Londons Sustainable Objectives - Case Study Example

London’s Sustainable Objectives London is one of the finest and great cities in the world. It is a leading where socio-economic and socio-political advancements are constantly heading towards an upward spiral. It is a place where improvement does not impede continuous growth and typical development. The people in this city though not all, are aiming to achieve and maintain the value and quality of living for the sake of life’s comfort and long-standing sustainability. Definition of sustainability may vary. It cannot be denied that the climate change has brought a whole lot of idea on sustainability issue in the world and especially in major cities in UK. Many profit organisations around the world have already benefited when it comes to innovating products which are defined sustainable as far as global climate change is concerned. The basic example of this is the introduction of some thermal insulation materials as sustainable products. The bottom line, some products now are innovated and branded as sustainable materials to come along with the issues concerning sustainability, climate change and other related environmental issues in general. Thus, for the benefit of how it is viewed today, sustainability must be in line with the issues concerning environmental aspects with regards to its implementation or delivery and evaluation. CABE (2009) defined sustainability in line with the opportunity of climate change. In its 2009 publication, CABE presented the following criteria or definition of a sustainable city. 1. A sustainable city should have an appetite for change. 2. A sustainable city should have leaders who can think long term. 3. A sustainable city should have been working across administrative boundaries. 4. A sustainable city should have freedom to control land and assets. 5. A sustainable city should have complete focus on whole-life value. In this paper, the sustainable objectives of London as a major city in UK are analysed and critically evaluated according to how they are implemented and delivered based on the criteria of a sustainable city presented by CABE in its 2009 publication. Thus, it is worthwhile to give time for the introduction of major sustainable objectives of London prior to more detailed and conclusive discussion about its implementation and output. The LSDC (2007) presented London’s two major objectives in its pursuit to sustainability and followed by secondary objectives prior to the attainment of the primary objectives. 1. Reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other green house gases and ensure environmental, economic and social systems that can adapt to a stabilised climate. 2. Ensure everyone’s contribution is well recognized and rewarded by reduction of disparity between the most and the least wealthy. Hitting these two major goals will further result to the achievement of the following objectives. 1. Ensure a planet living within environmental limits whilst the natural resources needed for life and well-being are unimpaired and remain so for future generations. 2. Eradication of child poverty and inequalities in health and employment to ensure strong, healthy and just society. 3. Increased and high level electoral turnout as demonstration of effective community participation in decision making and governance systems at all levels. 4. Improving resource efficiency through diverse economy that provides prosperity and opportunities for all dependent on equitable trading practices and incentives. Let us try to find out if London was able to achieve these goals. The discussion in this paper focuses on these objectives together with the analysis and critical evaluation by looking at the actual implementation and delivery as justified by the result. In addition, barriers to these objectives are also discussed as part of the evaluation process. Now let us focus on this essential question, is London sustainable? Again, CABE (2008) presented criteria in defining a sustainable city. Defining London’s sustainability in this paper is based on the following criteria: 1. A sustainable city should have an appetite for change. 2. A sustainable city should have leaders who can think long term. 3. A sustainable city should have been working across administrative boundaries. 4. A sustainable city should have freedom to control land and assets. 5. A sustainable city should have complete focus on whole-life value. Does London have an appetite for change? The establishment of London Sustainable Development Commission (LSDC) together with its sustainable goals and plans for the future is an indication that London is striving for change in line with meeting the challenge of rapid global climate change at present times. CABE (2009) pointed out that a complete change of priorities is required to meet the challenge of climate change. Part of London’s major sustainable objective is the reduction of carbon dioxide and other green house gases emissions and ensure environmental, economic and social systems that can adapt to a stabilised climate. As reported by LSDC (2007), London’s overall carbon dioxide emissions have gone down since 1990. LSDC (2004) on its ‘2004 report on London’s Quality of Life Indicators’ stated that a decrease of particulate matter by about 182 tonnes can be observed from the figures of 1999 up to 2001. Though carbon dioxide emissions have gone down, the LSDC (2005) in its ‘2005 report on London’s Quality of Life Indicators’ showed 146.3 tonnes in 2002 emissions of carbon dioxide compared to 146.4 tonnes in 1999. This gives a difference of only 0.1 tonne of total carbon dioxide emission in the span of three years. Remarkably, there was a positive difference. However, the continuous industrial, transport and power generation activities in London continue to be the leading sources of carbon dioxide emission in the atmosphere. Global warming is indeed part of today’s reality. Facing it is a challenge to take, but refusal to solving it will only result to more complications. The fact that carbon dioxide emission continues is just part of the reality that there are other things to be worked on in the other side of the coin. As a highly industrialised place on the planet, London will continue to emit carbon dioxide as its way of fueling its economy. All of these can stand as temporary yet significant barriers to London’s sustainable objectives for the mean time. Londoners must have to find some ways on how to face this challenge. Innovative designs to control green house gases emission must be prioritised. One thing is clear though, Londoners have an appetite for change which makes facing challenges will never be too difficult to solve in this case, but everyone has to be ensured ready to take the plunge. Does London have leaders who can think long term? As explicated by CABE (2007), a city should have leaders who will stand as stewards of environmental resources and should be the ones to ensure quality of design and place. The Mayor in London is in constant monitoring of the city’s sustainable progress and development by creating strategies, designs and focusing on sustainable objectives. The sustainable framework for London appointed by the Mayor is advising sustainability issues and to put them into actions through taking, getting, managing and developing. Policy development and decision making are the two core targets of creating the Sustainable Development Framework for London. Thus, a wide program related to its promotion is constantly promoted by London Sustainable Development Commission in its participation to reach the information to the public and convince them to sign for the framework. On the other hand, the Mayor’s Green Procurement Code had 397 signatories by April 2005 compared to the previous year for about 316 signatories (LSDC 2005). The Mayor’s Green Procurement Code is trying to tell the public to go take responsibility by making a commitment to use more recycled products. For the success of whatever programs leaders are initiating, they need strong participation coming from the public, organisations and other concerned groups. This implies that the success of Mayor’s strategies will depend on the number of people willing to be part of the initiative in taking London’s sustainable objectives. Let us try to take a glimpse on London’s electoral turnout. Electoral turnout can be a measure of citizen involvement in public matters and it is an indication of how much people are connected with their public leaders (LSDC 2005). LSDC (2005) reported that turnout figures for the Mayoral and Assembly elections are significantly lower than for General Elections. In addition, the report of LSDC showed that there was a decrease in number of those who participated in formal volunteering from 2001 to 2003. This indicator is a supplement to electoral turnout information to find out how active, healthy and well-functioning is the community. With all of the above-mentioned information, it turns out that the people and their attitude can be a strong barrier to London’s sustainable objectives. This is going to be a challenge in the part of leaders who stand as stewards of the environment and their people. It seems it requires relatively longer time to create a demand for change in as much as convince people to take part in promoting sustainability. The steps to be taken needs to be more appealing in such a way Londoners will be able to participate whole heartedly and as citizens. It is not only enough to have strong leaders to stand and think for everyone, everybody’s attitude and way of thinking needs to be aligned with that of the leader. Does London have been working across administrative boundaries? Planning is visible to London’s pursuit of sustainability. Plans must have to be transparent for easy implementation of programs involved. Various strategies have been made intentionally to effectively execute plans and turn them into productive output covering the entire goal. These are related to what CABE (2007) is suggesting, cities and towns should be active with dynamic response to various forms of disinterest. The Sustainable Awards 2009 in London is one of the best ways to encourage participation in achieving sustainable objectives. The various categories of this program are the following: sustainable and responsible finance, sustainable travel and transport, tackling climate change, resource conservation, sustainable building, access to goods and services for disadvantaged communities, sustainable procurement, environmental management in small and medium sized enterprises and sustainable foods. One of the winners in The Sustainable 2009 