A Systems Perspective on the Transition to Zero Pollution Infrastructure

A Systems Perspective on the Transition to Zero Pollution Infrastructure

Around the world, governments, businesses, and academia are working to find inspiring solutions to meet the net-zero targets which both the EU and the UK have signed up to. Despite Brexit, both remain largely aligned in their approaches to tackle climate change through sustainable and technological interventions.  

As one of the largest contributors to CO2 emissions, the built environment sector is witnessing momentum towards sustainable construction practices and advanced technical upgrades to make the sector resilient and future-proof.  

On 29 April 2021, Dr Ana Mijic, the Centre for Systems Engineering and Innovation (CSEI) Co-Director, was invited to deliver a talk on A Systems Perspective on the Transition to Zero Pollution Infrastructure at the German-British Embassy Talks 2.0 on Smart and Sustainable Cities. The Talks are an ongoing initiative to develop collaborative opportunities and support the UK and Germany in achieving their zero-emission goals. In this 2^nd iteration, experts from a wide range of fields explored tangible solutions and unpacked the nuances around ecological construction, smart technologies in infrastructure and mobility, and their impact on our communities.

Dr Mijic started her contribution by reminding participants that with the world facing challenges of climate emergency and economic uncertainty to an unprecedented degree, the question is how to continue providing the quality of life through infrastructure in a sustainable, cost-effective and fair way, while minimising its impacts on environments. Her research, and research within the CSEI, advocates for a systems approach to Zero Pollution Infrastructure that sets development targets within the capacity of natural systems, while improving resilience, safety and sustainability through policy, integrated planning, technology and behaviour change. 

From an Imperial, and academic, perspective the question of Net Zero circles back to how ambitious we want to be in tackling climate change and what the role of the academic sector is in driving and supporting social change and innovation.

Dr Mijic focused on 3 aspects: context, role of the built environment and infrastructure, and how to achieve the zero pollution ambition.

First, the context.

The UK Government has set the ambitious target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. This poses two questions:

• how do we achieve the net zero carbon transition? and
• by focusing on carbon targets alone, are we possibly missing the opportunity to address the much bigger topic around sustainable development?

Both Imperial and the EU have started working on a broader view of sustainable development: ·         Imperial through the Academic Strategy initiative on the Transition to Zero Pollution and its 5 themes: Zero Pollution technologies, economy, environmental health, sustainable water-food-energy and systems approach to Zero Pollution. ·         The above initiative is aligned with the EU’s Foresight Systems for the Environment programme. This year, the programme focuses on addressing the delivery of a ‘a zero-pollution ambition for a toxic-free environment by 2050’.

The second point was around the role of built environment and infrastructure, whose primary role in enabling development and high quality of life has changed as, nowadays, infrastructure poses significant pressures on the natural environment and plays a role in environmental management.

Dr Mijic talked about how academics within the CSEI are tackling this challenge by seeing the environment as an integral part of the infrastructure system, where development and planning decisions are informed not just by socio-economic but also environmental indicators. This system is then referred to as the Zero Pollution Infrastructure. The concept advocates that future infrastructure systems will not worsen the state of the environment but, ideally, they will improve it, while providing enhanced services to society.

Dr Mijic stressed the need to design infrastructure systems that will minimise environmental damage, both from the perspective of environmental impacts (water and air pollution) and ecology, but also resources and materials extraction. System use, including operational decisions and human behaviour, plays a huge role in the environment-infrastructure system.

Linking the built and natural environment with people in a meaningful way so that we can get enough evidence in support of our decisions is a complex problem, so the third and final point was inevitably around how we can achieve a ZP transition.

CSEI are arguing for systems approaches that provide a way for a high level of integration, starting with:

• System mapping and identification of potential system feedbacks and unintended consequences.
• Once we map the system, setting the boundaries of systems-level simulation tools to test what-if-scenarios under future uncertainties, including climate change and human decisions.
• Using this information to support collaborative decisions.

Dr Mijic concluded her talk with a few examples of the need for systems approaches:

• The circular economy can provide a framework for technological innovation in pollution (carbon) management, but solutions need to be designed to avoid unintended consequences, such as increased risk of new contaminants or increased system use.
• This is clear, for example, in the issue of tyre wear pollution impacts on ecology, which remains even if we fully transition to electric vehicles to mitigate carbon emissions
• We may want to incentivise behaviour change using technology, which will be crucial to achieve net zero targets. However, behavioural changes need to be enabled by urban and infrastructure design that supports low-pollution lifestyle.

After all talks concluded, participants were divided into Breakout Rooms with Dr Mijic chairing the one on Resilient Communities in a Post Covid World. Panel members included Dr Asif Din, Sustainability Director, Perkins+Wills and Dr Mike Cook, Partner, Buro Happold. The discussion was very lively and focused mainly on

• Incentivising sustainability
• Incentivising retrofit
• Finding the right balance between dense design and liveability
• Data-driven design
• Users’ behaviours

To conclude, Dr Mijic reminded participants that as the role of academia is to push the boundaries of what can be achieved and then test the practice, collaboration with different stakeholders is vital.

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