Sustainable Futures in the Built Environment to 2050

List of Contributors ix

Notes on Contributors x

Foreword xiv

Preface xvii

Acknowledgements xix

Book Endorsements xx

1 Introduction: Foresight and Futures Studies in Construction and Development 1
Tim Dixon, John Connaughton and Stuart Green

Part 1 Sustainability and the Built Environment 25

2 Climate Change, Resilience and the Built Environment 27
Janet F. Barlow, Li Shao and Stefan T. Smith

3 Sustainability in Real Estate Markets 50
Jorn van de Wetering

4 From the 'Sustainable Community' to Prosperous People and Places: Inclusive Change in the Built Environment 72
Saffron Woodcraft and Constance Smith

5 Smart and Sustainable?: The Future of 'Future Cities' 94
Tim Dixon

6 Sustainable Infrastructure 117
Martino Tran, Jim Hall, Robert Nicholls, Adrian J. Hickford, Modassar Chaudry and Geoff Watson

7 Sustainable Design of the Built Environment 137
Lorraine Farrelly

Part 2 Changing Professional Practice 155

8 Planning for Sustainability: Reflections on a Necessary Activity 157
Joe Doak and Gavin Parker

9 Sustainable Construction: Contested Knowledge and the Decline of Professionalism 172
Stuart Green

10 Sustainable Procurement 194
John Connaughton and Will Hughes

11 Social Media in the Built Environment 223
Bob Thompson

Part 3 Provocations about the Future: Practitioners' Viewpoints 249

12 Sustainability through Collaboration and Skills Development 251
Andy Ford and Aaron Gillich

13 Built Environment Professionals as Sustainability Advocates 270
Gerard Healey

Part 4 Transformative Technologies and Innovation 285

14 Energy Interactions: The Growing Interplay between Buildings and Energy Networks 287
Phil Coker and Jacopo Torriti

15 Sustained Innovation Uptake in Construction 310
Graeme D. Larsen

16 Humanising the Digital: A Cautionary View of the Future 325
Ian J. Ewart

Part 5 Conclusions and Common Themes 337

17 Understanding and Shaping Sustainable Futures in the Built Environment to 2050 339
Tim Dixon, John Connaughton and Stuart Green

Index 339

There is much to recommend in this book for those looking for new pathways capable of transforming the built environment by mid-century and understanding the more innovative roles that the property development and construction industries will need to play in this process. The book is also a far-sighted manifesto developed by the new School of the Built Environment at Reading, therein constituting a challenge to other university faculties and schools in the field of Built Environment and Design world-wide to similarly define the strategic agendas for their research and teaching programs.

Professor Peter Newton, Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia


The scale and breadth in achieving sustainable cities by the middle of this century is huge and will require massive change in the attitude and practice of the construction industry and its professions. Tim Dixon and his co-authors bring together current thinking across a range of issues relating to what our future cities may look like and what industry is needed to achieve the transition. Some thirty or so contributors deal with the themes of sustainability in the built environment, the changing industry, future viewpoints, and transformative technologies and innovation. In dealing with the uncertainties of the future, this thought- provoking book may also help us address the increasing uncertainties of the present. Thoroughly recommended!

Professor Phil Jones, Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University

The people who live, work and play in cities, and society as the collective, provide the ultimate client for the civil engineer, and the construction industry is the vehicle to deliver their creations, and what they create is expected to function effectively into the far future. The material that is covered in this book, which quite properly combines these perspectives, represents essential reading for those engaged in delivering a built environment that is fit for the (far) future.

Professor Chris Rogers, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham

An important and timely analysis of the critical challenges facing the real estate and construction sector, now and in the future. Crucially, this book demonstrates that a foresight approach can not only help practitioners and policy-makers mitigate risk, but actively exploit the many opportunities that arise from the necessary transformation to a sustainable built environment. Essential reading for all those striving to change the sector from within.

John Alker, Campaign & Policy Director UK Green Building Council


There are few topics more important today than the sustainable future of the built environment. Urban development over the coming 30 years will be providing living space for a further 3 billion urban dwellers. It is happening when the challenges of climate change and resource scarcity will be providing severe tests for humanity. We have now the opportunity to future-proof these new developments. This book brings together essays by key players in the field, and will be very widely read and used.

Sir David King, The Foreign Secretary's Special Representative for Climate Change and Chairman of the Board of Future Cities Catapult (2013 - 2017), Partner, SYSTEMIC (from 2017)

We build for the requirements of today, often with the methods of yesterday - but what we build is likely to be around for our grandchildren, and possibly theirs too. Futures evidence, debate, learning and skills - summed up in the foresight approach - are much needed in UK construction, but so far there is a great blank area on the map. This book opens up that area. It provides the beginnings of roadmaps for infrastructure, planning, energy and other crucial themes. It should help many others to explore in more detail the peril and promise of uncertain times.

Dr Joe Ravetz, Co Director, CURE (Collaboratory Urban Resilience & Energy), University of Manchester

If debate about sustainable futures is to be more than abstract and utopian it must be rooted in the present and be able to demonstrate how future scenarios could realistically be achieved. This book makes an all-important, original contribution to this effort, especially by leading an in-depth discussion of how professional practice will need to evolve to meet the demands for a more sustainable built environment. Ultimately, it is within this practice context that real change towards sustainable futures will occur.

Professor Simon Joss, Professor of Science & Technology Studies, University of Westminster

A series of enlightening contributions make this an engrossing, concerning and poignant text which presents important viewpoints from which practitioners and scholars, at all stages of their careers, may cast their gaze into the not-too distant future. The comprehensive range of essays, while embedded in future studies, serve to highlight the challenges that must be faced today for the built environment of tomorrow - whether in classroom discussions, midst laboratory experiments, at onsite deliberations or within the market place.

Dr David Howard, Associate Professor in Sustainable Urban Development, University of Oxford

Tim Dixon is Professor of Sustainable Futures in the Built Environment, School of the Built Environment at the University of Reading, UK.

John Connaughton is Professor of Sustainable Construction and Head of Construction Management and Engineering, School of the Built Environment at the University of Reading, UK.

Stuart Green is Professor of Construction Management, School of the Built Environment at the University of Reading, UK.

T. Dixon, Oxford Brookes University