Value of Low Carbon Urban Developments

Carbon-intensive urban sprawl

The built urban infrastructure of our cities, the types of residential and commercial buildings, the parking and public transport network, water and electricity networks and delivery mechanisms, will determine the energy use and carbon emissions of a city. Research suggests that roughly 30% of future, “committed” greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions will occur as a result of new urban building and transport systems. Energy-inefficient urban developments can, therefore, lock us in on a high emissions trajectory. 

Controlling greenhouse-gas emissions from standalone buildings can be achieved relatively easily through better insulation, daylighting, mixed-mode ventilation, more efficient heating and cooling systems, and the installation of small-scale renewable energy sources, particularly on rooftops. Broader strategies, such as achieving optimum urban density, overall building configuration or massing, and urban planning layouts to reduce wastage while ensuring comfort and affordability,  require much more careful analysis and consideration.

Car-dependent urban growth at the fringes of the city, known as urban sprawl, is increasing urban emissions and private transportation energy use. Sprawling, relatively low-density urban settlements make public transportation investments untenable as there are fewer people to the bus or metro service at each transit node. Research has also shown that low urban density can significantly impact urban energy use and the quality of life of urban residents. On the other hand, dense, mixed-use developments that are close to public transit nodes give people convenient and cleaner transport options. Many cities have mass transit options in place or in the planning stage but are yet to fully adjust urban planning to maximise the benefits. [also see my older blog on Mapping Low Carbon Mobility]

Cities like Buenos Aires have mass transit options in place but are yet to fully adjust urban planning to maximise the benefits.

Towards a greener and more livable urban built-environment

Low -Carbon Green Urban Developments (GUD) can range from smaller projects built around or along with transit stations, i.e., Transit Oriented Developments (TOD), to mixed-use ‘in-fill’ development and ‘green townships’ where transit is incorporated into the masterplan. 

The typical features of these GUDs are:

• Mixed-use development that includes shops, schools and other public services, and a variety of housing types and prices.
• High density and compact development to maximise land and improve affordability.
• More energy, water, and waste efficient design of buildings and infrastructure
• Public transit stations or transit corridors that are easy to access, reliable, and secure, as well as street and road planning for non-motorized transport.
• Pedestrian and bicycle friendly street and road planning. Streets should have good traffic calming features to control vehicle traffic speeds.
• Restriction on car parking to discourage vehicle ownership.
• Public and private sector participation.

Green Urban Developments provide a more livable urban built-environment

Planning and policy innovations have been critical for green urban development. In Barcelona, superblocks that combine city spaces into pedestrian-friendly, car-free mini-grids have been designed.

Copenhagen has used a “finger plan” an urban plan composed of five well-defined, linear corridors (or “fingers”), separated by green wedges with open spaces, watersheds, and ecological preserves, to drive green growth. Only compact, mixed-use developments were permitted around train stations to ensure a sustainable urban form.

Curitiba created structural corridors to promote job creation and activities away from downtown and inner-city locations and included housing and commercial density around mass transit lanes. As a result, the city has Brazil’s lowest share of car use. The commercial success of Curitiba's urban design and planning has also allowed the city to integrate low-income social housing into these structural corridors using cross-subsidies from market-priced private sector housing.

Copenhagen's 'fingerplanen' materplan developed in 1947

Green Urban Developments create value for all

Developing a reliable transportation system requires large capital expenditure, but a substantial pool of users will offset the costs over time. Decreased pollution and fuel consumption will provide

economic benefits to users, governments, and companies while enhancing a city’s ability to

maintain its competitiveness and environmental sustainability.

Green urban developments can provide substantial cost savings for both city governments and citizens. A recent study concludes that China could save $1.4 trillion in urban infrastructure costs if its urban development plans optimized density over sprawl.

Incorporating transit into urban design allows developers to benefit from stable or higher property values. Mixed-use settings also create commercial opportunities that benefit from increased foot traffic in the area. A developer may also be able to access government incentives for such projects. Hong Kong, for example, has created a financially successful rail and property funding model, allowing the Mass Transit Railway Corporation to partner with individual private developers to build along new and existing rail lines.

Reducing residents’ dependence on private vehicles will help decrease their overall living expenses while improving health outcomes by increasing physical activity. Living in such developments can increase a sense of community and wellbeing for residents and help improve living standards.

