Event 310
Planet Assembly 8: Where and how we live – What Must Change?
Thought Laboratory
– The Hive
Bring your best ideas to this solutions-focused workshop session. Facilitated by sustainability entrepreneur Andy Middleton, Chief Exploration Officer at the TYF Group, and joined by Ian Goldin, author of Age of the City, we’ll look at the key issue of where and how we live. We’ll discuss the scale of the issue and a range of solutions, how to action them, how they might impact on their lives and how to manage the change.
Our cities cover 3% of the Earth’s surface area, and more than half of the planet’s people already live in them. Pressures are rising as cities consume up to 80% of global energy and produce 75% of the world’s carbon emissions. Rural communities have their own challenges relating to depopulation, lack of access to services and natural disasters. Urban conurbations are where sustainability, climate and biodiversity ambitions have the greatest impact, but they can only do that if rural communities thrive too. How can we reimagine the relationship between place, prosperity and the wellbeing of future generations? How fast and decisively can we change?
This workshop is part of our Hay Festival Planet Assembly, a daily, inclusive conversation over ten days involving lay people, scientists, commentators and experts. We want to empower everyone to be accelerators and multipliers for the dramatic policy transformations that are needed immediately to tackle the acute climate and biodiversity emergencies.
