The team had carried out extensive industry research, and wanted some help translating those outputs into a clear, impactful document. Between August 2024 and March 2025, I edited the copy, refining and harmonising sections by different authors. I also wrote sections on flooding, overheating, storms, drought and wildfires, and city-level vulnerability to climate hazards. The final report was launched at the Building Centre in London in June 2025 – the hottest on record in England, for now.
Net-zero emissions is the globally agreed goal to avert catastrophic climate change – but what’s a net-zero building? My opening article for WSP’s decarbonisation series (PDF) drills down into how we should apply a planet-scale concept at the level of a single project.
Following the logic of the Science Based Targets initiative means achieving a carbon reduction of at least 90% before we even think about offsets – but which carbon are we talking about, and 90% of what?
Quick answers: we need to count not only operational carbon but all the embodied carbon that’s emitted during the construction process too; and we need to move beyond percentage reductions against theoretical (=too easy) baselines and start working to absolute values.
This is where regulations around the world are going, as governments begin to divide up national carbon budgets between different sectors and building types.
The upshot is that in the short to medium term, retrofitting existing structures may be the only viable way to reach net-zero. Given that embodied carbon can account for half of a building’s total emissions, and that we’re still a long way from decarbonising key materials like concrete and steel, new construction may start to look like a very expensive luxury.
Cities are the scene of striking inequity, but even more significant are the economic disparities between regions: a landmark OECD report found that the average gap between the most productive 10% and the bottom 75% widened by nearly 60% between 1996 and 2016. By way of example, GDP per capita in the US is about 90% higher than in Slovakia, but GDP per capita in the state of New York is 100% higher than in Mississippi.
This is bad on many levels: regional disparities hold back economies and individuals from reaching their full potential, and have negative consequences for living standards, health, social cohesion, even overall happiness. So far, they have proved stubbornly resistant to policymakers’ attempts at levelling up, and to overall increases in national prosperity – the gulf has grown most strongly in some of the world’s richest countries.
This is largely down to globalisation and advances in communications technology, which have led to the formation of highly successful clusters, typically focused around high-growth, high-margin knowledge industries. These centres have become the engines of the world economy, but their irresistible, all-consuming growth has sucked wealth and talent from an ever-wider radius, trapping depressed regions in a downward spiral.
Unless we can find a way to turn the tide, the workforce risks becoming further polarised, as the transition to a net-zero economy and leaps in robotics and AI, threaten to entrench patterns of inequality. Decarbonization will mean the loss of jobs in carbon-intensive sectors, while automation will replace humans for whole categories of tasks or force them into less secure working arrangements.
So what can we do about it? In this four-part series, I spoke to economists, urban planners, experts in transport development and infrastructure funding, policy analysts and social scientists about how the green transition could be made to work for everyone, everywhere. It was published in issue 09 of The Possible magazine, which I edit for the global engineering firm WSP.
We’ve just published issue 09 of The Possible, the thought leadership magazine I edit for the global engineering firm WSP about cities and all the built and natural infrastructure that supports them.
The content covers some pretty disparate topics, but the unifying theme is the impact that urban life – and urban resource consumption – has on other places, near and far. Climate change is revealing previously hidden connections in natural systems, in trade networks and in the consequences of our actions. Today, we can vividly see how carbon emitted anywhere in the world presents an existential threat to us all, most urgently the frontline communities experiencing its first, worst effects.
Our story about the Native Alaskan Village of Shaktoolik is a foretaste of the tough choices that many more will face – we look at how they are planning for the future as the melting Arctic ice makes relocation inevitable.
We also consider solutions for resilience as a more extreme, less predictable climate ratchets up the tensions in fragile global water systems, and how to address the widening gulf between successful regions and everywhere else, as globalisation and the formation of urban super-clusters leaves post-industrial areas trailing.
UN Special Raporteur David R Boyd explains the far-reaching consequences of making a healthy environment a human right, and mining expert Kevin Beauchamp sheds light on cities’ extractive footprint and the impact of urban policymakers’ choices in areas such as autonomous vehicles and building energy use. These will affect the overall quantity of minerals required to bring about the green transition – and ultimately whether or not it can be achieved. The question we need to ask ourselves, he says, is whether we can rethink life in cities to work within sustainable boundaries, rather than simply powering high-consumption lifestyles in a different way.
