CABE launches Sustainable Cities

Dealing with climate change is the most pressing challenge facing us. Our new website offers priorities for action and international best practice.

Going low carbon can deliver progress on other crucial fronts such as energy security, affordable homes, new jobs and regeneration.

So CABE has launched a major new initiative, Sustainable Cities, for the people responsible for planning, designing and managing towns and cities.

Sustainable Cities is the result of a two year research programme, working with the English Core Cities and a team of 30 experts.

Making towns and cities low carbon is not impossibly complicated – but it does mean seeing the bigger picture to make the right decision. Biomass boilers or combined heat and power? How do you balance high density living with more green, natural space? How do you work out energy demand and supply over the next 20 years?

The website cuts through confusion, by offering clear priorities for action. It highlights the places that are getting it right. Uniquely, the site asks what urban design and management can do better to address climate change. It looks at key themes, such as water, transport and energy, across a range of spatial scales including the neighbourhood, city and regional scale.

Sustainable Cities aims to help towns and cities avoid the risk of unintended consequences. Going low carbon is not just about the quality of our homes – it is about how we live our lives. The household fuel bill savings from well insulated homes could, after all, be spent on more plasma screens and flights.

As our towns and cities tackle climate change they need to become better places to live and work. It is possible to undermine the quality of a place at the same time as cutting emissions, and make it less sustainable. Investing in electric vehicles will cut carbon emissions, for instance, but contribute nothing to better traffic management, more walking and cycling, and more beautiful streets and open spaces.

CABE has also published Hallmarks of a sustainable city, a distillation of the two year research programme behind CABE’s Sustainable Cities programme. It describes the opportunity of climate change, how to recognise a sustainable city, and what needs to be done to make it a reality.  

Hallmarks sets out four policy proposals, on sustainable neighbourhoods, energy, planning and green infrastructure, to spur a quicker and more effective response to climate change.

So, finally, CABE is championing local authority leadership through a new advertising campaign.

Explorer footsteps feature in the latest advertisement (below), because it's exactly 100 years since Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to the South Pole. His memorable recruitment ad in The Times read: ‘MEN WANTED for a hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success’.

Shackleton framed his ad in a way that spoke with wonderful honesty and allure about the task at hand. CABE is making the connection between his famous call and the challenge to the people in charge of Britain's towns and cities.

We need a new scale of leadership from them - and the kind of courage to tackle the unknown that Shackleton exemplifies.

The footstep ad follows a ‘tree tower’ campaign (also pictured below) which spoke to determination to cut through complexity.