CABE - the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment - is the Government's advisor on architecture, design and public space. CABE stands for "an improvement in people's quality of life through good design." Set up in 1999, CABE "influences and inspires the people making decisions about our built environment, so that they choose good design. www.cabe.org.uk

Stella Bland joined CABE after working for three years with Jonathon Porritt at Forum for the Future, the sustainable development charity. She previously worked for the Environment Agency, Citizens Advice and in private PR and fundraising consultancy.

CABE says: 'The climate crisis is largely a crisis of design and planning.' Please explain.

"It's a crisis of design because in the built environment, design is the key decision making process. At the strategic level, it creates the vision for places. At a more detailed level, it describes how we want them to work, look and feel. When buildings and places are properly designed, they can support sustainable lifestyles.

"The built environment accounts for around half of the UK's carbon emissions, but cutting carbon is as much about how people live their lives as much as how they live in their homes. Which is why we think the answer lies in quality of place.

"People responsible for planning, designing, constructing and managing urban environments have a crucial role to play. Unfortunately too little is being done at the right scale, or the right speed. At CABE we review 350 of the most significant development proposals in England each year. So we know there are only a handful of sizeable housing schemes and masterplans on the drawing board and in planning which could be described as being truly designed for sustainability. Yet these are the schemes being built out in the next five to ten years."

Where do carbon reduction and sustainability stand in CABE's list of priorities?

"Sustainable design is an integral part of good design. It means thinking about resources in the round, not only carbon reduction.

"We believe low carbon design about re-invention and making places more desirable to live in, not self-denial. What CABE won't ever back is what you might call a Soviet approach - say identifying the five most energy efficient materials and insisting on their use. This could lead to a highly managed, low carbon but ugly environment. How would our architectural heritage look wrapped up in rock wool? Would it even look English? There is a way to avoid running this risk - taking a fully sustainable overview when designing places and buildings.

"We are putting a lot of faith in cities right now - they have the right levers and the resources to move to a very low carbon footing. We have just run a climate change festival with Birmingham City Council to generate a public mandate for the changes they need to make in terms of public space, energy generation and transport."

Which major elements of government policy have been influenced by CABE?

"Getting the design agenda reflected in the new planning system. We've worked closely with Communities and Local Government on PPS3, which sets out planning policy for new housing developments - a major sustainability issue.

"When the Government's Sustainable Construction Strategy was being developed, we broadened it to include building and urban design issues rather than simply technological ones.

"And we're pleased that Building for Life, the criteria we have developed as the assessment benchmark for housing developments, is being adopted as the measure by which local authorities report to government on the design quality of the housing they deliver."

How does CABE directly help private and public institutions to produce a low-carbon environment?

"Our contribution is promoting inspirational design for sustainability. We do this through sharing best practice (see the case studies on www.cabe.org.uk); through acting as a champion for the demand side; and through advising those who are commissioning buildings, spaces and places. We provide support and guidance to clients responsible for public schemes from hospitals and arts buildings to schools. We also run design competitions, and get involved with built environment education."

How will the current economic climate impact on the fight for a low-carbon environment?

"Some people fear that design will suffer with the downturn. It may have the reverse effect - the last houses to sell will be badly designed ones. With the price of oil rising, you won't want to invest in a home which costs a lot to heat, and you will want to avoid car dependency by choosing somewhere with local facilities and decent public transport.

"And the economic downturn may be good news for programmes like Building Schools for the Future, the Government's £45 billion initiative to rebuild or refurbish secondary schools. BSF has suddenly become a significant potential revenue stream for many designers and contractors because it represents consistent, reliable public expenditure, so we are seeing better architects at work on schemes, and more priority from the construction sector. Early scheme designs have been largely unimpressive and better quality will make that whole new generation of schools far less resource intensive to run."

The Commission has been critical of some private developers: why?

"Our last housing audit in found that four out of five new houses were shortchanging consumers in terms of design quality. 29 per cent was so poor it should not have been given planning permission. The government has made it very clear what it expects: build zero carbon homes, which means throwing out the redundant standard products and the poor site layouts of the last 30 years

"Developers need to recognise that planning consent and commercial success will increasingly depend on their ability to deliver well designed homes. Otherwise taxpayers incur a long term invoice each time a badly designed estate goes up. Last year, CABE lauded a new housing development on Selwyn Street in Oldham. It's a great piece of design. But the housing it replaced was only built in 1986. It's disturbing to think about the carbon cost from rebuilding a scheme so many years ahead of schedule."

Is there agreement about exactly what constitutes a 'zero-carbon' home or public building?

"Zero carbon for all energy use is good in that encourages developers to overhaul their building techniques rather than tinker round the edges. However, very low carbon homes and neighbourhoods and public buildings should also be low waste, low water, high biodiversity, with local services. You need to take into account both the carbon and the ecological footprint of the shared services and shared infrastructure required.

"All this goes way beyond how buildings are built or how they perform. Our carbon footprint reflects how we travel to work, how we shop, where our friends are. The main carbon savings at BedZed were made through the car club."

What do you consider to be the Commission's leading low-carbon achievement and why?

"Activity which is front of mind right now is the climate change festival we ran with Birmingham. (Call it pioneering - we don't know yet how many will follow the lead). It was interesting to try to turn the debate about climate change on its head, and to give a platform for bold local authority leadership based on the promise from very low carbon living rather than the threats from climate change.

"The message was that very low carbon towns and cities will be more beautiful, more sociable, greener and healthier places, and more economically competitive and prosperous as well. A sunny Sunday saw a large crowd learning t'ai chi in a Birmingham square. It felt like a very good place to start seeing your city through new eyes."

What are the major obstacles to achieving the Commission's aims?

"There needs to be more clarity out there about what good design actually means. We still get asked "isn't good design just subjective?". As if what is being talked about is architectural style - who's for colourful contemporary housing, who's for vernacular?

"You could walk around any housing estate and compare it against our 20 practical Building for Life criteria and your judgement of its design quality will be much the same as a professional assessor. Is it a place with character, well laid out streets, plenty of space inside the home and easy access to local services outside it? Much of it comes down to common sense, and relearning lost arts. (Just like sustainable building in many ways)."

What are you working on right now?

"The focus on green infrastructure and public space, which has always been central to CABE's work to improve urban design, is developing in all kinds of interesting ways. Everyone recognises the beauty and recreational value of open space, but there is a widespread failure to capitalize on the "nuts and bolts" services which green spaces, wildlife, trees or watercourses deliver to urban environments. So green assets rarely feature in strategic thinking when looking at economic regeneration and competitiveness. We are working on research and a conference in the spring, to turn that thinking around.

"Another big project for us is a website being developed by CABE and Urban Practitioners working with the English core cities. It addresses an acknowledged gap in thinking about cities as spatially connected, complex systems. The website will identify, explain and prioritise the issues that cities can control and influence through strategic urban design and management to make the city (region) better able to respond to climate change."

A Helping Hand For Business – The CBI Climate Change Board

The CBI’s Climate Change Task Force launched its report Climate Change: Everyone’s Business in November 2007 setting out the need for the UK to invest now to tackle climate change, allowing us to benefit from a low carbon economy in the future.

Less than a year on and the picture may seem very different. Oil prices have increased significantly, nearing $150 a barrel, and the economy has slowed, leading to talk of recession. You might think that businesses would be thinking again about tackling climate change. However, high oil prices have focused attention on energy efficiency and could give an indication as to the market effect of a price for carbon in the future. The cost curve analysis by McKinsey for the CBI report showed that there are many abatement technologies which could be taken up at a net economic benefit to the UK and the current economic climate only makes the case stronger.

Understanding how individual technologies can contribute to the UK reducing its carbon emissions and the scale and speed of uptake needed is key to ensuring that we are on course to meet our long term target of 60% reduction by 2050. The CBI report identified four key areas for potential additional abatement: buildings, energy, transport and industrial processes. These are the areas where we will be concentrating our efforts initially to make sure that the UK is prepared to invest in the technologies and skills required to deliver carbon reduction.

A new source of support and guidance

Businesses are looking to identify their own quick wins, but many will need help in understanding how to get there. Providing leadership for UK businesses on climate change is why the CBI has committed to taking forward the report recommendations in a comprehensive work programme to be overseen by a Climate Change Board, chaired by Ben Verwaayen. The work programme will not only make sure that suitable policies are in place to prepare the UK for a low carbon future and the effects of climate change, but will also establish a framework for helping businesses to reduce their own carbon emissions.

The companies which sit on the Climate Change Board have already made a range of commitments to reduce their carbon emissions, but we are looking to make it easier for other companies to follow suit. Establishing a suitable framework for corporate carbon reporting will be crucial, and we see this as best achieved outside the Climate Change Bill. We will be looking to build on initiatives such as the Carbon Trust Standard to make sure that reporting delivers for both business and Government. Reporting is the first step for companies to understand their carbon footprint and to prioritise their means of reducing it.

Two areas for significant abatement potential for companies will be in relation to cars and buildings. The Climate Change Board member companies have already committed to bettering the Government’s own targets in these areas and we will be looking to export good practice in these areas to a wide range of UK businesses. We will also be helping companies to engage their employees in reducing their own carbon footprint and to bring forward low carbon products and services to help the consumer at large.

Collaboration is the cornerstone

The role of Government is important to support business by providing direction, appropriate fiscal incentives and a suitable regulatory environment. Public procurement, for example, is an effective means of pulling new technologies through to commercialisation. Many innovative businesses are frustrated at the lack of clarity of the environmental objectives of public procurers and at high levels of risk aversion which prohibit the uptake of new technologies, especially in highly regulated sectors. Fiscal measures are also important in directing how companies invest in low carbon initiatives. We will be looking at the current system in more detail to make recommendations as to how the system could perform better.

Regulation is also a key driver for business, but where it is poorly designed or implemented it can also act as a barrier. Understanding what businesses need from regulation and identifying overlapping or conflicting regulatory objectives is important for gearing the UK up to meet national and international climate change commitments. The cornerstone is enabling a realistic price for carbon to drive low carbon investment and the current means for moving towards this is through the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). ETS can deliver certainty for business and emissions reductions, but only if it is able to recognise where genuine competitiveness issues exist and to function within an international carbon market. The CBI has been fully engaged in discussions on Phase III of the ETS, but we are conscious of the need to put this in the context of an international agreement on climate change.

Finally, although we are focused on moving the UK towards a low carbon economy, we are also mindful of the implications for business of changes to the UK climate including more extreme weather events. Last year’s floods showed the damage that can occur to homes, businesses and infrastructure and we need to understand how to plan for and mitigate this in the future.

Despite the economic downturn, businesses cannot afford to be diverted from the move towards a low carbon economy, as Stern showed delaying action will lead only to increased costs. Putting the UK in pole position to make the most of its technology and skills is vital, and understanding how business can contribute is the mandate of the CBI Climate Change Board.

The CBI's mission is to help create and sustain the conditions in which businesses in the United Kingdom can compete and prosper for the benefit of all. It is the premier lobbying organisation for UK business on national and international issues, working with the UK government, international legislators and policy-makers to help UK businesses compete effectively.