Green economy for sustainable development book chapter by asif kabani and maliha a. kabani

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71R. Simpson and M. Zimmermann (eds.), The Economy of Green Cities: A World Compendium on the Green Urban Economy, Local Sustainability 3,DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1969-9_8, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract This chapter focuses on three key urban management initiatives by which smart growth and climate change adaptation are mobilized towards the production of a sustainable urban environment. Signi fi cant headway has been made and oppor-tunities for further progress revealed in building energy retro fi ts, green workforce development and transport-oriented development. In their identi fi cation as local priorities, such urban management initiatives have proven a new resource for sustainable development. While such initiatives are encouraging and indicative of the opportunities that sustainable urban development provides, the authors also contend that cities must prioritize the needs of their low-income population as part of their green strategies and programs.

Keywords Climate change • Smart growth • Green economy • Sustainable development

A. Kabani (*) Founder and Hon. VP, International Sustainable Development Resource Centre, Geneva

Head of Research and Project Management, Ministry of Information and Broadcast, Govt of Pakistan e-mail: [email protected]

M. A. Kabani Founder and Hon. President, International Sustainable Development Resource Centre, Geneva

Manager, Education - IKEA, Save the Children International (SCI), Country of fi ce, Pakistan e-mail: [email protected]

Sustainable Development for Cities and Citizens: Green Housing, Employment and Transport

Asif Kabani and Maliha A. Kabani



72 A. Kabani and M.A. Kabani

1 Introduction

On one hand, recent developments in urban sustainability have been encouraging as most cities of the world begin to seize the opportunities that sustainable urban development provides. We have found that few cities prioritize the needs of their low-income population as part of their green strategies and programs in making policies, plans, programs and projects for sustainable development.

Over the past decade climate change has moved from a scienti fi c theory to a reality all over the world from Global context to local reality. Governments and communities around the globe are moving quickly to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the hope of warding off the most devastating impacts of climate change. Most cities do not always need to wait for action from central or regional government to begin turning themselves into green “laboratories,” testing ways to lower green-house gas emissions, and building healthier, cleaner, more sustainable environ-ments. Many cities have or will soon have detailed plans on how they will reduce greenhouse gasses; many are calling for emission cuts of between 10 and 20% in the next 5–10 years. Cities, it seems, have seen the future and are embracing it – sus-tainability has become a priority.

It is no longer a question of “if” the nations of this world will begin the challeng-ing transition to a greener economy but “how” we will get there. As this chapter reveals, the answer to that question lies in large part within cities around the world. Cities are on the vanguard of developing climate change solutions. It will be vital that as cities’ green efforts are scaled up, it is also ensured that all residents, including the poorest, have access to the bene fi ts of urban development initiatives especially developing countries.

2 Green Buildings

Cities have made green buildings a priority amongst other early efforts towards sustainability, but often require help with retro fi tting current structures (Kabani 2011 ) . Roughly half of all greenhouse gases emitted are produced in order to build, heat, cool and power the structures in which we live, work, shop and play (Pew Center on Global Climate Change 2005 ) . It is no surprise therefore that many cities have devoted considerable resources in attempting to make buildings more ef fi cient. The green building industry has grown immensely and green building techniques progressed substantially in the last 20 years. This is partly because, in the face of rising energy costs and with the aid of city-level authority over municipal and local building codes, greening buildings is often one of the fi rst steps taken by city of fi cials in order to “green” their cities. Many cities have made considerable progress with green buildings and have put tough new codes in place particularly with new city structures and commercial projects. This is a signi fi cant accomplishment and has made a serious dent in building related emissions. These efforts must not only target



73Sustainable Development for Cities and Citizens: Green Housing, Employment…

commercial and institutional buildings however but also include the residential sector. In this regard a particular effort must be made to include low-income house-holds, who may lack resources and require extra help in order to insulate houses and replace appliances as part of the drive towards reducing emissions.

Such efforts can build on the experience of central and regional government as well as various agencies and their local partners which run programs helping the poor to weatherize their homes. Green retro fi tting cannot only help cities achieve real and meaningful reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, it can also create new “green” jobs for blue-collar workers. By addressing the low- and mid-skilled job losses which have resulted from the current global fi nancial crisis, investments in retro fi tting can produce immediate economic impacts, a key consideration for policymakers and “green” initiatives (Satterthwaite 2010 ) .

Cities will need to take great care to ensure that low-income residents have access to energy ef fi ciency upgrades. Navigating the complexities of the various loans, utility bills and tax credits involved with retro fi tting a home is a dif fi cult task even for middle-income households. Households faced with particular fi nancial dif fi culty may fi nd retro fi tting a home virtually impossible. While low-income households may face the biggest challenge in creating greener dwellings, these households are proportionally best placed to bene fi t from such changes and from their resulting cost and energy savings.

