Helping to get London to net zero has emerged as the most important issue for the next 15 years, a straw poll of NLA’s Next Generation New London Sounding Board found last week.

The group were asked to select which were the key elements of the checklist for the city compiled in conjunction with the NLA’s Changing Face of London exhibition and back up their decisions, some suggesting that a growth in knowledge-based industries resonated most, others pointing to the affordability of housing.

But zero carbon got the most support, Maliha Haque, Architect and Associate, LOM Architecture suggesting that it was the main challenge once the pandemic was behind us. ‘It actually underpins everything’, she said, with architects well placed to aid the creation of flexible buildings towards a healthier city. Alex Kirker, Design Engineer, Waterman Structures, too, said that London, the UK and whole of the world needed to attend to the issue with the building industry being such a big contributor. It was an irony, said Kirker, that London was at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th and 19th century, leading to our reliance on fossil fuels leading to the climate crisis we’re now in. ‘But we can also be a leader going forward in striving to achieve net zero carbon’, he said, pointing to the need to think holistically, reduce embodied carbon and cut emissions in transport.  Antonio D'Aquilio, Senior Building Analyst, Elementa, too felt that carbon was the most important item on the checklist and could be tackled using a bottom-up approach starting from demanding low energy buildings and tracking energy use, as well as offering incentives for energy retrofits of residential buildings.

7 Air Street © Philip Vile