Blake Robinson, who heads up SI Projects, recently presented our work on the resource requirements of future urbanization (REFURB) at the World Resources Forum in Cost Rica. Herewith his notes about the experience:
From Blake Robinson:
I was recently invited by UNEP to present on our team’s urban resource work at the World Resources Forum’s Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) conference, which was held in conjunction with the annual International Sustainable Building Congress in San Jose, Costa Rica. The event was organised by the Green Building Council of Costa Rica, the World Resources Forum and UNEP, and brought together experts from different backgrounds to discuss sustainable cities and lifestyles in Latin America and the Caribbean. On Wednesday 18 May, I presented alongside Mauricio Leon from the University of Minnesota and Marije van Lidth de Jeude and Oliver Schuette from A-01 at a workshop entitled “Understanding the metabolism of cities: opportunities for city-level decoupling”. My presentation, entitled “Urban Resource Flows and the Governance of Infrastructure Transitions“, provided a summary of the City-level Decoupling report that was done for the IRP and an overview of our progress to date on its successor, the Refurb report (both commissioned by the International Resource Panel). It was my first presentation to a LAC audience, and I was encouraged by their interest in the content which a number of participants commented on as being fresh and of relevance to their contexts. I also presented the “GI-REC Resource Efficiency Toolkit” on Friday 20 May at an expert meeting organised by UNEP entitled “Life Cycle Thinking and urban metabolism in cities: opportunities and linkages”. Following other presentations by experts in life cycle assessment – Jim Fava from Thinkstep, Arnold Tukker from Leiden University and Mauricio Leon from UMN – we broke into group discussions about LCA, the draft GI-REC toolkit and its applicability to cities. Although the toolkit did not explicitly include LCA, I was pleased to observe that the logic of our approach is congruent with LCA and other approaches to urban resource assessment, and I appreciated the acknowledgement from some of the top experts in the field that the draft toolkit that we have been developing since 2013 is on the right track.
It was a privilege to represent our team from the southern tip of Africa at such a prestigious event in such a beautiful location on the other side of the globe. Costa Rica is in many ways a paradise on earth, and we have a lot to learn from their peaceful way of life, high adult literacy rates and institutionalised respect for nature. On a professional level, it was rewarding to receive affirmation that what we are working on is meaningful and relevant to multiple contexts. This was evident in the host city San Jose, which experiences a number of similar challenges to South African cities due to its urban form. I really enjoyed interacting with participants from a great diversity of countries, and (although I need to work on my Spanish) I look forward to further engagement with them in future.
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