciplines

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Peter Jones highlighted many synergies between the waste and water sector – not least in terms of the assets of land that the water sector have which would be ideal for resource processing since all the infrastructure is in place He also pointed to the growing potential of energy from waste and again the shared interests of water and waste sectors The challenges of large scale retrofit programmes – the roll out of the Green Deal (Alice Owen) will hopefully incorporate energy and water saving measures The challenges of water, food and energy were considered by many speakers Water Sensitive Urban Design (Celeste Morgan) bring together the engineering, planning, developing and environmental sectors

Integrating People - Partnership working

It was inspiring to note how large consortiums of partners are now delivering major programmes. If you wanted to see what partnership looked like you could do no better than the single slides from numerous speakers that showed the partner logos of projects from the 2012 Olympics Games, the @ One Alliance, The Land Trust, the Upstream South West project, The Blackpool and Hull flood Partnerships , Cuckmere Estuary, Frome and Piddle Catchment Initiative, RESTORE etc. The developing reality is that in partnership working you can bring resources and expertise together to get solutions that enable multiple benefits and cost beneficial solutions to be delivered to the advantage of all - collaborative advantage. Partnership working is also at the heart of two major Government programmes in the delivery of flood risk management (Flood and Water Management Act 2010) and more recently the Government’s Catchment Based Approach programme. The involvement of a wide range of stakeholders in the process of design and operation of projects was highlighted routinely; the idea of participation is increasingly being widely accepted as a productive way forward. Perhaps the strongest manifestation of the way we should be using our ever more limited finances is by how we integrate people through partnership working. To the general public how we can be in drought and still have a problem with flooding is absurd. Jean Venables highlighted how the current drought was forcing water professionals from flooding and drought to work together. Integration between the different sectors helps to get a strong clear message across.

Engaging People Education and Environmental ‘Champions’

It was evident from the speaker and delegate feedback that education and raising public awareness are fundamental to this debate. It is crucial that these ideas and values are implemented at grass roots level in schools, colleges, universities etc. (see Kristy Chandler - Australian education programme as an example) and raise public awareness via national advertising campaigns through social media, You Tube, radio campaigns etc. We need to raise the level of public debate and introduce incentives if we are going to change behaviour. As Celeste Morgan and Koen Broersma highlighted we can do this by celebrating water, creating some hype and recruiting water ‘champions’.

Brokering Solutions - What UK Plc is good at Speakers Richard Pagett, Mike Woolgar, Paul Ashley and Peter von Lany presented four examples of people who were in effect looking at the bigger picture, happy to work across sectors (integrating their experience) and brokering deals in other countries that delivered important projects. Perhaps this is an important lesson in selling our work to the rest of the world – we have always been known as excellent diplomats and these skills are now being translated into business opportunities.

Technologies and Innovation As we know technological solutions need to be affordable and appropriate - context specific culturally, hydrologically and economically. We have seen that there is a lot going on despite the lack of leadership and support from the Government but as mentioned previously a sense of

direction and investment into research and development would move things forward more quickly and easily.

Focus on Rural Environments Catchment Delivery – multiple benefits

As noted previously the Government is actively supporting the Catchment Based approach in the delivery of the WFD. The conference highlighted a number of fantastic examples of how this is already being implemented to deliver measures at a local level with the active engagement of the wider community and stakeholders. Fiona Bowles (Frome and Piddle Catchment Initiative) and Martin Ross (South West Water – Upstream Thinking) clearly demonstrated the multiple benefits – environmental, economic and social – that can be delivered through holistic management of a catchment. There were also some inspiring examples of partnership working and public engagement (see Bob Sargent, Mark Tinsdeall and Dr Claire Cockerill).

River and Habitat Restoration – Making nature work

It is evident that restoring, enhancing and preserving rivers has environmental and social benefits but we also need to raise the awareness of the cost-effective benefits that restoring rivers and flood plains can bring about. RESTORE (Nick Elbourne) is doing some good work in sharing information and best practice on river restoration activities across Europe. It is important that we see nature as a partner and not just a resource (see Sarah Bell), but also to be aware of the wider impacts and risks of removing structures (e.g. weirs and sluices) when restoring rivers (see Granville Davies).

Focus on Urban Environments Planning – ‘green’ and joined up thinking A key message from the speakers looking at urban planning was that in all situations green solutions and thinking should be included in the outset of a project and not as a bolt on. For example SUDs should be seen as the norm not an exception and an opportunity rather than inconvenience (See Chris Digman). More intelligent and joined up planning policy across departments (transport, environment, planning, business etc) that includes stakeholder engagement was also highlighted. Celeste Morgan and Koen Broersma’s examples of water sensitive urban design demonstrate how we can achieve better long-term solutions for communities and the environment.

Sustainable Flood Risk Management

There were also lots of examples of sustainable urban flood risk management from around the world - Surface Water Management in USA and the Netherlands (see David Balmforth), lessons learnt from Australian floods (see Kristy Chandler) and flood risk assessment in the Pearl River Delta (see Faith Chan) – all of which provided lessons for the UK.

The Time for Action One of the overwhelming responses from the delegates was the call for more action to get on with the task in hand. “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do”, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (see Koen Broersma). There was a clear sense that we are starting to put the policies in place but simply need to get on with their practical implementation on the ground.

References and Further Reading References Please note where a speaker has been quoted or referred to in the report the presentation can be found on the CIWEM (http://www.ciwem.org/events/conference-outputs.aspx) and CMS websites http://www.coastms.co.uk/conferences/448/show 1. Ecobuild: Your Future, Exhibition - http://www.ecobuild.co.uk/ 2. YouGov opinion poll commissioned by Greenpeace and the RSPB, March 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17409165 3. Mainstreaming Sustainability: A CIWEM review of the UK Government’s progress against their promises, January 2012, http://www.ciwem.org/policy-and-international/currenttopics/sustainable-development.aspx 4. Food, Energy, Water and the Climate: A Perfect Storm of Global Events?, John Beddington CMG FRS, Chief Scientific Adviser to HM Government, 30th September 2009 http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/goscience/docs/p/perfect-storm-paper.pdf