How can we enhance the environment in a post-Brexit world?

How environmental protections can and should be strengthened and enhanced in post-Brexit Britain.

There are some critical questions around resources, such as water and soil, which will be fundamental to future environmental sustainability and will need protection, conservation and improvement. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) Commission for Economic Justice report ‘Prosperity and Justice: A Plan for a new Economy’ stated that, “Environmental sustainability must be at the heart of economic policy.” So when the government makes the pledge, “to make ours the first generation to leave the natural environment in a better state than we found it,” there is a great deal at stake for the future of the UK. Will natural capital accounting help to protect the environment or should we recognise that we cannot value everything in monetary terms? When the Prime Minister launched the government’s 25 Year Environment Plan she confirmed that, “We will use the opportunity Brexit provides to strengthen and enhance our environmental protections – not to weaken them. The EU Withdrawal Act (2018) required the setting up of an independent ‘watchdog’ to hold the government to account, and this was debated extensively throughout the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) consultation on Environmental Principles and Governance. The government has now proposed an Environment Act, which should provide legal underpinning for the 25 Year Environment Plan. How can we influence the Environment Act? Is there the necessary cross-departmental support and resources to give the act the breadth it needs to be truly effective? This session highlights SDGs 2, 6, 13, 14 and 15.

We will invite the audience to contribute their own suggestions and by the session end we will identify three key recommendations as the most universally applicable.

This session was developed with the Ecobuild Conference at Futurebuild and IEMA

Chair: 
Eloise Scotford - University College London

Speakers: 
Maddy Thimont-Jack - Institute for Government
Martin Baxter - Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA)
Alastair Chisholm - Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM)
Ece Ozdemiroglu – eftec & Member of the Committee on Climate Change

Delivering on the ambitions of the £420m Sector Deal

Applying innovative technology and techniques to deliver homes, major buildings and infrastructure and transform our industry under the Construction Sector Deal.

The Construction Sector Deal policy paper was published by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Construction Leadership Council (CLC) in July 2018. This stated, “The construction sector reaches every corner of the United Kingdom and touches each of our lives. We are in the early days of one of the greatest construction programmes in our history, from delivering more homes that people can afford, in the places they want to live, to major infrastructure projects…the pace of this change, and the size of this opportunity, demands a construction sector that is the best in the world.”

The programme is very ambitious with a joint sector-government budget of £420 million to invest in new technology and techniques. The Construction Leadership Council is building on the Sector Deal’s strategic principles of Digital, Manufacturing and Whole-life Performance through a series of cross-industry groups. The CLC’s ‘Procuring for Value’ report makes practical, long-term recommendations for both government and industry to facilitate change. This is a subject that should be central to the work of all those engaged in the built environment at a time when we need to restore confidence in the construction industry, and relates particularly to SDGs 9,11 and 12.

We will invite the audience to contribute their own suggestions and by the session end we will identify three key recommendations as the most universally applicable.

This session was developed with the Ecobuild Conference at Futurebuild.

Chair: 
Andy Mitchell - Construction Leadership Council & CEO Thames Tideway

Speakers: 
Ann Bentley - RLB & Construction Leadership Council,
Sam Stacey - UK Research and Innovation (UKRI),
Peter Caplehorn - Construction Products Association,
Lynne Sullivan - LSA Studio, Good Homes Alliance & Green Construction Board,
Julia Barrett - Willmott Dixon

Programme

Expert speakers from academia, policy and practice will set the scene for open-ended round table workshops that touch on wider policy matters and point the way forward.

Chair: Ann Limb, CBE DL, Chair SE Midlands LEP

Speakers:

Peter Tyler,
 Professor in urban and regional economics in the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge

Patsy Dell, Assistant Director Strategic Planning, Infrastructure and the Economy, Hertfordshire County Council and former Head of Planning at both Cambridge and Oxford City Councils

Christian Wolmar, writer and broadcaster and leading commentator on 
transport, author of Are Trams Socialist? Why Britain Has No Transport Policy

Jenny Raggett, Transport Campaigner, Transport for New Homes funded by 
the Foundation for Integrated Transport

Gemma Burgess, Acting Director, Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research (CCHPR)

Tom Holbrook, Architect, Director, 5th Studio, lead author of NIC Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Oxford – Future Planning Options Project Final Report

Rebecca Tunstall, Professor Emerita of Housing Policy, University of York

Charles Crawford, Board Director, LDA Design

Venue:

Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge

Organised in collaboration by Lucy Cavendish College and the Edge

Downloads:

Debate notes