We have a stunning – and very eloquent – cover by Brazilian artist Fabrizio Lenci, 3D water artwork by Carlo Cadenas, and the usual design magic by Sam Jenkins at Supermassive.
Regardless of where greenhouse gases are emitted, everyone, everywhere will be affected as weather patterns change and extreme events like storms, flooding and heat waves become more frequent. But not everyone will suffer to the same degree or on the same timeframe. The Native Alaskan village of Shaktoolik is one of the world’s “frontline communities” – those bearing the brunt of climate change and experiencing its first, worst effects.
Built along a narrow sand and gravel spit on Norton Sound in the Bering Sea, Shaktoolik is vulnerable to flooding and erosion from all sides. Fiercer, more frequent storms push the waves further and further up the shore, while destabilizing the ground beneath it and threatening access to the mainland. “We’re losing land, in other words,” says tribal coordinator Sophia Katchatag. “We’ve always had storms but the ocean never came into town or showered water in on the community.”
Studies have repeatedly warned that Shaktoolik’s time is running out and that it is in immediate need of relocation. But the other thing that makes it particularly vulnerable to climate change is that the villagers follow a subsistence lifestyle, drawing what they need from the environment around them. While other communities around Norton Sound have already chosen to go, the people of Shaktoolik have voted to defend in place for as long as they can, while making a longer-term plan to move inland.
But to do this, within the constraints of limited resources, they need to know what they’re up against. Previous plans for this village of around 250 people have tended to time-out, as the impacts of climate change accelerate or funding streams change.
I spoke to the community and the consultants working with them about a new kind of climate risk assessment, which attempts to overcome the myriad difficulties of hitting a moving target with limited empirical data. By combining traditional knowledge and advanced modelling, it aims to put the community in control of their future and help them decide how much longer they can hold their ground.
The article was published in issue 09 of The Possible magazine, which I edit for the global engineering firm WSP.
In October 2021, the United Nations Human Rights Council recognised for the first time that access to a healthy environment is a universal right. I spoke to UN Special Rapporteur David R Boyd about why this matters and what difference it could make.
In May 2021, a Dutch court ruled that Royal Dutch Shell must cut the carbon emissions from both its operations and the oil and gas it sells by 45% by 2030, relative to 2019 levels – a global first, but likely not the last, thanks to rapid advances in the fields of attribution science and climate litigation. For issue 08 of The Possible, I spoke to L Delta Merner, who leads the Science Hub for Climate Litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit science advocacy organization based in the US. She provides evidence to inform legal cases that hold fossil fuel companies accountable for climate-related damage: UCS evidence has been cited in more than 70% of US climate damages and fraud cases to date.
Auchentoroly Terrace in West Baltimore should be one of the city’s healthiest, most sought-after streets. It is just 143 feet from Druid Hill Park, 745 acres of lush green oasis that ranks alongside New York’s Central Park. From their doorsteps, the residents of Auchentoroly Terrace can admire its lawns, rolling hills and forest, and listen to live music from the weekly farmers market. But what they can’t do, easily or safely, is actually walk to the park itself — because crossing those 143 feet means stepping out into eight lanes of fast-moving traffic.
The Druid Park Lake Drive expressway is a major arterial road that funnels cars from the I-83 interstate through this predominantly residential area at speeds of 60mph. It’s also why the neighbourhood has over 100 vacant properties, why it ranks among Baltimore’s worst for air pollution, cardiovascular disease and cancer, and why its asthma-related hospitalisations are more than three times the US average.
