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Activities
The Challenges of Hyper©\urbanisation
in Emerging Economies:
Sustainable and Equitable Development
EDUI Exec Chair David Ness co©\convened a Special Forum at the World
Sustainable Buildings
Conference Melbourne SB08 www.sb08.org. SB08 was also attended by council
member Mr
Thomas Schneider and secretary general Ms Kris Schneider. The Special
Forum was chaired and co-convened by Ms Kairin Taipale,
Chair of the UN Marrakech TaskForce on Sustainable Buildings and
Construction http://www.environment.fi/default.asp?contentid=278290&lan=EN
and member of the World Future Council http://www.worldfuturecouncil.org/.
Panel members included Mr Siva Thampi, Director, Environment and
Development Division, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the
Pacific www.unescap.org, Assoc Prof Ying Hua from Cornell University
USA, Mr Wayne Wescott, CEO, Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI)
Oceania
http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=1149 and David Ness. As rapporteur,
David summed up
the key
themes arising from the Forum as follows:
1. Green buildings may be unsustainable,they may even be 'obscene' in
some circumstances
2. They need to be seen in the context of urban areas, not just
buildings in isolation
3. And green and environmental agendas need to be in context of the UN
Millennium
Development Goals. One of which is to improve the lives of slum
dwellers, another is access
to clean water
4. Inequity was a major theme of the forum, which highlighted
dichotomies within cities,
within countries, & between countries eg rich countries of north eg
Australia & the poorer
countries of south
5. This was well illustrated by Kaarin¡¯s slide of a huge, lavish and
even 'obscene' LEED
Platinum¡®green¡¯ hotel located right next to a slum
6. Resource allocation needs to be considered alongside resource
consumption & efficiency eg
who gets what water?
7. The social & physical impact of new buildings on urban fabric was
discussed eg demolition &
dislocation of communities, or high rise (green?) buildings for the rich
have blocked urban
drainage systems in Indonesia, leading to severe flooding of poor areas
8. Rather than iconic green buildings, what is needed is public open
space, public facilities,
shelter, infrastructure ¨C cultural rather than market transformation
9. However, the forum wondered if green buildings could be a point of
entry for a wider
agenda? eg action on improving lives of slum dwellers. Not just green
but socio economic
improvement
10. The power of lots of small actions was stressed ¨C enabling momentous
change to be
achieved in a short time
11. But there is a place also for top down directives, policies,
regulations, taxes & incentives
as in China
12. Finally, the question was asked by an audience member,Can we avoid
hyper urbanisation
eg by economic development of rural areas?
David mentioned that there are other equity issues that need to be
considered in future
conferences of this type, including greater participation of developing
countries via subsidies,
scholarships, etc.
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