Green Infrastructure and Air Quality 24th November
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Event Agenda Welcome by Dr. Sarah Bell (University College London) Welcome by Samantha Heath, (CEO, London Sustainability Exchange)
A thought provoking introduction about the health benefits of access to good quality green spaces.
Green Infrastructure, wellbeing and health Dr. Sotiris Vardoulakis (Public Health England) How does Green Infrastructure influence Air Quality?
Challenges to Green Infrastructure to tackle air quality Prof Rob MacKenzie (Birmingham University) The role of planning on Green Infrastructure and air quality Christopher McCarthy
A response that challenges the use of green infrastructure in tackling air pollution in the present day .
A differing perspective that puts technology on the forefront of discussions on green infrastructure
What are the other benefits of Green Infrastructure?
The health benefits of Green Infrastructure Ken Scarlett (Ad Verdant)
A response that brings the discussion of air quality back to the health benefits of green infrastructure
Community perspective on Green Infrastructure Robin Brown (Just Space) Discussion and Q&A led by Samantha Heath Summary by Samantha Heath
Delegates have the opportunity to ask questions to the speakers and to each other, etc.
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Green Infrastructure, health and wellbeing Dr. Sotiris Vardoulakis (Public Health England)
Your health is determined by: What you do Who you are Where you live
Factors such as the natural environment, the built environment, your activities, the local economy, the community, your lifestyle and you as a person will all have an effect on your health
Public Health England (PHE): “To protect and improve the nation’s health and to address inequalities, working with national and local government, the NHS, industry, academia, the public and the voluntary and community sector” 3
Green Infrastructure, health and wellbeing Dr. Sotiris Vardoulakis (Public Health England) What are the problems? •
Particulate air pollution in the UK has an effect equivalent to approx. 29,000 deaths per year
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Ozone pollution in UK is responsible for approx. 12,000 premature deaths per year
Can Green Spaces help? •
There is significant and growing evidence on the health benefits of access to good quality green spaces. The benefits include self-rated health; lower overweight and obesity levels; improved mental health and well-being
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Green spaces can also facilitate easy access to healthy, affordable food
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Green Infrastructure, health and wellbeing Dr. Sotiris Vardoulakis (Public Health England) What counts as Urban Vegetation? Urban vegetation includes: urban parks, forests, street trees and shrubs, vegetation barriers, green walls and roofs. What are the benefits: Modest city-scale air quality benefits, but larger air pollution reductions at hotspots Urban heat island mitigation, carbon sink, noise abatement, flood absorption Supporting habitat- promoting bio-diversity Promoting social cohesion Drawbacks: • Type of vegetation – the design • Some vegetation species emit VOCs and pollens • At present there is an unequal spread/access to green spaces and people living in most deprived areas suffer the most, therefore they have less access to health benefits
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Green Infrastructure, health and wellbeing Dr. Sotiris Vardoulakis (Public Health England) What can be done? •
It is important to note the health benefits of access to good quality green spaces
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Although urban greening interventions can be complex and have unintended consequences such as pollen and biogenic VOC emissions there are a wide range of health benefits as well as social and environmental benefits
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Improving green infrastructure will require leadership, partnership and development of shared agendas across organisational boundaries
Defra’s Clean Air Zone Framework: “planting of additional trees and vegetation where carefully chosen, located and maintained, may help reduce pollution”
NICE guidance on outdoor air pollution: “using barriers, including trees and foliage”
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Challenges to Green Infrastructure to tackle air quality Prof Rob MacKenzie (Birmingham University)
Seven challenges to using green infrastructure to tackle air pollution: 1) Experiments at scale – co-ordination is required between developers, scientists and funders. 2) Explicit statements of the limits of model studies – we need to acknowledge that they are not always very helpful 3) Urban forest ecophysiology – we shouldn’t overestimate the benefits of trees – not all trees have the same ecophysiology and will therefore have different results on tackling air pollution
“A tree is a tree is a tree – not every tree is the same!”
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Challenges to Green Infrastructure to tackle air quality Prof Rob MacKenzie (Birmingham University)
4) Rules of thumb for planners, developers, communities 5) Maintaining the link between intervention and intended benefit as strategic decisions develop into action 6) Advocacy without spin – there are adverse affects that can be dealt with – there is no need to spin the evidence 7) (more) experiments at scale!
