Three planet levels

Architectural Review, The, August, 2004 by Frances Voelcker

THE EGAN REVIEW: SKILLS FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES

By Peter Egan, London: RIBA Enterprises. 2004. [pounds sterling]20

Elsewhere, I have seen disparaging comment on 'the shambolic nature of the report (expanded to cover everything in the built environment)'. That commentator has entirely missed the point of the report. But this is not surprising, since Egan fails to make the point explicitly. The report does indeed expand farther than the built environment, and necessarily, but it still does not go far enough.

It adds it own definition of 'Sustainable Communities' to the growing library of definitions of sustainable living, by incorporating a large range of quality of life indicators. This is a welcome and long-needed opening-up of the criteria used to assess 'sustainability'. Thirty eight of the 50 suggested indicators are related to quality of life in the areas of economic wealth, and access to education, health, transport, housing, shopping, leisure and communications; and to having a voice in policy and decision-making. It is not surprising then that new skills and new ways of working 'a new culture and attitude'--are required of a much larger group of people than just Built Environment Professionals if we are to make sustainable communities real. The report highlights the need for new skills chiefly among those who make and implement policy.

The main recommendation of the report is the establishment of a National Centre for Sustainable Community Skills to lead on CPD; to research into skills gaps and shortages in the core occupations, to review formal education, to share R & D and Best Practice. For Buildings Professionals, he proposes the target of achieving 'One-Planet' standards in all new-build, eight years from now.

There are already many think-tanks, universities and charities involved in research and training in this field. The dangers in creating a National Centre are that it duplicates their work, permits delay, and may be just a 'jobs for the boys', a fig-leaf to avoid and postpone facing up to the real challenge.

For make no mistake: if this report has any point at all (and it is the point Egan fails to make explicit), it is the need for Community Equity. Unless the modest and reasonable expectations implied by the quality of life indicators are realized by low-footprint means, we will not have sustainable communities. A one-planet footprint achieved by relegating 90 per cent of the world's population to an underclass, with 10 per cent as an elite as at present, is a recipe for warfare and not sustainability.

UK PLC is living at three-planet levels of consumption. If all the buildings in the UK were re-built to Bedzed standards or better, we could reduce our footprint by one planet, but the second planet's-worth of saving has to come from the rest of our lifestyles--travel, consumerism, waste. As a profession we are complicit in the over-consumption, in unnecessary newbuild and the 'churn' in refitting shops, hotels, kitchens, bathrooms, offices.

The recommendation that is missing is that one-planet-footprint-coupled-with-equity must become the measure of all we do if we are to create sustainable communities. This is a new kind of economics.

Some will ask 'What is the relevance of this report to architects'? Rather, as we accept the need and move towards creating sustainable communities, the question for architects is 'Can we still have any relevance? Or are we to be fossils of the Consumer Age?