The built environment - getting to net zero

This second episode looks at perhaps the most daunting, but also rewarding, challenge of the transition to net zero: decarbonising the built environment. We explore how our complex networks of buildings and infrastructure contribute to climate change, how there’s no one single solution to decarbonise it, and how instead a strategic combination of different policies and actions could catalyse a transition to a net zero built environment that delivers huge benefits to all different kinds of countries and communities.
Featuring interviews with:
- Dervilla Mitchell CBE FREng, Deputy Chair of Arup Group and Chair of the NEPC working group on Net Zero
- Professor Rebecca Lunn MBE FREng FRSE
- Dr Boksun Kim, University of Plymouth
- Sir Tim Hitchens, President of Wolfson College
- Ali Shaw, Principal Engineer at Max Fordham
Read more about our work on decarbonising construction: raeng.org.uk/policy/policy-pr...
Explore the National Engineering Policy Centre’s work on system approaches to decarbonisation: raeng.org.uk/net-zero
Discover more about this video series and watch other episodes at: raeng.org.uk/net-zero-videos
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Reaching net zero by 2050 means we need new ways of working to transform and develop our high-carbon systems of infrastructure. These must engage people from local communities, government, industry and academia in an organised transition of the whole system. Moving to a net zero economy in this way not only helps avert disaster, but also brings real benefits to those involved.
This series of five short films from the National Engineering Policy Centre explains why these new approaches are needed, what they are, and how they let us tackle such a complex and broad challenge.
The five episodes interrogate in turn: what a systems approach to net zero is, how we can apply it to transforming our infrastructure systems of energy, transport and the built environment, and finally how we bring this understanding together to implement the transition to net zero.
The goal to eliminate net emissions from human activities in less than three decades is necessarily ambitious. These videos are intended to be a guide for the people across the world who are responsible for delivering on these targets.
Follow all the climate work at the Royal Academy of Engineering through the #EngineeringZero campaign: raeng.org.uk/engineering-zero