Recommended example: Trees & Design Action Group (2012) 8
The role of planning on Green Infrastructure and air quality Christopher McCarthy (Battle McCarthy) ‘Forming a partnership with nature’
We need to make buildings more efficient . We can do this by adding nitrogen and carbon filters Indoor pollution is just as crucial as external pollution Failure: There are regulations that control building air quality but it is up to engineers to decide what counts as safe air – this is problematic What needs to be done: Need to have a idea of scale – we need to account for the density of people in a certain area and make sure the filter is correctly sized for the space. “Green infrastructure is so valuable we should eat it! We shouldn’t just depend on it to clean the air “
Mechanical structure helps in the short term (very efficient) but we must note that green infrastructure can and should be used for long term aid 9
The health benefits of Green Infrastructure Ken Scarlett (Ad Verdant)
The biggest benefit to Green Infrastructure is its positive effect on urban air quality. Compliance: • The government have been slow on the uptake • But should we rely on compliance alone? • Even when compliance is achieved people will continue to die prematurely due to air pollution What can be done? “We must do more to prioritise people’s health over and above compliance”
“The benefits of green infrastructure far outweigh the negatives”
EU figures per year: •Human Health 4bn •Building damage 1bn •Crop Yield 3bn
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The health benefits of Green Infrastructure Ken Scarlett (Ad Verdant) What can we do?: • Look for hot spots of pollution esp. around those vulnerable people (elderly and the young) • Keep up to date empirical measurements of individual air pollution risks at home, work and communities Positives: • • •
Air quality, noise quality , water quality all improve Rainwater/flooding decreases Heat from our urban centres begin to cool.
Downfalls: • • •
Trees help to produce localised ozone in hot weather Some canopies trap pollutants above pedestrians Maintenance costs
Social benefits: Recreation, social integration, biophilic modal shift, happiness, biophilic response, crime reduction, feeling of belonging and community, food and feeling of wealth 11
The health benefits of Green Infrastructure Ken Scarlett (Ad Verdant)
Economic benefits: Building protection, building cooling/insulation, employee retention, pollution removal cost, energy saving, tourism, local CBD economy increase Amenity value over pollution value? It is important to think about what motivates people? For example: The benefits to the CBD = “trees mean business� means businesses are able to charge 9% more when they are on tree lined streets
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The health benefits of Green Infrastructure Ken Scarlett (Ad Verdant) The future of green infrastructure It is more than just adding trees to streets Home air quality audits
Reinstated front hedges in front gardens
More green infrastructure
Green grocer urban farms
Solar street parking
No domestic diesel use
Construction air quality and tree inspectors
Last Mile cycle delivery hubs – e.g. deliveries being made by People cycling instead of driving
And is it time for a Heathrow Forest Project?
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Community perspective on Green Infrastructure Robin Brown (Just Space) The London Plan • •
2015 – The London Plan was deemed not fit for purpose by the London inspectorate Gathered community groups to think together some plans for the next London plan
Transportation issues: • Heathrow airport expansion • Plan expansion of the M4 to open a 4th lane • Highways England declared an illegal exceedance of air pollution which was due to the short 200 vehicles trips on the motorway near Heathrow Airport Barriers: We are not looking at the evidence of air pollution! 14
Community perspective on Green Infrastructure Robin Brown (Just Space)
“Lucy Saunders and Lucy Turner created a great framework for
Healthy Streets, measured by 'dwell' time!”
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Community perspective on Green Infrastructure Robin Brown (Just Space) Within the London Plan, London is imagined as the best big city in the world but we are facing unprecedented growth – growth which cannot be sustained. What is being done? • Mayors “city for all Londoners” is a response to environmental affairs: – – –
“A bold and positive response to unprecedented growth pressures” “protecting and improving our environment is a major consideration in everything I do” “make London a healthy, resilient, fair and green city …resource efficient”
Wants London to be a 0% carbon city by 2050 But there seems to be little evidence that this will be actualised by then •
Transport strategy/ ‘Healthy spaces’
A cornerstone of transport strategy will be healthy streets – people friendly streets, they will measure it by dwelling, the will measure the quality of streets by dwell time
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Discussion and Q&A
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Debate amongst the delegates “Use your infrastructure with care” – There has been too much emphasis on green barriers and not enough on empty space Importance: • As well as having these green barriers we must also have empty space for pollution to disperse. Empty space does have value. • It is about remodelling locality – just because there is pressure to act doesn’t mean we can’t have space Concerns: • As mentioned previously there is a concern that having defined barriers and spaces will allow for pollutants to increase in these blank spaces which could not be ideal Working together: • It is about managing space - pollutants can be re-routed to empty spaces such as roads instead of pedestrian areas • In this case it will be useful for barriers to keep pollution away from certain areas.
