Following our annual conference on climate resilience and equity, we publish the key takeaways that highlight the importance of involving communities to create workable solutions and protect vulnerable people.
Future of London’s members chose climate resilience and equity as the theme of its annual conference because of the growing understanding of the scale and urgency of action needed in the built environment sector.
This was reinforced by the feedback from delegates who recognise their collective responsibility and opportunity as a sector to increase the pace of change, while ensuring that radical solutions are fair and equitable.
Three themes initially emerged from the conference: financial innovation; partnerships to deliver climate action together, and strengthening community connections that provide resilience.
Preparing for temperatures, heatwaves and flooding
The conference focused particularly on the impact that heatwaves and flooding will have on economic, environmental and social stability. We have published write-ups of all the conference sessions, along with links to background information and video interviews.
In the keynote address, Mete Coban MBE, Deputy Mayor of London for Environment and Energy stressed the importance of understanding climate resilience as an issue for social and racial justice.
“Climate resilience in London is a big challenge because we know that it impacts our vulnerable communities,” said the Deputy Mayor. “It’s an issue of social justice and it’s an issue of racial justice.
“We’ve seen in 2021 with the flash flood, but also the extreme heat that that we do have to prepare London to make sure that we’re protecting some of our most vulnerable residents.”
Several sessions highlighted the way the impacts of climate change disproportionately affect groups who are already vulnerable through ill-health, poverty or racial discrimination. Representing the community of Somers Town in Camden, Slaney Devlin highlighted the importance of recognising that deprived neighbourhoods often have strong community connections that are an important factor in resilience.
Social connections create community resilience
“Often the most vulnerable places do have social infrastructure,” she said. “I know my little part of the world very, very well, and we have an extraordinary social infrastructure. So the question for the sector is, how do you support and harness that?”
The importance of collaboration and the role of London boroughs was emphasised in the recent review of London’s climate resilience commissioned by the Mayor of London.
“Local authorities are leading on the climate resilience agenda, but so much more needs to happen,” said Emma Boyd Howard CBE, who chaired the review and spoke at the conference.
“It’s essential that all the different local authorities in London work together. It’s making sure that we’re looking at carbon reductions alongside resilience, but also understanding that what happens in one part of London will have a direct impact somewhere far away in London,”
When London’s temperature hit 40°C for the first time in 2022, it sent a stark warning that the city must urgently develop greater climate resilience. In the opening session, Indy Johar of Dark Matter Labs predicted that social breakdown would come before the worst temperature changes.
Indy Johar also highlighted the need for a new approach to “security economics” that enables collective risk to be calculated and pooled, with a new ‘forest belt’ to provide the renewable materials needed to achieve our housing targets.
“I’m not pointing out these problems because I think they’re insurmountable,” he said. “I’m pointing them out because unless we engage with the promised case as it is, our solutions will be largely illusions, they’ll be convenient politics.”
Overcoming the finciacal barriers
Financing climate resilience was identified as a key barrier across the built environment sector, notably housing associations. At a session on funding climate action, the panellists agreed that equitable finance for climate resilience is possible but is currently on a minute scale compared to what is needed.
“We’ve gone up from around £300 billion to £800 billion in climate finance flows [globally] in the past five years,” said Sam Ewuosho of The Next Lighthouse. “That’s been really positive. The bad news is that number needs to be about £4.6 trillion by 2030, and close to £6 trillion by .”
The importance of involving communities in developing innovative climate solutions was emphasised throughout the conference.
“Community involvement was in many ways at the heart of our conference,” said Nicola Mathers, chief executive of Future of London. “The built environment sector can learn so much from people’s lived experiences to know how to deliver resilience and understand how vulnerability is experienced.
“Resilience requires strong communities, and the sector can build this through community involvement that makes all Londoners feel like they have a part to play in a shared mission to meet the climate change challenge.”
Other conference topics ranged from neighbourhood design to shaded buildings and involving young people to using art to inspire communities to take climate action. Climate change and resilience is also the theme of our major research project for 2024/25, and the final report will be published in spring 2025.
Thanks to our conference sponsors
Arup | Countryside Partnerships| Mount Anvil | Local Partnerships | Impact on Urban Health
Pollard Thomas Edwards | Potter Raper | Trowers & Hamlins