The presence of the expressway is not an unfortunate accident. Rather, it’s a roaring, fume-choked symbol of the deliberate harm inflicted on the inner-city neighbourhoods of US cities during the 20th century. West Baltimore was doubly blighted, first by the practice of “redlining” that denied investment to minority communities, then by planning policies that prioritised fast car journeys above everything else. In the 1950s and 60s, expressways were constructed around the park so that the wealthy white commuters who’d moved out to the suburbs could get downtown quickly, and more than a dozen historic entrances were reduced to just five. The Black and Jewish neighbourhoods through which the roads were ploughed were not consulted, their objections ignored — and their access to Druid Hill Park was severed, apparently forever.
Or perhaps not. Now, the city’s transportation department is trying to right past wrongs by turning an eight-lane expressway into a “Complete Street” where non-car users have priority. It was always going to be a controversial proposition: for those who feel they have no choice but to drive, fear of congestion looms large. But Baltimore’s Complete Streets initiative has tapped into a much deeper schism in an increasingly divided US society, riven by culture wars and alternate realities. In this atmosphere, the issues in play are far bigger than a stretch of bike lane or a few more crosswalks. It’s about privilege, ownership, whose voices should be heard and, ultimately, whose lives matter more. This is the debate that the city has been drawn into, and it’s one that it has to win if West Baltimore is ever to be a safe place to live.
Midway through a fraught community consultation process, I spoke to Baltimore’s Will Ethridge about the plans, as well as West Baltimore resident and active travel campaigner Graham Coreil-Allen, and WSP consultant Wes Mitchell, who is supporting the city. The article was published in issue 08 of The Possible magazine, which I edit on behalf of WSP, as part one of a two-part series on active travel.
To accompany the piece, we asked local photographer Zhee Chatmon to revisit the neighbourhood where she grew up. She was shocked by how far it had declined, and her brilliant photo essay makes an eloquent visual case for change. I also interviewed Zhee about the experience for our “The Art of The Possible” series – read her reflections here.
Walking and cycling are often presented as a magic bullet for many of today’s urban woes, from congestion and air pollution to obesity and poor mental health. But they’re a hard sell for municipalities seeking to win over their citizens, amounting not only to a significant lifestyle change but a completely different approach to city planning. Making space for active travel usually means taking it away from cars, taxis and commercial vehicles – overturning decades of motor-centric policies and inevitably provoking loud objections. Supporters of active travel believe there is a silent majority who are receptive and willing to adopt new habits, but how to engage with them?
One place that has achieved the apparently impossible is the UK city of Exeter. In May 2020, as the pandemic prompted a sudden reappraisal of urban life, the UK government made £225m available for local authorities to reallocate space to help pedestrians socially distance and to encourage cycling. In towns and cities across the country, roads were closed to traffic, pop-up cycle lanes installed and space reallocated to walking and cycling. Exeter managed to install more kilometres of cycle lanes than anywhere other than London, 30 times larger and 70 times more populous. And while vehement opposition has forced the removal of many temporary measures elsewhere, all but one of Exeter’s nine pop-up changes are to stay, either permanently or for further consultation. How on earth did they manage that? I spoke to Devon County Council’s transport team to find out, for issue 08 of The Possible magazine, as one of a two-part series on active travel. Photos by Tom Campbell.
Issue 08 of The Possible, the thought leadership magazine I edit for global engineering firm WSP, is all about the hard choices facing policymakers on the way to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
In particular, we consider the prospects for decarbonising concrete and steel, the two biggest and toughest targets for the built environment. Each contributes around 8% to man-made global emissions, and each has unique characteristics that will be indispensable for building all the infrastructure of a net-zero world (not to mention meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals for billions of people). We can decarbonise these materials, up to a point, but not without significant quantities of key green resources – renewable electricity being a big one – which are themselves carbon-intensive to develop and on which the decarbonisation plans for many other industries also rely. Ultimately it will be down to governments to cut through the double counting and decide where we can afford to “spend” a finite carbon budget. Our five-part series, “The realist’s road to zero”, aims to shed light on the critical pinch-points and highlight the areas where action is most urgently needed.
Apportioning resources – from space to mobility to nature – will become an increasingly fraught issue for urban planners in the decades to come. In this issue, we explore two other hot topics: what we’ll eat in a sustainable 21st-century food system, and how to reallocate road space to walking and cycling without alienating motorists.
