Climate positive - urban laboratories seeking new models for sustainable living

In 2009 the Clinton Climate Initiative and C40 launched the Climate Positive Development Programme (CPDP) which is designed to identify and promote new and innovative ways that cities around the world can grow sustainably. Antony Oliver reports.

Antony Oliver
01 August 2014

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The idea behind the Climate Positive Development Programme is to shift focus from encouraging low carbon performance across individual infrastructure elements to an assessment of the overall impact of wider developments and on the communities they serve. 

By focusing on specific developments within key global cities, the aim is to create models for large-scale urban communities that both reduce actual greenhouse gasses but also serve as so-called “urban laboratories” to lead thinking and practical solutions for other cities to copy. 

“Buildings are buildings – they may need heating or more air conditioning but because we are looking holistically you can share knowledge. Not necessarily one-for-one but all around the world there are different lessons to be learnt.” Zach Tofias, C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group.

“To really create a sustainable model you need to think beyond the development to the surrounding community,” explains Zachary Tofias, head of sustainable communities for the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group 

“The goal is net carbon negative to create a reduction in the carbon demand across the surrounding community,” he adds pointing out that the climate positive outcome is achieved by reducing emissions on-site and offsetting emissions in the surrounding community. “It is a new paradigm for development where you are pushing the low carbon and sustainable impact out into the community.”

Tofias is very clear about what offsetting means and says that by investing in the local communities this is not a way to “cheat” true sustainable development, he says. 

“Offsetting for us is about investment in the community not simply planting trees,” he explains. “Success is the sharing of information and strategy. It is about developers showing that they can engage with the community and so showing a tangible net reduction in emissions.”

The CPDP fits into the broader C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group – a network of 63 large and engaged cities from around the world committed to implementing meaningful and sustainable climate-related policies and programs. 

The programme hopes to identify and support exemplar developments within major global cities that can be used to drive and share ideas across the rest of the wider C40 network and beyond. 

So far there are 18 projects in the programme across six continents, all of which are carefully chosen and assessed to ensure that they not provide a good geographic range. In the UK, London’s Elephant and Castle development by Lend Lease is the only project and is one of three by Lend Lease on the Climate Positive programme.

By contrast to this London example, the programme also includes projects such as the Parque da Cidade development in São Paulo, Brazil which, while of course an urban development with housing, office space, waste, energy and transport needs, has a completely different hierarchy of challenges caused by climate, wealth and social ability.

“The beautiful thing about all these developments is that they are the kinds of place that I would personally want to live,” he says. “The most surprising thing is how enthusiastic each of the developers have been towards the project. We hear a lot about the adversarial nature of the industry – I really don’t know it on this project.” Zach Tofias

Yet despite that reality that each development in each city has unique challenges, Tofias is adamant that much that can be learnt across continents 

“There is a huge amount of commonality between cities around the world,” he says. “Buildings are buildings – they may need heating or more air conditioning but because we are looking holistically you can share knowledge. Not necessarily one-for-one but all around the world there are different lessons to be learnt.”

For Tofias, it is also critical that each development has sufficient mix of aspiration and deliverability to demonstrate net carbon negative performance across energy, waste and transportation infrastructure. 

“The beautiful thing about all these developments is that they are the kinds of place that I would personally want to live,” he says. “The most surprising thing is how enthusiastic each of the developers have been towards the project. We hear a lot about the adversarial nature of the industry – I really don’t know it on this project.”

To be accepted on the programme developers have to clear a four stage process which begins with the development setting out its goals and tactic to achieve carbon negative outcomes and which is then scrutinised by a panel of experts to verify that these plans and road map are credible. 

Once accepted as a participant on the programme the developments have to demonstrate their adherence to the road map and earn credits that demonstrate progress towards climate positive outcomes. 

“The projects are all striving to create locally relevant solutions,” explains Tobias. “We are working with far sighted developers. Bringing the developments and the city authorities together to ensure lessons are learnt.”

In the case of Elephant and Castle developer Lend Lease is working with the local authority Southwark to think how they can benefit from the climate positive scheme. 

Unusually Lend Lease is also involved in development in Barangaroo, Sydney and Victoria Harbour, Melbourne in Australia, enabling the firm to share information event more easily across their networks.

“Most of the developers that are involved do it because they see that this is the direction of travel. Cities get involved because they cannot afford to pay for all the development,’ he says . “Developers appreciate the exclusivity of the project – it is not open to all. By having a development the attracts more investment.”

And right now the project is being kept deliberately small, limiting the number of development projects in the laboratory to 18 so as to enable the C40 team to focus effort and learning.

“At some point we will be looking to increase the number but not just yet,” explains Tofias. “So far five projects have approved road maps and a number that are very close to achieving theirs. Success is for the projects to have value from collaboration and create a new model of development.”

There are 18 projects of the Climate Positive Development Programme and, once all are completed, will impact the nearly one million people who will live and work in Climate Positive communities.

Participant projects

1. Barangaroo South, Sydney, Australia; 
2. Victoria Harbour, Melbourne, Australia; 
3. The Oberlin Project, Oberlin, OH, USA; 
4. Elephant & Castle, London, UK; and 
5. ProjectZero, Sonderborg, Denmark.

Candidate projects 

1. Parque da Cidade, São Paulo, Brazil; 
2. Pedra Branca Sustainable Urbanism, Palhoça, Greater Florianópolis, Brazil; 
3. Dockside Green, Victoria, BC, Canada; 
4. Waterfront Toronto, Lower Don Lands, Toronto, ON, Canada; 
5. Nordhavn, Copenhagen, Denmark; 
6. Godrej Garden City, Ahmedabad, India; 
7. Mahindra World City, Jaipur, India; 
8. Menlyn Maine, Pretoria, South Africa; 
9. Magok Urban Development Project, Seoul, South Korea; 
10. Stockholm Royal Seaport, Stockholm, Sweden; 
11. Royal Albert Basin, London, UK; 
12. Treasure Island Development Project, San Francisco, CA, USA; and 
13. South Waterfront EcoDistricts, Portland, OR, USA