London - an integrated and connected city? | 2nd Jul 2012
WSP's Head of Sustainability, Paul Toyne, gives his two pennies worth on London's future in Base London's new publication on 'A low-carbon London: new and beyond' which you can access here, skip to page 62 for Paul's article.
In this article Paul explores the potential of technology to enable better integration of London's basic system functions and to help create a city that is both attractive and competitive. But Paul also warns of London's need to break its habits of unsustainable consumption and waste and that a thousand green buildings or more will not make London a sustainable city.
Paul discusses issues including:
- Being a smart city and using technology to enable better integration and drive more sustainable outcomes - such as using instrumentation at a building level to measure and monitor water and city-wide automated metering infrastructure to allow us to respond to changes in demand and consumption.
- Achieving environmental integration - where resource flows and cycles operate in a closed loop cycle, operating cradle-to-cradle principles where nothing is wasted.
- Keeping London functioning whilst infrastructure is upgraded - getting the right balance between disruption and business-as-usual.
- Connectivity - the fact that a thousand green buildings or more will not make London a sustainable city, without things like renewable power generation, zero carbon transport systems and closed loop materials flows, our buildings will not be able to perform in a truly sustainable way.
Did you see us at Base London?
We very much enjoyed the day at Base London on 21st June and were delighted to see so many people interested in London's successful future all gathered in one room. There were some fantastic speakers and sessions and WSP's Paul Toyne enjoyed getting everything on their feet when he took to the stage. You can find out more about Base Cities here and we look forward to seeing those who will be attending the Base Leeds event in September.
