A New Approach to Sustainable Development

With the world population predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050, and likely ncreasing shortages of water, food, and energy, there is growing pressure on consumption patterns in advanced and developing countries alike.  

Cities around the world will need to develop comprehensive solutions to these challenges. Yet much of our thinking on sustainability remains narrow – focusing on individual problems without seeing the overall picture.

Cardiff University has now created a new research institute offering a fresh scientific approach to this dilemma.  

The new Sustainable Places Research Institute at Cardiff University uniquely combines the academic talents of ten scientific disciplines, with the aim of tackling the challenges of climate change and diminishing social and economic
resources.  By developing further the emerging field of sustainability science, the Research Institute will aim to ‘model’ sustainable futures based around the notion of place-based solutions, and forecast how behaviours and climate change will affect sustainable practices in the future.  

Established through a £2M Cardiff University investment, the Sustainable Places Research Institute will focus on sustainable solutions for individual cities and their surrounding regions, tailored to particular circumstances around the world. It will become a flagship in the UK for research by taking a new ‘place-based’ approach to more sustainable forms of development in the UK, Europe and internationally.

Drawing in existing world-leading expertise at Cardiff University the Research
Institute will uniquely bring together the scientific fields of planning and applied
social and psychological sciences, business and law, biological and earth sciences, engineering, architecture and health.  They will work together to find holistic, practical and policy-led solutions which take account of the complex and dynamic inter-relations between ecology, society and economy in any one place.  

Director of the Sustainable Places Research Institute, Professor Terry Marsden, said: “Besides the problems of carbon emissions and climate change, growing resource costs will force cities and their regions to radically re-assess their existing ecological footprints and consumption patterns. Understanding how this can be achieved for the good of the economy, society, the environment and ecology will require a radical new conceptual approach to sustainable development – one which looks at the whole picture, rather than through separate lenses.

“This scientific challenge of taking a more holistic, interdisciplinary approach to
sustainable development is increasingly recognised by policy-making bodies, as well as many of the related professions. Here we are combining experts in buildings, energy systems, communities, the natural environment, infrastructure, health, and policy-making in a way which has not been done to this degree before to not only address this policy need, but also to address one of the biggest global questions we face.

“Sustainable Places will be making new scientific connections to deliver more
sustainable living in sustainable places.”

One of the Research Institute’s early tasks will be to create a comparative
city-region research ‘hub’ from which to embark on six interlinked research
programmes. The programmes will explicitly address the question of how city-regions, which are developing under different combinations of flows and fixities, can adapt and be guided towards more sustainable places.  For example, it will develop greater integrated understanding of how resource fixities such as built form, streets, housing, green spaces and natural environmental systems interact with multi-dimensional flows such as governance processes, people and communities, energy systems, communications, materials, waste and foods cycles.

Professor Marsden, who is also Professor Environmental Policy and Planning, and Co-Director of the University's BRASS Research Centre, said: “Sustainable Places will find new ways of working to harness the existing world-leading expertise at Cardiff and use this to drive forward the emerging field of sustainability science.
We will be looking to develop the science in a way which takes a much needed
‘place-based’ approach to sustainability in order to meet the challenges we face in the 21s century.”

“Never before has there been this level of connectivity between these research
disciplines. The Institute will provide a new scientific ‘meeting place’ for
sustainability science focussed on exploring more integrated place-based options and solutions placing us at the centre of global debates.

“We believe that the public in the future will demand scientists who can not only
address the problems, but find the solutions to sustainable development. Our vision is to push the boundaries of traditional sustainability research, to find solutions to the pressing issues which face us all in the twenty-first century.”  

The Sustainable Places Research Institute is one of three new research institutes launched by the University.  A total of £10M has been invested in establishing the Sustainable Places Research Institute, the Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute and the Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute.

Cardiff University Vice-Chancellor, Dr David Grant said: “Changes in society and in the environment make it increasingly urgent that academics combine their expertise to study the biggest global challenges. That is why we are backing these three revolutionary new approaches. All three Institutes will combine researchers from different academic disciplines in new ways of working, and we are confident all three will come up with ideas which can transform lives and communities.”

The Research Institutes form part of the University’s strategy to enhance the
quality, volume and impact of our work and to build on Cardiff’s reputation as a
centre for world-leading, agenda-setting research.  

More information about the work of the Research Institute can be found at
www.cardiff.ac.uk/research/sustinableplaces 
Follow the Research Institute on Twitter: twitter.com/sustainablecu

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