London must grab the opportunity presented by the Covid-19 pandemic and establish priorities for a ‘green recovery’ for the city, accelerating its bid to achieve zero carbon.

That was one of the key sentiments to emerge from a webinar held this week as part of the NLA’s Net Zero programme at which Shirley Rodrigues, deputy mayor for environment and energy gave the keynote address.

‘We have an unparalleled opportunity to seize the moment and make the changes we want to see’, she said, with the built environment ‘absolutely key’ to drive mayor Sadiq Khan’s vision for a better, greener and more equal city’. 

Rodrigues said London should become an example to the rest of the world about how climate action can be accelerated in a post-pandemic world, and that she hoped this would be clear when the COP26 meets in the UK at some point next year. ‘The costs of crises vastly exceed the costs of prevention’, she said. 

London is already a global climate and environment hub, Rodrigues said, accounting for 21% of the UK’s total green economy, and in London this is worth more than construction and manufacturing combined, valued at around £40bn and employing 250,000 people. This will be a key sector to maintain London’s global position, Rodrigues added, building on behavioural changes that COVID-19 has delivered through things like the Streetspace programme to accommodate a ten-fold increase in cycling.

The session, which is viewable here to members, also touched on issues from other contributors listed below including on retrofit and VAT, the ‘obsolescence’ of some high operational cost office buildings in London, green measures acting as economic multipliers, stricter carbon targets for less ‘essential’ buildings, density and decentralisation, the need for ‘designing out’ air conditioning and a move to more natural ventilation requiring fewer cars on our roads. And, via a question and answer session, some of the methods used to get to that position, such as more widespread use of road pricing.