Engineering consultancy WSP has today (19th September) launched its Future Cities campaign, calling for the UK to think bigger about urban development for the future.
According to WSP, the UK’s population is expected to reach 72 million by 2035, meaning an extra 10 million people will be using ageing infrastructure that is increasingly unsustainable. At the same time the UK is now legally obligated to meet pressing carbon reduction targets.
The Government’s National Infrastructure Plan (NIP) has projected that an estimated £200bn is needed to upgrade the UK’s energy, waste, water and transport infrastructure. WSP says that as buildings make up a major proportion of its annual carbon footprint, investment in building regeneration will also need to increase dramatically.
In WSP’s view, while this presents major challenges to the UK as commercial and regulatory pressures force infrastructure and building owners to enhance, upgrade and future-proof assets, it is also a huge opportunity in terms of job creation and economic growth.
WSP’s UK Future Cities Director Mike Duff commented:
“The UK must upgrade its existing communities to remain competitive - maximising distributed economic and social benefit whilst mitigating environmental decline. Green buildings are positive, but scale is the issue – sustainable cities and districts are where the real wins are to be made.
"This requires long-term, whole lifecycle thinking and a cross-disciplinary systems approach, not a traditional multi-disciplinary menu of piecemeal interventions. There needs to be a societal shift towards low carbon living with buy-in politically, publicly and from within industry, to stimulate investor confidence.”
The WSP Future Cities platform is being launched today in Stockholm - the UK business will be launching its more detailed Future Cities campaign early next year. To coincide with the launch WSP in the UK is bringing together a group of experts to form a vision for how London could be regenerated to become a truly ‘Sustainable City’. As part of this work it will also host an upcoming TED event (www.TED.com) in the near future on the same topic.
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