“It’s Material - The Pod” is a space to hear from people who are working in creative ways to advance new directions in the built environment, cities, and the economy.
In this episode, Annabel speaks with Alejandra Rivera of Urban Matters. We discuss the vast potential of cities in enabling social and environmental change, the political and economic obstacles that often stand in the way, and inspirational examples of how these obstacles are already being overcome.
We explore recent work through the built environment program at Institute for Human Rights and Business, including:
The “Building for Today and the Future” global project on just transitions in the built environment. It looked at how climate action (relating to energy, materials, and resilience) in eight cities’ built environments is impacting the right to housing, construction workers’ rights, the right to meaningful participation, and spatial justice. The cities are Athens, Copenhagen, Jakarta, Lagos, Lisbon, Melbourne, Prague and Valparaiso.
The major differences in per capita CO2 emissions across those 8 cities.
Examples of community-led approaches to climate action, from Belgium, to Bangladesh, and beyond.
And the “Building Transformation StoryMap” a partnership between IHRB and It’s Material sharing stories of new economic thinking and action in the built environment.
It was complete coincidence we both wore green shirts to record this!
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