Andrew Flynn Cardiff University Presentation to the China (Binhai Tianjin) International Eco-City Forum September 2010 Eco-cities and the conventional city: opportunities and challenges

Eco-cities an important and innovative way of seeking to reduce resource use Growing popularity But what difference will they make to urban resource consumption? –What are the numbers of eco-dwellings being built? –How significant are these new dwellings for existing urban areas? Use Ecological Footprint to compare different types of housing development –Example from Cardiff – a small UK city Eco-cities and resource consumption

Ecological Footprint of Cardiffs housing Existing housing stock is responsible for nearly all of the Ecological Footprint New, more eco- efficient housing is not being built sufficiently rapidly to change the profile of existing housing Is it best to invest in innovative energy efficient homes or to retrofit existing housing stock? Housing type% total housing EF Existing housing stock98.7 New houses1.3

Housing types and energy consumption Housing type Energy consumption pattern Cardiff averageCardiff average consumption pattern 2002 regulationCardiff average consumption with slightly reduced energy consumption Eco-homeReduced consumption mainly due to technical efficiency improvements BedZEDClearly reduce consumption due to specific BedZED conditions

Footprint for housing types: buildings and energy use

Limited impacts Based on the local land use plan there is to be an 11.6% increase in dwellings If all new housing in Cardiff was built using the BedZED standard the EF of the total housing stock would reduce by 0.99%

Must not be distracted by eco-city development –The existing urban structure makes by far the biggest contribution to resource use –Eco-city makes only a modest contribution to overall development and to any individual citys development Need to promote lesson learning from eco- developments to existing urban infrastructure –Promote retro-fitting –Create opportunities for flexibility and redesign in the city Lessons

The Housing Ecological Footprint is only a relatively small part of the total EcologicalFootprint More important factors are –Food and drink –Domestic energy –Travel How we live our lives and the buildings in which we live our lives should be much better related –Need to link together our homes, how we travel to and from work, the foods we consume to produce more sustainable lifestyles Living more sustainable lifestyles applies to those who live in eco-cities and those in live in conventional city Final thoughts