Many large cities are mandating that new public buildings should be built to green standards. Cities such as Karachi and Singapore go even further, requiring the same for private constructions (Kabani 2011 ) . This focus on new buildings is how-ever limiting especially where urbanization is slow or stagnant. Mass retro fi ts of existing structures are therefore key to signi fi cant greenhouse gas reductions. While many cities would like to encourage mass retro fi ts, paying for them is another enor-mous challenge, especially given that cities will need to ensure that such programs reach low-income neighborhoods.

3 Cities and Green Jobs

Smart growth in green cities will only be made possible if green jobs are made a priority. Cities are poised to help implement policy in this direction but the fi eld is still in its inception. The notion that a vibrant “green jobs” sector can revitalize the economy has garnered signi fi cant attention in recent years especially from the media, politicians and NGOs. Even as economic recovery is underway, the green-collar job movement is in need of programs and leadership that can turn this promise into a reality. The shift to a green economy will test cities, as most economic and workforce development systems are outmoded, fragmented and unprepared to adequately respond to new opportunities. The green economy and green jobs have the capacity to become a real vehicle for engineering vital improvements in these sectors and for ensuring that underemployed low-income residents become a strong focus of new workforce efforts.




City of fi cials and planners are well aware of the promise that a green jobs’ sector and green collar jobs and industries hold. Most however have only recently begun to take preliminary measures, aided by partnership with surveying compa-nies, universities and other interested parties. Such collaborative efforts have led to progress in at least some cities. For example, to help retro fi t existing affordable housing units, Chicago recently instituted the Chicago Energy Ef fi ciency Building Retro fi t Program, a public-private partnership to provide fi nancing and technical assistance to owners of affordable multiunit rental properties. The program will provide loans to building owners for energy and water ef fi ciency measures that will be repaid from the operating savings those improvements make possible (Satterthwaite 2010 ) . Despite this promise however, the number of green businesses and jobs remains modest.

As this chapter has indicated, one solution particularly in the short term would be to provide employment through green building and mass retro fi ts, thereby employing laid-off workers from the construction sector and simultaneously making buildings more ef fi cient. Effective fi nance structures will be key to unlocking this opportunity. While most cities are currently exploring the potential of green jobs, nascent programs have led to just a handful of jobs so far. The task of devel-oping and enabling a green jobs’ sector to thrive will test both economic and workforce development, two arenas in which cities have traditionally struggled. It will however present an opportunity to re-engineer and adapt current systems especially in the employment sector and particularly regarding low-income workers and the unemployed who desperately need skills.

4 Transportation

Perhaps the most signi fi cant step a city can take towards becoming a green city is improving public access to greener forms of transportation. Traf fi c is a massive source of greenhouse gas emissions. in recent years, cities across the world are now started to have invested in multiple public transport projects, from the expansion of light rail networks to the addition of bus lines and cycle paths. The drive to extend and improve transport is not only informed by the desire to tackle climate change but also to revitalize neighborhoods, improve air quality and help the local economy. These policies have simultaneously made urban areas more ef fi cient and more desir-able places to live. A range of public transport projects are underway across the world in both developed and developing countries, even in the cities where highways have traditionally been prioritized. Despite these positive trends however, public transport remains a complex fi scal and logistical puzzle for many cities and regions.

Cities have also struggled to address questions of equity in their planning for public transport. It is likely that most new projects are not reaching poorer neighbor-hoods, limiting their ability to bene fi t from such schemes. Poorer neighborhoods are also more likely to be exposed to car fumes due to a lack of public transport in these areas, exposing residents to a higher risk of asthma and other illnesses linked to car and truck traf fi c. New transport systems can also act as a magnet for local




development which can drive up retail and property prices. This can adversely affect poorer neighborhoods when lower-income residents and small business owners can no longer afford rents and are forced to move away.

In recent years rising energy costs have dramatically increased the popularity of public transport in virtually every city. As Kelly Rayne, policy advisor to the mayor of Shelby County, US, observes, “Before, the public viewed mass transit as some-thing poor people take but Once gas prices [started rising], people had standing room only. That has done wonders for perception” (Rayne 2011 ) . The popularity of public transport has also increased in areas of urban sprawl as city dwellers incur the cost of travelling long distances by car. Such areas often lack developable land for the provision of public services, and residents may need to travel long distances for access to such services. As a result areas of urban sprawl can become particu-larly congested. “We’ve seen that that kind of spread-out development isn’t feasible… There has been a cry from the community for walkable neighborhoods and alternative transportation” (Rayne 2011 ) .

