The natural environment seems rarely out of the news at present. As the UK records its warmest summer on record, wildfires raged across Europe due to record-breaking heatwaves and dry conditions. Heavy monsoon rains and flooding continued in Pakistan, while in Cyprus increasing desalination efforts were needed to combat drought. The scientific consensus is unequivocal: human activities are the primary driver of the accelerating climate crisis, and we are already feeling its impacts. Yet still much of society appears to be in a state of collective denialism. 

As we build up to the CIOB’s annual sustainability conference, the urgency to take joined up action has never been greater, not just to tackle climate change but the interconnected nature and pollution crises too, which are inextricably linked to community wellbeing, as unequal environmental burdens erode social equity and impact disproportionately on vulnerable populations, exacerbating social problems like food insecurity, forced migration, and poor health outcomes.

It is perhaps unsurprising then that the built environment industry, which makes a significant contribution to the climate and ecological crises, faces calls to go beyond doing ‘less bad’ to doing ‘more good’, with current progress on sustainable construction falling short of what is required to address these complex issues. With just one week to go until Sustainable Construction: Shifting the Narrative, I spoke to our keynote speaker Pooran Desai OBE about why it is so important that we rethink our approach to some of these challenges.

I know Pooran will provide a keynote that is guaranteed to be thought-provoking! So, I started by asking him for any hints about what he hopes to highlight, and I think it’s fair to say that he plans to challenge us to think differently.

“We face massive social, environmental and economic challenges. We need a paradigm shift in approach to solve complex interconnected problems and that means nothing less than using a different part of our brain.  We can't solve complex problems with rational left-brain thinking.  We need to use imagination and our right brains, something which our education system, culture and working environments are not good at unlocking.  It goes so deep that if we are successful in achieving this paradigm shift, we will have a completely different way to understand and engage with reality.  In science we are seeing this paradigm shift starting to take hold with a move away from the reductionist, materialist paradigm that has dominated for three hundred years,” said Pooran.

Pooran is a serial social entrepreneur, author and advisor to companies and government.  He put together the world’s first zero carbon urban village development, Beddington Zero fossil Energy Development (BedZED), and created the framework on which the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are based. He studied medical sciences and neuroscience at Oxford and Cambridge Universities before co-founding environmental organisation, Bioregional, in 1994.  He has a long track record of working on zero carbon real estate projects around the world, so I asked him what this has taught him about the art of what’s possible?

“To initiate some $30 billion of zero carbon development in 30 countries, I realised that what we were doing was unlocking the collective imagination of developers, designers and communities.  It was an incredibly simple and joyful process using the very simple 'One Planet Living' framework which I led on creating.  The process was the antithesis of the dull, unimaginative, inhuman, tick-box, standards-based processes which have come to dominate.  Standards have a place, but they are the least effective way to create systems change.”

We are currently navigating a time where terms like net zero have almost been weaponised by those who seek to undermine the consensus on climate change (a topic we will return to during the conference). I asked Pooran whether this makes it even more important that organisations reaffirm their commitment and accelerate climate action in the face of this?

“We need a different more inclusive conversation in our society.  It's about how we want to live.  Do we want to live in ways which promote our health and happiness, at the same time as allowing other people and the rest of nature to do the same?  We can't lead with carbon accounting which has a dubious relationship with how the complex interconnected living systems of our planet really work.  I know all of what I am saying is challenging.  But that's the paradigm shift we need to make to create a regenerative future.  I believe we have less than ten years now to be embedded in the new paradigm.  It will need to go beyond even systems thinking, to systems reimagining; imagination-led, science-informed and technology-enabled.”

Pooran is just one of an impressive lineup of speakers who will feature in the fully online CIOB sustainability conference on Thursday 18 September. The programme includes panel discussions on climate, nature and community regeneration, as well as case studies from the UK and beyond, with discussion from thought leaders from the built environment industry, academia and sustainability professionals. It’s not too late for you to join us! Sign up here: https://www.ciob.org/events/sustainable-construction-shifting-the-narrative-1307801522559