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Debate amongst the delegates “More studies on auditing and developers must input into research to get planning permission� Stopping harmful development -
The idea is that all new development seeking planning approval should be required to incorporate ways to reduce the amount of pollution created during development and after development before they are accepted.
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Developers should have to ask themselves how they are helping alleviate pollution and thus be able to contribute to studies
What should the Mayor do?
London Crossrail development, Google Images (2016)
It should be the duty of the Mayor to insist on this practice by making it a requirement for all new development and ask for more studies 19
Debate amongst the delegates The issue of growing food: “We need to stop telling people they can’t grow their own food” Don’t grow zones: • When people start to hearing of no go zones then people will start talking about reducing emissions • There is a concern that people will be ingesting pollution as even a small amount is harmful • However some argue that we need to stop scare tactics to put people off growing there own food – there is benefits to it and we should not discourage it So what should we do? – City farmer movement: This again feeds into the argument of guidance and co-operation. We need more guidance as we don’t exactly know what pollution does to food. 20
Debate amongst the delegates “Use your green infrastructure with care it is a panacea and we must reduce traffic” We are not dealing with the causes of pollution: • It is widely agreed in discussion that there still needs to be a focus on public transport and making public transport more efficient and accessible is the most important factor • Consider Thames and Water Ways as alternative forms of low carbon transportation • We need to find solutions to remove diesel from the discussion and make low carbon options (such as HEVs) more accessible On the debate of green infrastructureWe need more conclusive evidence on Green Infrastructure for improving air quality. Although the focus has been on air pollution we must acknowledge that there is significant evidence to suggest the other benefits to Green Infrastructure.
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Further thoughts
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Mayor of London Consultation (Deadline: 18th December) – https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/environment/air-quality-consultationphase-2/?cid=airquality-consultation
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NICE consultation (Deadline: 25th January) - https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/indevelopment/gid-phg92
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Response to the event 84% of delegates agreed that their level of new learning was good, very good, or excellent:
5%
68% of delegates agreed that they had an increased understanding of sustainability issues after attending the event:
5%
16%
32%
47%
Poor Fair Good Very Good Excellent
32% 37%
26%
Poor Fair Good Very Good Excellent
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Response to the event
84% of delegates agreed that this event was a very good or excellent opportunity to meet new people:
16%
16%
“(This event was useful) to understand the science background, limitations and evidences underlying Green Infrastructure.” Poor Fair
16%
Good Very Good
52%
More feedback?
Excellent
“Today I have had to rethink the benefits of Green Infrastructure” “(It was helpful) to network and meet relevant people at this event”
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Thank you to our attendees Representatives from organisations including: LBI, City of London, University of West of England, Mace, GLA, Green Party, Fira Landscape Architects, Krastis Consulting, London Metropolitan University, Bywaters, Friends of Victory Community Park, Network for Comfort and Energy Use in Buildings, Kennington, Oval and Vauxhall Neighbourhood Forum, Greenpeace, NHTRA & Peckham Coal Line & Peckham Heritage Regeneration Partnership, Culpeper Community Garden, Selby Trust, City Bridge Trust, Waltham Forest Adult Learning, Deep Science Ventures, 'Science for Change Kosovo, Manor Park Groups, Open City , The Friends Group, MIC Ltd trading , Environment Agency, Team London Bridge, Brunel University, Sustainable Merton, Royal Borough of Greenwich, Green Coffee, Of Butterflies and Bees.co.uk, Southwark Living Streets, FiltAIR LDN, 6heads, Camden Air Action, London Metropolitan University, London Borough of Hounslow, Women of Wandsworth , University of Portsmouth, Community by Design, Create Consulting Engineers Ltd
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If you are aware of a London-based community group in need of technical advice or assistance in improving their community, please contact the Engineering Exchange [http://www.engineering.ucl.ac.uk/engineeringexchange/] to discuss possible support opportunities at engex@ucl.ac.uk
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