Awards in London is ‘Skanska’. Skanska is a leading construction company winning the “Sustainable Procurement Award”. The award is aiming to promote sustainable practices in the development. Skanska won the award by its reduction in construction waste, transport usage and excellent track record in the purchase of environmentally-friendly materials (City of London 2009). According to CABE (2007), working across boundaries requires understanding local impacts of local decisions. The award is a good benchmark to encourage participation and significant impact in line with the objectives across the whole London city. There were criteria chosen by the local government in The Sustainable Award 2009. There were declared winners as well. This means that there were participants who positively accepted the challenge set by the government in line with the sustainability objectives. The possible barriers to this program are still the people and their attitude. Thus, it is significant to influence this attitude. The willingness to accept challenge and the level of motivation are still within the people’s choice. However, the government of London can still do many appealing strategies to keep in touch and be a partner of the people in its quest to obtaining sustainable London in the future. It is a challenge in the part of London’s government to design programs that will effectively work across its administrative boundaries without much resistance yet very motivational. Does London have freedom to control land and assets? CABE (2007) presented the idea that when there is greater control of land and assets, this will help towns and cities to invest in energy security, flood protection and water supply and a sense of leadership for long-term private investment. According to LSDC (2007), these are one of the areas where London is doing well. 1. London has been consistent in land recycling rate which is above the average rate in England. 2. The sites identified important to wildlife has increased. These are just some of clear results that somehow showing that control of land and assets has been closely identified as important factor in sustainability. However, continuous industrialization growth in London that may require land improvement or renovations may stand as significant barrier to sustainability and taking a great control over land and assets can be so challenging over a long period of time. Does London have complete focus on whole-life value? CABE (2007) explained that the real computation of an asset’s value is misapplied except however if the value and prices are aligned to sustainability issues. Our planet is our greatest asset. The reason why London is moving forward to its sustainability objectives is the result of closer realisation that destroying our planet is the greatest loss ever that we can have. Thus, reduction of carbon dioxide emission in the atmosphere can be defined as the most expensive way to take. In fact, with the current standard, industrialisation that requires transport and power generation activities cannot be abruptly changed. However, we know for sure that keeping this on will just complicate the problem, which in the long run may require much more expensive approach for the solution making process. For the mean time, London’s program is to control carbon dioxide emission and other green house gases even in a small and simple way. According to LSDC (2007), Londoners have led the world in accepting a remarkable shift and acceptance of public transport, cycling and walking from its private vehicle use. The bottom line, the most expensive thing we can give to our planet for long term is to cut carbon dioxide emissions and other green house gases. Then the long term payback and greatest gain of this will be saving the planet. This is sustainability. However, the continuous production and volume of carbon dioxide emission and other greenhouse gases cannot be considered as a sustainable act, but reality hurts since it can harm other aspects of human needs if abruptly changed. Sustainability is a great issue of today over abrupt global climatic change. Understanding it requires more than just what somebody can think of. It takes one to understand long-term results rather than short ones. Sustainability talks about sacrifices, cooperation and consensus understanding on concerned matters. It cannot be obtained in an instant but in a range of time through specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-bound plans. To be exactly executed on how exactly plans are planned, everyone needs to be a part of it. References CABE 2009, Hallmarks of a sustainable city. Available at: http://www.cabe.org.uk/files/hallmarks-of-a-sustainable-city.pdf. City of London 2009. Sustainable City Awards 2009. Available at: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/. LSDC 2004, 2004 report on London’s Quality of Life Indicators. Available at: http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/sustainabledevelopment/docs/lsdc_indicators.pdf LSDC 2005, 2005 report on London’s Quality of Life Indicators. Available at: http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/sustainabledevelopment/docs/lsdc_indicators_2005.pdf LSDC 2007, A greater London: making it happen. Available at: http://www.londonsdc.org/documents/making_it_happen_scn_12Oct07.pdf. Read More