How to expect the unexpected: Ciria’s ‘Infrastructure risk and resilience to natural hazards’ event

Genevieve Oller - Marketing Executive

On 18 September I attended Ciria’s infrastructure risk and resilience to natural hazards event, chaired by John Beckford (UCL) and including a host of speakers from the Cabinet Office, TfL, University of Oxford, John Dora Consulting and contributions to the panel discussion from Arup (who also hosted the event).

Tom Sutton of the Cabinet Office did a fantastic job of setting the scene on how the government currently thinks about and assesses risk to infrastructure. Whilst the event’s focus was on the risk of natural hazards, Tom reminded the audience that risk also extends to terrorism and an ageing population, amongst other factors. He made the point that if it’s happened somewhere once, it can be predicted (i.e. the data will exist) and someone somewhere will have already done the research. John Dora, another speaker at the event and a Temple associate, made the point that around 10 years ago research found that manhole covers in London were going to explode out of the ground, on account of historic under ground cabling and an increase in rainfall. Fast-forward a decade and the newspapers are full of stories about random manhole explosions, but how random were they?

Helen Woolston of TfL gave a highly engaging talk about their current asset management programme, which extends to 2031. She brought home the complexity of the job at hand, with many assets coming from the Victorian period. It was a reminder that in practice, whilst the research is out there to plan for future asset management, is it possible to implement it within such an extensive scheme?

John Dora of John Dora consulting’s solution for resilience of the UK’s infrastructure was ‘no regrets’ construction, therefore having resilience as a major aspiration from step one. This is something that is true of Temple’s working processes, through our work that embeds sustainability from the earliest possible stage of planning, leading to high CEEQUAL and BREEAM scores. John dug a little deeper by stating that one of the key things to obtaining this was education. He mentioned that only a very small number of engineering courses offer interdependency thinking as a module.

The event posed and answered serious questions about resilience of infrastructure to impending natural and man-made risks. It was interesting to find that things that seem so certain can have predictability to them if the research finds it’s way to the right people, but how does that happen? John stated that organisations such as Ciria and Engineering the Future could be the drivers of change. In the panel discussion several speakers mentioned the need for government to take notice, and that it is often once stories have hit the press that they do so (the case with the manhole covers). However, before there is a drastic change to how our media operates, perhaps it sits with individuals to properly circulate the key research papers. Temple is an advocate of sharing information; we hope that we can be a small part of this proposed solution.

Ciria’s next event is run in conjunction with Temple and is on the theme of community engagement, find further details here.

The sustainability of the financial system

Robert Slatcher - Principal Consultant

Everyone is very familiar with the three pillar concept of sustainability (environmental, social and economic). Given that the three pillars are intrinsically inter-connected it does raise the question as to why the economy is the often overlooked pillar.

Despite the recent financial crisis and subsequent global recession, there has been very little focus on the world economic system in the context of sustainability. Perhaps this is a consequence of the complexity of finance, and the fact that although we play an integral role within it, we very rarely see the inner workings or wish to understand how it all happens. It is much simpler to comprehend the process of exhausting non-renewable fuels or the concept of global temperatures increasing and affecting the climate we experience, than abstract concepts relating to the movement of money and wealth generation.

However, when the very basic principles of our economic systems are interrogated, it is possible to see a system that is at odds with the fundamental concept of sustainability.

How is money created?

To explain this requires a quick crash course in finance (a detailed description is provided by the Bank of England). Money is created by banks, initially by central banks (e.g. the Federal Reserve in the US or the European Central Bank) through various mechanisms. Once created, this money can be loaned out, and when loaned out it is done so with an attached rate of interest. This money usually goes to commercial banks to be loaned out again to individuals and business with an attached rate of interest. Commercial banks can also create money as they can issue loans to a greater value than the monetary reserves they hold. As such, a bank could loan out ten times the value of money they actually hold in reserve. The issues this can cause were covered in a 2013 comment piece in The Telegraph.  Once created, a loan counts as money, therefore banks can generate money from the reserve they hold - this is known as fractional reserve banking.

Now, if there is a finite pot of money in the world and the money originally generated by the central banks had a rate of interest attached to it - where does the money come from to pay that interest? The answer is nowhere, only banks can create money. So, to pay the interest, more money needs to be created. The amount of additional money required is made greater by the fact that commercial banks can create more money and more interest debt from the original pot of money. This reduces the value of money already in circulation and doesn’t solve the problem, as the newly created money also comes with interest. Fractional reserve banking is a very efficient method of creating additional money and therefore interest debt from an initial smaller pot of money.

So the basic principle of our global financial systems is a system that is always in debt and, as there is never enough money to pay the interest on debts, there will always be financial inequality. Somewhere someone is bearing the brunt of that shortfall.

Sustainable Growth

It is generally acknowledged that growth is essential but it should be sustainable. In other words, growth needs to happen at a rate that our global resources can maintain. However, in order to service an unrecoverable debt associated with interest on money generation, our rate of growth is focussed on servicing that debt. As such, our concept of growth is driven by the measure of financial sustainability rather than environmental and social sustainability.

Given this conflict between the three pillars, shouldn’t a greater focus be given towards economic sustainability? After all,  the inherent flaw in the economic  system is arguably a major barrier to achieving social and environmental sustainability?

River views from Temple

Erica Ward - Senior Consultant

Imagine a river full of life. A stream of barges, skiffs, punts, rowing boats and even the odd steamboat. This might have been the scene confronted by an onlooker to the Thames 200 years ago when this river was at the heart of our city economy. It is a far cry from today’s Thames riverscape.

I am lucky enough to have a prime riverside view from Temple's offices. When I am able to tear myself away from the computer screen, I like to contemplate the Thames's comings and goings. Apart from the tourist river cruises, the odd sailing boat in the summer and a few waste barges, however, the Thames often seems pretty empty. Any activity that is happening goes largely unnoticed, except during the occasional delay to traffic when Tower Bridge is raised, a brief reminder of London's momentous maritime past.

Even as a landlubber myself, I am frequently left wondering where all the boats and river life have gone. Why cannot this remarkable river, central to both the geography and our imaginings of London, be better used, for transport, industry and recreation? The potential for increasing transport by river seems particularly compelling, reducing congestion and improving the customer experience with travellers switching to the clipper rather than squeezing into a tube carriage. This is especially pertinant given population growth projections in London’s draft Infrastructure Plan 2050 of 37% from 2011 to 2050.

 

The low usage is partly due to the phenomenal success of roads and railways for transport and the rise of container shipping from the 1960s, which pushed the port of London downstream from the city. Remember also that the Thames, in comparison to many busier rivers, is a tidal river from Teddington Lock, so it is not always easily navigable.

Things are looking up, however. Last year TfL introduced its first River Action Plan. It sets out how we can double the number of passengers on the Thames to 12 million travellers a year by 2020.  Concrete actions include improvements to piers and their facilities, provision of new and more frequent routes and increasing the visibility, information and integration of river services. One could imagine an extension of this where the River Thames is seen as a fully integrated part of the transport system, where all piers have good transport connections with the network as a whole. The plan is not as ambitious as it could be – cost is one of the main barriers to increased commuting via the Thames, which is not subsidised to the same extent as other public transport. But it means that finally, after years of neglect, the Thames is receiving some attention as a transport resource to help keep London moving.

The Thames Tideway Tunnel, which was approved earlier this month, will also open up opportunities for new and revived uses as the water quality continues to improve. These could include fishing or even swimming, as suggested by the Thames Baths Project. This idea and more are enthusing Londoners and visitors at this year’s Thames Festival, Totally Thames, taking place throughout September 2014 on and around the Thames.

A Student's Temple

James Seddon - Intern

My contract with Temple began almost immediately after my summer exams at Southampton University. The previous year I’d spent 3 months in Germany working on turbo machines with Siemens and I was keen to try consulting work to broaden my horizons as to how my degree could be used professionally. Having studied Acoustical Engineering for three years, I hoped I’d be able to contribute to the noise team and learn new things and new ways of working.

I was reasonably sure that offices, for the most part, were the same worldwide: closed off boxes where different teams worked, each person with their own project, with a single leader interacting with the other teams. My first day proved that notion to be false. Having been shown around by Rachel, I could see that there was a strong sense of integration across all the teams and departments. Though the teams each had their own areas, they were working side-by side, rather than as separate modules and there were even instances where members of one team would help with work for another.

Right from the off I was given work to do, analysing data and reviewing Key Account data, allaying my original concern that I’d be given nothing to do, or making the proverbial coffee. Instead, over my three months I've been able to contribute to work for a number of the Noise team’s projects.

It has been an especially interesting challenge to learn VBA, the programming language behind Microsoft Office, in order to write a Macro to sort time sheet data into useable statistics. This was especially interesting in no small part because of my love for computers and programming.

Having had minimal experience in official report writing, I found that I was provided with some invaluable advice at Temple. This not helped with my work throughout my internship, but it will also help for my return to Southampton with regards to writing up my dissertation and Group Design Project. In addition, going over grammatical principles and good use of data was incredibly useful, as these were things that would be taken as read, even though they’re frequently misused in everyday speech and even in reports.

One of the things that surprised me was the way in which people interacted with regards to projects. Having worked in an office where people had made turbomachinery their livelihood and therefore didn't ever seem to need consultations. The people at Temple seem much more willing to make use of others to check work, generate ideas and otherwise make progress with work. Thinking on it, this type of discourse seems inevitable given the wide range and fluid workload consultants face on a regular basis.

I’ve also thoroughly enjoyed being able to understand how a company works. Having only seen snapshots form parents and lecturers, it’s been fascinating to look at the internal structure of Temple on its own and at the Temple Group structure, being a series of partnerships.

Overall, my time at Temple’s shown me the benefits of having larger teams with diverse backgrounds, as well as individually practical things such as report writing skills, analytical skills, as well as the ability to think more practically about noise and issues involving noise.

Offshore wind energy: will innovation be driven from constraints?

Eric Steltzer - Senior Consultant

In today’s modern world, we are constantly striving for progress. It is expected that lights will turn on when they are needed, trains will get people to their destinations quickly and mobile phones can access the latest facebook posts from even the most remote Munro peak. Progress is built on the bedrock of stable and secure infrastructure, which requires constant enhancement and renewal to meet our increasing demand. With a growing and shifting population and the need to site new infrastructure within a densely populated area like the UK, we are presented with a significant challenge.

The siting challenges in the energy sector are greater still. The Government is looking to reduce the cost of electricity in particular and last year passed the Electricity Market Reform measures which strives to provide the financial security required to raise capital to fund projects ‘off the books’. At the European level we are also seeing leaders working to develop a framework to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. Our energy market will need to site new types of infrastructure which have greater security, lower carbon intensities and minimise costs.

My interest in environmental planning of infrastructure projects originated in 2001 when an offshore wind project was proposed in the waters near Cape Cod, Massachusetts U.S.A. This area had been my playing ground growing up and I have a special attachment to it from my days of catching striped bass from its waters. The project interested me because it was the first time I experienced like-minded environmental groups pitted against each other with claims of how the project would mar the ocean views, or that it would solve all of our climate change concerns. These comments revealed less about the actual benefits or impacts of the project, and more about the deep values people held for the natural resources of the sound.

While the project in Massachusetts is an ocean away, the public sentiment towards renewable energy projects and the requirements for rigorous environmental assessments are common place here in the UK. The public consent process grapples with questions about noise impacts, disruption to protected wildlife species, or the effects on housing prices. These factors can constrain the siting of these needed services and drive up costs for the whole industry. Public consultation features strongly in the consent process and Temple are running a training course on it in early December.

The offshore renewable energy market will face considerable constraints on growth from finding suitable locations. At the same time the Crown Estate has an ambitious goal to have 10GW of electricity capacity by the year 2020, a tripling of the current capacity. The cumulative impact assessments have been a focus in the industry as a greater number of sites are approved. This combination of market need with significant constraints present fertile ground for innovation and UK ingenuity.

Innovation in setting the boundaries of the development of the technology can help protect the environment whilst ensuring that we can deliver the infrastructure that we all need. At the RenewableUK annual conference in Manchester on 11-13 November, I will be presenting on environmental economic methods that can gauge people’s value for the marine environment, such as ocean views. It will hopefully produce a lively discussion on the merits to these techniques and whether it can add value to current methodologies.

This innovation challenge presents big questions. How will the market respond to the Contracts for Difference (CfD) mechanism in the EMR? Is £100/MWh by 2020 achievable for offshore wind? Can wave and tidal energy technologies become financially viable for wider commercial use? Is a European super grid possible? 

These questions intrigue me. Similar to the environmentalists who are pitted against each other in Massachusetts, it is the underlying values I find so important: creating jobs for people in the UK; protecting our environment; and supporting affordable energy for vulnerable populations. These are common core goals behind the questions, and they are goals that few people oppose. It is through these common values that we can find mutual partnerships to overcome hurdles, and drive new insights to accomplish our joint aspirations.

Sailing towards a circular economy

Martin Gibson - Head of Operations

The around the world clipper ship race recently finished, with the boats mooring in the St Katharine Docks, just outside our offices. The boats themselves don’t look very comfortable for such a long voyage but they certainly bring out a camaraderie and sense of purpose in their crews. The crews, in case you don’t know, are made up of people with a range of backgrounds. They come together for different reasons but with a common purpose.

The Clipper ships stop at a number of ports in their circumnavigation of the world. This allows them to restock with provisions. When Ellen MacArthur circumnavigated the world without stopping, she had to load up with all of the things that she needed for the entire voyage. This approach focussed Ellen’s thinking about what she actually needed; seeing the analogy with mankind’s use of resources on Earth. After her triumphant, record-breaking solo trip of the globe, Ellen put her understanding of the importance of resources to wider use, setting up the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Natural systems are dominated by cycles which we have come to understand over thousands of years. Some of these are driven by short term temporal fluctuations: the cycle of the seasons driven by Earth’s rotation around the sun. Other cycles have more complex drivers; the water cycle, for example, is influenced by seasons but also works over longer timescales as it describes the movement of water between the oceans, atmosphere, rivers, the ground and living systems. The carbon cycle describes the flow of carbon and includes its various forms, such as the gas CO₂ and solids in oil and calcium carbonate.

Since the industrial revolution, human activities haven’t usually followed cycles. Instead, they have been based on extraction, followed by manufacturing, use and disposal: the ‘take – make – use – discard’ linear process. Natural systems can cope with this up to a point without being unduly perturbed. Unfortunately, with so many people driving the use of so many resources and the production of so much waste, we have now affected many natural cycles and the consequences are far reaching.  It is true that over the last 25 years or so, there has been a trend towards recycling and reuse, although this was often driven initially by the need to reduce waste going to landfill. The circular economy approach takes this a lot further.

By ignoring natural cycles rather than working with them, we are warming the planet, reducing biodiversity and could threaten the ability of humans to have a high quality of life. In case you think this is just the view of someone with a professional environmental interest, you might want to take a look at what the MoD has to say about the environment in its strategic outlook up to 2045.

The recognition of the sense and benefits of working in a circular economy is growing. Business (as is often the case on critical environmental matters) is leading the way. I’d recommend you read Andrew Kinsey’s article on how it relates to the construction industry. Government also recognises the importance of the approach, helped NGO’s such as the Green Alliance. The ‘Turquoise Cities’ approach that we have developed at Temple also factors in the circular economy and we have used it to help assess the London Infrastructure Plan 2050.

Of course, going from recognition to changing things is unlikely to be an easy process. In our linear economy, we make purchasing decisions based on what we need in our part of the chain. Somehow we need to influence what the supply chain should be and then purchase and use things accordingly. It is hard, however, to buy things that aren’t yet available and to pass on a used resource if there is no-one who wants it.
Like those clipper ship crews, we can do a lot more than we might think if we have a common purpose. The first step is often to think differently about something. So, next time you see a sailing ship, think what decisions you can make to align the world economy with natural resource cycles, then do it!

