Congress to put sustainable cities in the spotlight

A key discussion at Innovation Zero will undoubtedly be the session on Decarbonisation and Adaptation in Urban Environments. The session will look at how city leaders in particular are working with industry to design desirable places to live, work and visit in a rapidly changing climate.

The drive to create green cities involves many stakeholders, all of whom need to work together in order to ensure that cities and urban environments can plan for resilience in the face of changing heat and flood risk. This means businesses and politicians working together with a common purpose to make their cities more sustainable for the long term in a way that works for communities.

Demonstrating strong sustainability leadership, despite inflationary pressures and wider societal challenges relating to the cost of living, can deliver benefits for businesses. These include savings on energy costs over the long term, greater resilience to a changing environment and economy, and being well positioned to take advantage of new economic opportunities in green technologies and green finance. The rewards are high for those cities that get it right and the session on decarbonising urban environments at Innovation Zero provides an ideal platform discussion and debate on the key issues.

As the recent BusinessLDN report, Building a Greener City, explains: “Being at the forefront of introducing ambitious climate policies can provide benefits to cities beyond addressing the impacts of climate change, such as stimulating growth in the green economy through new job opportunities in sectors including renewable energy, energy efficiency and sustainable transport.”

One of the challenges London faces in this area, like many large cities, is how to balance political ambition and action on climate change with the interests and actions of the business community. That’s why BusinessLDN, in partnership with WSP, convened a group of its members, many of whom are at the forefront of business action to decarbonise the economy, with key public sector bodies and other stakeholders to consider how best to align London-wide action and individual business strategies to form an efficient pathway to net zero.

The result of this work was the Building a Greener City report and BusinessLDN programme director John Kavanagh will be speaking at Innovation Zero in that all-important session on decarbonising cities. John and his fellow speakers - James Ford, Director and Climate Business Unit Lead at Hoare Lea; Councillor Wesley Harcourt, Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Ecology at Hammersmith & Fulham Council; David Partridge, Chairman of Related Argent, and Roxana Slavcheva, Global Lead for Built Environment at the World Resources Institute - are sure to provide some interesting insights on how to build greener cities and the session should be well worth attending.

It's just one of the 175+ content sessions and 600+ world-class speakers gathering from 30 April to 1 May 2024 when thousands will descend on London’s Olympia for one of the largest sustainability and net zero expos ever seen in the UK. Make sure that you get involved in the conversation by registering for your place at the congress today!

Registration for Innovation Zero is free before the 1st of April, click here to secure your place at this must-attend event.