The Wellcome Collection Exhibition In the Air explores the relationship we have with the air around us. The curators highlight that it is vital to our existence and equally a threat to our health, a topic that UKGBC members discussed over breakfast.
Participants debated how the built environment sector could address urban air quality through a Net Zero Carbon development programme and shift to sustainable modes of transport: a poignant point given the venues’ location on the busy and highly polluted Euston Road. Increased use of PV to generate on site electricity could be part of the solution, however this highlighted the issue of modern-day slavery in the production process of panels and raised the need to think holistically about how we design, source and construct buildings.
Historic industrialisation gains in the UK give the country a head start in the path to Net Zero and raised a question of whether growth or global equality would be better for our wellbeing. Air has no borders.
