Climate Change blog: delivering clean growth - accelerating inclusive and sustainable development in the UK
Following our recent Lunch & Learn session, ADEPT’s Hannah Bartram describes WSP’s pioneering work with City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council and the UK Business Council for Sustainable Development to create a working framework for clean growth.
In the middle of a stark cost of living crisis, and with the chance of government response shifting to prioritising economic initiatives over environmental considerations, will it be left to local authorities to provide leadership and come up with solutions that are fit for the future? Does clean growth offer the way forward?
Clean growth is something that we haven’t heard so much about recently, but for local authorities and especially, place directors, it can be a principal shaper of both inclusivity and the attainment of net zero targets. At its core, clean growth is fundamentally three things – growing the economy via development, reducing GHG emissions and protecting the environment, and enabling behavioural change to create a positive social impact.
Bradford’s work comes from its ambition to be the UK’s leading clean growth district and its response to a sustained downturn in its economic prosperity. The Council is focused on creating deliverable and sustainable transformational change and ensuring clean growth principles are embedded in all decision-making.
Historically, Bradford has been a vibrantly entrepreneurial place, but the city’s economy is completely different to how it was even 50 years ago and its core specialisms have changed. Reviewing the economic areas that can expand and grow, or need to change completely, is uncovering some real insights into how Bradford can grow its economy by doing different things in different locations.
Of course, it’s easy to say ‘grow the economy’, but what does that entail and how do you achieve it in an area that is experiencing economic decline? This is where the public sector’s role as an enabler is important. What can the public sector do to enable transformation that supports the needs of the private sector and how do those two things come together?
As part of developing an economic strategy, six primary drivers/incentives have been identified:
- Extending specialised industry & value chains - looking at areas where you can maybe get better value out of existing employment areas, but also what are the new territories that can contribute to extending the specialised industry and value chains?
- Economic activity - how do you create the right kind of jobs, the right prosperity and the right environment to produce those jobs?
- Skills development – extending and consolidating the work that is already happening to support new jobs in new areas.
- Investment attraction – securing investment can depend on three things: is a proposal investable, viable and can planning be secured?
- Strategic sites – maybe sometimes it is right to test and challenge the allocations within local plans. Just because they are there, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the right way forward for future development.
- Outcomes focus - if you know the outcome you want to achieve, you will be able to determine your sense of direction and the necessary outputs to get you there.
Defining outcomes has to be the starting point, as ultimately, they become the drivers for the work. But it’s not just how you start transformation; it’s also how you measure it. Creating metrics is absolutely fundamental, so Bradford began by ensuring alignment with UN sustainable development goals to create a measurable framework for delivery with six priorities: sustainable growth; the natural environment; sustainable development and places; health, wellbeing and demography; digital revolution and education, and gender and equality.
With decarbonisation being an absolute global imperative, examining how the drivers of decarbonising sectors – eg clean air zones, energy, the built environment, construction and industry – contribute to transition is essential. But creating an environment for clean growth is a complex mix, so economic prosperity, cultural inclusion, health and wellbeing, community, business and economic resilience, and with the environment being first and foremost, natural capital enhancement, are all essential components.
The structure to implement clean growth will see development frameworks and implementation plans set to four strategies: economic growth, development planning, delivery and investment, and spatial. These are fairly high level but are intended to be iterative with the Local Plan and the Local Plan review, and unlock more challenging development opportunities. Clean growth principles therefore influence the development framework as part of a trilogy going from strategy, implementation plan to development framework. These are all in place before any masterplans for development.
As well as creating commercial investability, change management is a massive consideration as there needs to be certainty around internal deliverability. Organisations have to be able to deliver change, which means considering structures and resources – the essential questions being, are we fit for purpose and can we respond to changing ways of living and doing business, governing and governance in order to decarbonise the economy?
The decarbonisation of place and infrastructure has to be an imperative moving forward because it is fundamental to driving transformation. Really thinking about place and place-based regeneration drives a different kind of decision-making. It can also ensure there is no conflict between regeneration and net zero capability – an issue very specific to place.
And, if you think about infrastructure for making places and making places work, economic development is central everything. Having a framework for clean growth that sits behind all place-based decision-making ensures transformation can be genuinely deliverable, as well as ensuring all development is sustainable and inclusive to benefit our communities into the future.
Further information
- Find out more about the City of Bradford Metropolitan District's Council's work on clean growth.
- WSP is one of ADEPT's corporate partners. Lunch & Learn sessions are free but open to ADEPT members only.
- The next session, The Levelling Up Challenge – transforming the tensions between productivity, prosperity and people across the UK will be held on Friday 23rd September, 12pm-12.45pm. Sponsored by Amey, it features the latest discussions from the Excellence in Place Leadership programme. Book your place here.