21 INTRODUCTION : REVIEW AND ANALYSIS UNPACKING ‘SUSTAINABILITY’ IN 1987 the United Nations’ report Our Common Future defined sustainable development as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. The report drew particular attention to the needs of the world’s poor, arguing for social equity both from one generation to the next and within the current one. Today, a slightly longer version in common use defines it as fulfilling the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations, ‘while ensuring a balance between economic growth, environmental care and social well-being’. All three factors – economic sustainability, environmental sustainability and social wellbeing – co-exist independently, so a model that is economically sustainable may still be harmful environmentally. It is therefore confusing to find some people referring to these factors as the three pillars of sustainability, as if everything that promoted social well being would also be sustainable generally. In the heritage sector too there are very different meanings attached to the term sustainability. In particular, the idea of allowing buildings to be adapted to suit new uses has always been seen as sustainable in that people and businesses will continue to occupy the buildings and maintain them, long after the original purpose of the building has been lost. From a heritage perspective, sympathetic conversion enables us to hand down redundant buildings as heritage assets. However, the adaptation and conversion of existing buildings is sustainable from an environmental perspective too, in that the retention and reuse of the existing fabric avoids the need to manufacture and transport new building materials, reducing the need to put more greenhouse gases into the environment and to extract more materials. However, if the carbon saved in the short term is then exceeded in the long term because the old building needs far more energy year-on-year to heat and cool it, then the project would not satisfy the UN requirement for ‘sustainable development’. On the other hand, if insulation and the use of renewable energy are part of the mix, the reused building would clearly have a huge headstart on the new-build equivalent, and it would be difficult to argue that the new build met the criteria for sustainable development. We need to look at all issues holistically, avoiding the dogmatic adherence to one meaning of sustainability when others are using another. Social equity was considered in the UN report to be one of the key drivers for sustainable development. ‘Even the narrow notion of physical sustainability implies a concern for social equity between generations, a concern that must logically be extended to equity within each generation.’ Globally, this means that the wealthiest nations should be supporting the development of renewable energy generation, battery storage, carbon capture and other key technologies, as well as the infrastructure improvements required where climate change is already having a devastating impact through floods, famines and other natural disasters. Within countries like the UK it also favours a levelling up approach, using urban regeneration initiatives and grant aid to target redundant buildings and adapt them to new uses, while upgrading their performance as much as is practically possible without harming them. Many of these issues are explored in the articles that follow. Two of them take a global perspective with ‘Climate Change Connections’ outlining an initiative by English Heritage with the World Monuments Fund to establish a network of coastal heritage sites around the world threatened by climate change to share best practice. The Journey to Sustainability outlines current research initiatives in Britain and Ireland, and Circus Eruption illustrates the overlap between social well being and environmental sustainability, where a disused church was brought back into community use. Jonathan Taylor is the co-editor of this year’s Yearbook. Sustainable development in East London: when The Lord Napier, Hackney Wick was rescued from semi-dereliction and retrofitted by ZCD Architects, the work not only saved the building but, as noted in the 2023 AJ Retrofit awards, it also restored a community hub. (Photo: Aysha Taylor)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgyMjA=