Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/S011501/1
A Sustainable Business Model for Enabling Sustainable Development in the Built Environment
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor J Sadler, University of Birmingham, Sch of Geography, Earth & Env Sciences
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor AJ Scott, Northumbria University, Fac of Engineering and Environment
- Grant held at:
- University of Birmingham, Sch of Geography, Earth & Env Sciences
- Science Area:
- Atmospheric
- Freshwater
- Marine
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Unknown
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Global Change
- Natural Resource Management
- Science Topics:
- Environmental Planning
- Spatial Planning
- Urban Design
- Abstract:
- Planning successful urban environments face significant strategic challenges including reconciling diverse and contested needs and demands associated with public health, water management, housing, economic growth, biodiversity and climate change. However, these challenges are often diagnosed, planned, delivered and evaluated within separate sectoral silos leading to policy inefficiency, and frequent duplication. Green infrastructure (GI) has been championed as a spatial planning tool with the potential to integrate these major planning challenges within more holistic social-ecological systems thinking. The development and publication of the Natural Capital Planning Tool (NCPT) has provided a welcomed tool enabling planning authorities and other end-users to meaningfully assess the impact of new plans and developments on natural capital and ecosystem services. During our extensive end-user engagement as part of the NERC-funded innovation project (NE/N017587/1) we also explored a range of opportunities that are likely to significantly increase more widespread uptake of the NCPT and therefore impact and benefits. Recent developments such as the update of Natural England's Biodiversity Offsetting scheme, the ongoing development of Natural England's Eco-metric approach and the release of the NERC-funded Building with Nature standard offer great opportunity spaces for tool harmonisation and the exploitation of synergies as these tools and approaches all have the opportunity to complement each other to enable sustainable development in the built environment. Given the positive feedback from several partners we expect that there is sufficient market potential for a commercialised NCPT version. However, we need 'hard' evidence which is independently verified for a compelling business case. We are seeking NERC Follow-on Pathfinder funding to support our NERC Follow-on funding application. After discussions with an established market research consultancy, we were advised that a series of interviews with existing and potential end-users would be the best way to capture and quantify the market potential for a commercialised NCPT version. We will secure quotes from at least three different market research consultancies for undertaking the following work: 1. Development of a market research questionnaire, 2. Running at least 40 interviews with Local Planning Authorities in England, Wales and Scotland which we believe offer the biggest market potential, 3. Running at least 20 interviews with potential end-users from industry such as major private sector developers, infrastructure providers such as National Rail and Highways England; and mayor land managers such as the National Trust, 4. Analysis of the results to assess the overall market potential for a commercialised NCPT across England, Wales and Scotland, and 5. Provision of a short summary report of the findings within 6 weeks of project start which we will attach to our potential Follow-on application. 6. Helping with the development of the questionnaire for the interviews, and 7. By providing contacts of existing and potential end-users from our project partnership and newsletter subscribers. We will use the findings of the market research to determine the viability of a commercialised NCPT version. A commercial NCPT needs to generate at least enough income to allow ongoing administration and maintenance. The market research will also give us a better idea if end-user demand for the NCPT is sufficiently high in Wales and Scotland, outside the area where it was tested. In addition to the independent market research, we will also develop and run a short survey with existing NCPT users to explore which additional product features and improvements should be prioritised. The nature of the commercially sensitive information means we will carry out this work ourselves, consulting a smaller group of trusted case study partners.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/S011501/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Innovation
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Follow on Fund Pathfinder
This grant award has a total value of £9,293
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DA - Investigators | DA - Estate Costs | DI - T&S | DA - Other Directly Allocated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £7,016 | £598 | £1,141 | £131 | £403 | £4 |
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