Sustainable Regeneration: envisioning the future to make more sustainable decisions today

The assessment reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have provided the scientific evidence of human impact on the climate, and a glimpse of what the future may hold if we don't act fast. But while the consensus may be growing on the need for changes in behaviour, psychological research shows that most people in the UK don't feel personally threatened by climate change because it is vague, abstract and difficult to visualise. How then, can we build a credible, believable picture of how the environment will change in the next 40 years?

Urban Futures, the EPSRC research group led by the University of Birmingham, aims to develop a number of future scenarios that will provide different interpretations of how human behaviour will effect the environment. The futures will not be built upon probabilities or predictions, but instead will bring together a number of factors to create varyingly disparate pictures of the world in 2050. For example, one future may be based upon a 'do nothing' mentality, another may reflect a world where environmental concerns drive policy, a third might have limited resources such as water and energy.

These scenarios will provide a backdrop against which the impact of today's urban regeneration decisions, with respect to sustainability, can be measured, and will be informed by research in the following areas:

1) Biodiversity
2) Air Quality
3) Water and Waste Water
4) Sub-Surface Built Environment, Infrastructure
and Utility Services
5) Surface Built Environment and Open Spaces
6) Density and Design Decision-Making
7) Organisational Behaviour and Innovation
8) Social Needs, Aspirations and Planning Policy

Urban Futures builds directly upon research conducted by the team through SUE1 projects, namely: Birmingham Eastside—sustainability research (www.esr.bham.ac.uk), Water Cycle Management for New Developments—WaND (www.wand.uk.net), VivaCity2020—urban sustainability for the 24-hour city (www.vivacity2020.org) as well as complementary research undertaken at the Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC, see www.lec.lancs.ac.uk).

For further information please visit the project website at www.urban-futures.org or contact Joanne Leach, Urban Futures Project Manager, on 07785 792 187 or at joanne@joanneleach.co.uk.