A thriving dense mixed-use neighbourhood of HCM City

Making it happen

Both market and policy tools can drive value creation in green urban developments by:

• Developing a green urban development (or transit-oriented development) policy framework for integrated infrastructure planning that develops sustainable urban growth centres with high-density mixed land use.
• Reforming land-use regulations such as single-use zoning, low-density limits, and high parking fees to encourage mixed-used, transit-oriented developments with reduced car parking. These should be combined with effective policy changes such as mandating reduced maximum car parking for homes rather than a minimum will also be needed to avoid perverse impacts.
• Redefining policy definitions of affordable housing to include the combined cost of housing and transport e.g. H+T Index.
• Creating incentives for the private sector. Cross-subsidization using tax abatement or value capture methods could help make the higher costs of transit-accessible locations less prohibitive for private developers and investors.
• Exploring alternative implementation options, including Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), to leverage private sector skills and financing to develop projects.
• Encouraging corporations to locate offices within green urban developments as an anchor tenant or employer through financial and non-financial policy incentives.

IFC is piloting a new tool to quantify the impact of Green Urban Developments.  The tool is an addition to the array of EDGE tools for green building projects and aims to help developers influence clients to choose “Green Urban Development” designs early in the project planning process. 

Green Urban Communities: Are We Ready?

Stockholm has managed to create a highly reliable bicycle system and bicycles have become part of everyday city life.

Cities can be the solution to climate change because their urban density presents a more efficient use of infrastructure and a greener way to live. As they grow, leveraging this advantage, while minimising unintended consequences of pollution and congestion is critical. The right long-term planning and investment choices made by cities now will improve people’s lives, create jobs, improve competitiveness, spur economic growth and mitigate climate change in the future.

Attractive, green urban communities located at public transit nodes can be designed anywhere in the world that combines office, residential and retail use. These mixed-use developments match density to transit capacity, rewarding city-dwellers with less expensive and more environmentally-friendly options while improving their quality of life. Experience has shown that merely providing density adjacent to public transit nodes isn’t enough--Effective policy changes such as, mandating reduced maximum car parking for homes rather than a minimum (which is unfortunately still the case in most cities in emerging markets) will also be needed to avoid perverse impacts.

Urban communities could largely power themselves and It’s possible for adoption to happen virtually overnight. More than a million gleaming solar hot water collectors now decorate the residential rooftops of Rizhao, a city of nearly three million inhabitants located in China’s Shandong province. More than 99 percent of Rizhao households power their hot water and space heating from this renewable energy source. Rizhao has cut its per capita carbon emissions by half compared to a decade ago, and its energy use by one-third.

Vauban Solar Settlement and business park in Freiberg Germany creates more energy than they consume and earn 6,000 euros per year for their residents.

Besides pushing for higher energy efficiency standards in new and existing buildings, cities can be retrofitted with fuel cell-powered cogeneration systems that generate electricity and re-purpose waste heat at the district level. By using high-efficiency, triple-effect absorption chillers, waste heat is supplied to buildings for space heating and water heating or to generate chilled water for air conditioning. Buildings that receive their energy supply from district cogeneration systems don’t require their own HVAC systems or boilers, resulting in efficiencies of up to 40 percent.

Cites in emerging markets have the potential to leapfrog the transit paradigms established in previous centuries by adopting new technologies and business models. Bus rapid transport (BRT), a term that refers to modern bus systems with dedicated traffic lanes, is a great starting point for cities to inexpensively develop a mass transit infrastructure. In Brazil, Curitiba has roughly three and a half times less car travel per person than a car-dependent city such as Brasilia, because of its extensive BRT system. With the drop in battery storage costs, buses can switch to electric to provide more efficient, green and quiet public transportation. With the astronomical rise in car ownership in cities in emerging markets (Number of vehicles in Mumbai up 50% in last 5 years), investment in BRT will have to be complemented by government policies that disincentivise car ownership. [also see my earlier post on Low Carbon Mobility]

Delhi Metro has eased some of the traffic but the city is yet to fully adjust urban planning to maximise the benefits

Most cars in cities sit idle 90 percent of the time or more, hogging space and providing little value. Urban planners can reduce parking spaces, introduce such disincentives as electronic road pricing, and place a quota on car purchases that aren’t electric. This enables alternative bike, scooter and car-sharing programs to sprout, providing a competitive array of accessible options to dart around a city. For example, the motorcycle-sharing service GO-JEK has become a crucial workaround in traffic-clogged Jakarta. Autonomous cars should be approached cautiously, as they may result in greater emissions.

Most of our cities that we presently inhabit today have grown organically and naturally to meet market demands. This has been a linear process and indeed most of the engineering systems that serve us are simple linear processes. Input-process-output and waste. Rarely is there any real crossover of these systems or sharing of resources. For example, rarely is the city’s power plant placed near the sewage plant despite the fact that as a by-product of sewage processing methane is produced which could be used directly to generate power and heat (where needed) for the community.

Source: Herbert Girardet, “Towards the regenerative city”, World Future Council, 2013.

An alternative model that has been put forward by people such as Herbert Giradet is that we should view our cities more as holistic metabolic processes which are integrated and linked, sharing wastes and resource to maximise efficiencies and minimise waste production (and costs).

This will require a new multiprong holistic approach to the development of the city. Are our city leaders and urban planners ready?