It’s time to provide a Green Urban Future

Cities are home to 75% of the population and 75% of all greenhouse gases, as such, urban regions are increasingly recognised as critical to the achieving the global net zero transition.

The Paris Agreement has set targets to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees alongside addressing biodiversity challenges a task which seems almost impossible on our current trajectory.

What can urban areas to help meet this target, reducing greenhouse gases and embracing the net zero transition?

The UN environment program from the G20 highlight three types of cities;

Sustainable Cities: Integrating environmental protection into the economic, physical, and social fabric of urban development, ensuring long-term viability and anticipation of environmental risks.

Resilient Cities: Enhancing the capacity of urban areas to weather and recover from diverse shocks, whether economic, environmental, social or institutional.

Smart Cities: Leveraging digital and telecommunication technologies to optimise traditional infrastructure and services, improving quality of life for residents and efficiency for businesses. 

For all of these cities to help towards a sustainable future we need to provide Green Resilient Urban Futures, which requires a collaborative approach and encompasses the convergence of efficiency, protection, and safety in city planning and management, reflecting a commitment to both human and ecological well-being.

The urgency now is to translate these concepts into tangible strategies. It requires a collaborative effort among policy makers, businesses, and a civil society to reshape our urban landscapes into models of sustainability and resilience.

As the report highlights, “Designing more sustainable and more liveable neighbourhoods requires the integration of natural and artificial systems. The stakes are huge. Ultimately, the way we design, plan and manage our cities will largely determine whether our economies and societies will be able to meet the Sustainable Development Goals and reduce inequality. It is clear that a fundamental transition needs to take place in cities…[as] many of the existing best practices are cost effective and readily available. However, this has not always translated into action by national governments or city authorities.”

IDRE are an ESG-led investment and asset manager providing cost effecting sustainable upgrades that benefit local occupiers whilst enhancing rents and capital returns. We fully believe you can improve the ESG prospects of your assets whilst achieving improved returns creating financial and sustainable benefits.

To download a copy of the UN report visit: https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/36586/SSRC.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y