Innovation for a carbon constrained city: Challenges for the built environment industry

The built environment, especially that of our largest cities, faces substantial change in the next twenty years if it is to meet the increasing demands for carbon neutrality, reduced water consumption and more efficient resource consumption. The industries that design, build, retrofit, manage and maintain the built environment face equally significant changes in organisation, working practices and skills development, approaches to design and construction and materials development if they are to meet these challenges. Equally, the institutional and governance structures within which they operate will need to undergo fundamental changes, not least in terms of changed regulatory and incentive structures to stimulate innovation and adaptation of new sustainability goals and outcomes. This paper reviews the key drivers of change facing the built environment and analyses the major challenges facing the built environment industry, broadly constituted, in adapting to these drivers.