Planning for a sustainable future

Welcome to the latest issue of Transform which is focused on sustainability.

In this edition we look at a range of schemes being run by local authorities from food sustainability programs through to initiatives aimed at helping ready local workers to embrace the hydrogen economy. We also look at an air quality initiative being supported by Camden Council, as well as at a community facility in Poland which is leading the way in sustainable design with a focus on healthy air for its users.

It's time to change the debate.

With the cost-of-living crisis negatively impacting our local communities, it is my belief is that it’s time to change the debate from how we help people afford escalating food and fuel prices through strategies such as industry subsides and increases in state welfare to one around increasing sustainability.

Heating and eating are the two main pressures facing our communities and while some residents do need urgent direct help it is also necessary to take more of a long-term view alongside meeting these short-term needs. There is a connection between the cost-of-living crisis and the energy crisis, and my belief is that we should look at the shopping basket of the vulnerable to find ways to make it greener by harnessing the rapid developments we are seeing worldwide in energy production. Such a strategy will drive down costs in the long term and have the dual benefit of protecting the environment, helping local authorities meet net-zero targets.

There has been much debate recently about whether the Government should put more money into the fossil fuel industry in a bid to prevent costs being passed onto customers. There have also been calls for the green levy to be scrapped – an environmental charge which helps fund green energy policies, but which adds around £150 per year to household energy bills. Green energy should be far cheaper than fossil fuel energy if these benefits were being passed onto customers, but some people have drawn the conclusion that the cost of greening the economy is a negative thing and the money spent on increasing green energy should instead be put into fracking. But this is a perilously short-term view.

There is a virtuous circle between sustainability and affordable living, but we are currently failing to join the dots, resulting in unsustainable less affordable living. Transport is changing, power to the home is changing, the way in which we can generate energy locally is changing. Harnessing these developments and becoming greener is a future solution to more affordable living.

The drive to replace Britain’s old iron gas mains pipes to help make them ready to transport hydrogen will have seen an investment of £28bn by 2023. This is according to figures from the Energy Networks Association but I have heard estimates which are as much as five times higher and this is quite believable given the scale of the work required. While this is a laudable and necessary project, we could also invest in helping some of our most deprived residents come off grid entirely. By targeting the housing associations and taking everyone on a meter off grid you could create a programme that lifts those people out of fuel poverty. And at the same time, you create jobs and an industry which would be a positive input into the economy.

We must also recognise that food production costs are going to continue to be impacted for some time due to rising gas and electricity costs and find ways to help support our farmers. By helping decarbonise the industry through the use of green energy to produce fertiliser rather than fossil fuels and green energy to power machinery, we could help cut the costs which are crippling our farmers and see the benefits filter down to residents’ shopping baskets.

Of course, schemes such as these take time, planning and investment, but simply firefighting to help the vulnerable to afford the increases in their shopping basket today won’t be enough, we need to predict how this shopping basket will be affected in the months and years to come and find sustainable long-term solutions.

To download this edition of Transform Magazine, please click here: https://issuu.com/ksagency.co.uk/docs/iese_transform_031_green-environment_online_issue