As cities have begun to question their love affair with the car, they are also changing the way transportation serves cities. Cities are studying, expanding, and investing in public transport, particularly inter-city transport and rail networks. This is a huge task for any city, and requires building consensus with regional partners to get such large scale projects built. While one of the main sources of funding cities’ transporta-tion needs are federal grants and taxes, these funds are rarely awarded to individual cities directly. They are instead often given to planning bodies which typically include representatives either from city areas or from other municipalities and government.

Governance structures are rarely a major obstacle to the implementation of pub-lic transport systems, especially when partnerships between local governments and stakeholders are successful. About one in four cities do report dif fi culties however, especially when cities and government do not have adequate consultation with stakeholders and as a result different transport systems are poorly coordinated, making it hard to live without a car in much of the region. “People want a coordi-nated transport service and are ready to work together at every level, but right now we don’t have clear leadership or institutional support to help get us to that next level of collaboration. A new light rail system was even more costly due to the need for extensive tunneling. Of fi cials have made transport a priority, and while money is not always forthcoming a million in new revenue each year is creating a fresh and reliable income source for public transport and roads.”

It remains to be seen which counties will levy a tax towards such initiatives and how funds will be spent. Finding the funds to expand public transport will be especially challenging for individual cities given that there is national competition in this area – cities across the world are investing in public transport and other strategies to reduce car use in order to spur neighborhood development. Where federal transportation policies complicate regional coordination and funding allocation, cities struggle to implement successful transport systems. As an additional challenge, cities also need to make sure that new transport systems bene fi t low-income communities and to work against the displacement of local residents, thus ensuring that sustainable development bene fi ts all residents in adjoining neigh-borhoods as well as protecting the environment.




5 Conclusions and Recommendations

Green Cities are well positioned to lead the way towards an economic recovery that will launch the green economy. A growing number of cities are on the vanguard of addressing climate change issues, creating new mechanisms to simultaneously reduce energy waste, cut carbon emissions and create new economic opportunities. Despite this determined approach, such efforts at the city level are limited in isolation. Financing for public transport and building retro fi ts is exceedingly complicated and dif fi cult to obtain. Initiatives aimed at providing green jobs and assisting low-income or unemployed workers are still very much in the nascent stage. Cities can, however, make far greater progress with the support of active and engaged stakeholders, of administration committed to both transport and energy retro fi t programs, and by targeting workforce development funds speci fi cally towards green-collar jobs. The agenda on energy and environmental issues must include a commitment to cap greenhouse gas emissions, deploy “smart grid” technologies and invest in sustain-able growth and transportation. While cities should be able to count on assistance from central, regional and local government, they must continue to innovate and evolve in themselves. To make this transition successful, cities need to work with a wide range of local partners including business, service providers and charitable organizations.

Sustainability issues are inherently interconnected, and any thoughtful approach also requires cities to think across sectors (for example housing, transportation, economic development, education and workforce development, energy policy) and to act collaboratively in order to construct feasible sustainability plans. Consultation between experts, practitioners, and city and local administration is essential in order to advance greener buildings, greener jobs and smarter transport for low-income people. These recommendations do not purport to be comprehensive. Rather, we intend that these ideas help set the stage for cities – in partnership with local stakeholders and regional and central government, to forge a comprehensive set of policies that help to create greener and more equitable communities. In each of these areas we recommend a thematic approach to policymaking, as follows:

To achieve the energy savings and green job opportunities possible through green • buildings, cities must retro fi t through systems that can achieve scale. To create green-collar jobs at scale, cities must re-engineer their local economic • and workforce development systems. To spur more equitable transport-oriented development, cities need to reorient • their local real estate markets. We are acutely aware that none of this will be easy. In many cases incremental • progress and piecemeal solutions are the only option. We believe however that larger visions and sustained political commitment at the local level will be required to seize this moment of opportunity.




References

Brown MA, Southworth F, Stovall TK (2005) Towards a climate-friendly built environment. Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Arlington. Available via: http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Buildings_FINAL.pdf

Kabani A (2011) Smart growth, green cities, with climate change and adaptation. Paper presented at the Pakistan urban Forum, Lahore. Available via: http://pakistanurbanforum.com/puf2011/Presentations/Tech%204b_1-SUE_Mr.AsifKabani.pdf

Rayne K (2011) Speech presented at Pakistan Urban Forum in Lahore Satterthwaite D (2010) Green cities report – cities and climate change. Living Cities, New York

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Buildings_FINAL.pdf

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Buildings_FINAL.pdf

http://pakistanurbanforum.com/puf2011/Presentations/Tech%204b_1-SUE_Mr.AsifKabani.pdf

http://pakistanurbanforum.com/puf2011/Presentations/Tech%204b_1-SUE_Mr.AsifKabani.pdf

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Green economy for sustainable development book chapter by asif kabani and maliha a. kabani