London 2050 sets big ambitions but will it achieve a resilient capital?

Chris Fry - Director

 

The Infrastructure Plan 2050 for London was released for consultation this month. The draft plan is to be welcomed as it goes a long way to articulating the macro trends that will drive very significant changes in London’s infrastructure needs through the second half of this century and well beyond. There is no reason to doubt that London will remain an extremely attractive place to live and work and so, population growth by 37% to around 11 million, is a fundamental point. In addition, economic growth, London’s visitor population and a changing climate are also not to be underestimated as drivers of change.

Growth on this scale, of course, presents many challenges for planning, delivering and funding the new and upgraded infrastructure for London. Equally, there are clear opportunities both commercially to build and run new kinds of infrastructure assets and also for communities themselves to harness infrastructure to help to shape places that really work for communities.

The draft plan is out to consultation until 31 October. The coming weeks should see an important, healthy and, at times, probably pretty lively debate about some of the questions and potential answers that it poses. To contribute to this debate we are using the four elements of our turquoise cities and infrastructure concept to reflect on the mosaic of changes that the draft plan might lead to. You can learn more about the turquoise cities concept here. We have looked at what we think will be two equally important dimensions: strategic intent and deliverability on the ground. Our overall reflections are set out below and will be followed up in September and October with a deeper look at different elements. 

The overall strength of the draft plan against the four elements (Liveable & Usable, Water & Climate Resilient, Harnessing Environmental Systems and Innovation Enabled) is illustrated on the grid below. By way of orientation, the top right corner of the grid is the utopian place where the strategic intent and deliverability are performing at the highest level. The grid shows an aggregated view and, most importantly, is intended to help to focus productive dialogue on how the plan could achieve even more.

The draft plan is grounded by the idea that London should become “a better city in which to live, not just a bigger one”. It also recognises some of London’s greatest existing weaknesses in relation to providing liveable places and usable infrastructure such as the shortage of affordable housing that provides access to places of work and over-crowding on our trains and tubes. The links between economic prosperity, competitiveness and quality of life are recognised by the draft plan which signals the role of a collaborative approach to infrastructure provision and the contribution of green infrastructure in achieving them.  It is though hard to argue that the draft plan yet acknowledges or offers a framework to deal with all of the quality of life issues from the city scale to communities and individual infrastructure projects such as topical, cumulative issues including local air pollution and background noise.

In relation to water and climate resilience, the draft plan recognises the need for a joined up approach to water resources and flood risk management. It also considers the potential role for green infrastructure in relation to the urban heat island effect. However, planning for infrastructure needs in 2050 essentially means considering resilience for conditions well into the 22nd Century and beyond. And here, the draft plan does not yet appear to have the strategic ambition, nor the range of mechanisms, that will enable London to grapple with the complex challenges of safeguarding London’s resilience. In many ways this should not be a surprise as a truly cross-industry discussion on this topic is only just coming together as illustrated in this year’s BASE London hosted by the City of London.

In stating that “green infrastructure should be considered vital to the capital’s economy” green infrastructure gets a major speaking part in the draft plan, if not the role of lead actor/actress. London is well placed to harness environmental systems through its green lungs (public parks) and blue arteries (the Thames and its tributaries) and the draft plan identifies other cities from Copenhagen to Chicago that should inspire our future green infrastructure plans. Some new delivery mechanisms for this agenda are also identified such as a city network and the establishment of a Green Infrastructure Task Force.

In relation to the final turquoise cities element, the draft plan sets out a clear intention that London and its infrastructure should be innovation enabled. Using data better and more openly, mobile connectivity, integrating systems and providing leadership via a smart London board are all outlined. New ways of working are also introduced, for example, by introducing new practices and technologies that will significantly increase the reuse of materials moving towards a circular economy.

The first consultation question asks “Do you agree with the need for an infrastructure plan for the capital?” to which I would expect the response to be a resounding “Yes” given London’s importance in the UK and as a leading globally competitive city. That I believe is the easy question. In terms of what, where, how and who pays we look forward to the debate during the plan’s consultation period and beyond. Comments and views on the ideas presented here are warmly welcomed.