Arup Global Research Challenge: Delivering green infrastructure in cities through a new business model

Globally, green infrastructure is recognised as an important tool that can address a range of interwoven benefits in urban areas such as: reducing flood risk, reducing urban heat island effects, reducing water pollution, improving air quality, reducing noise, providing amenity provision and well-being. The challenges these benefits address are projected to intensify in the context of climate change and urban population growth. The potential to achieve these benefits is made difficult by the traditional models for delivering green infrastructure and complexities such as: understanding who benefits and hence who pays; valuing the benefits; the appropriate spatial scale for implementation; incentives and enforcement for its implementation and maintenance; and how its delivery interacts with existing infrastructure in urban areas.

Here we aim to identify, investigate and pilot tangible design, funding, implementation and operating models for green infrastructure which can be replicated or adapted internationally. An initial review of funding and delivery mechanism for green infrastructure will be undertaken from an academic and practitioners' viewpoint, drawing upon a range of literature sources. Simultaneously, laneways in Melbourne deemed suitable for 'greening' will be co-designed and implemented with local communities. An evaluation of the potential multiple benefits of laneways in the Melbourne will include social, economic and environmental benefits. An example of how these benefits can be quantified will be conducted in the context of flood risk by coupling Newcastle University's pluvial flood risk model of Melbourne that can illustrate the flood mitigation effect of green infrastructure with ARUP's economic tool, Floodlite. Stakeholder mapping of the beneficiaries, coupled with a conceptual map of how benefits flow, will inform the proposal of alternative business models for funding the delivery of laneways. These various elements will then be brought together to inform the development of a digital community funding platform for green infrastructure; this will be complimented by a set of recommendations and non-technical summary guide to green infrastructure funding. The process will be repeatable and transferable to enable communities to support green infrastructures in their neighbourhoods.

Joint funding from NERC and Arup (through their Global Research Challenge fund) will bring together teams from the scientific, government and practitioner communities and enable them to integrate the range of skills required to deliver this work.

The mechanism of funding green infrastructure is a key inhibitor to its widespread implementation in cities. Development of a platform that identifies the main benefits and beneficiaries of the wide range of economic, social and economic values of green infrastructure, coupled with the development of appropriate approaches of funding will have widespread impact. The project will capture the wider range of values and benefits of green infrastructure and help identify and unlock funding and financing opportunities for GI, demonstrated using the green laneways of Melbourne. Furthermore, recognising and unlocking the full potential social and environmental benefits of GI, such as access to green areas for recreation or reduced air pollution will lead to improvements in health and well-being of communities. In the UK, the National Assessment of Ecosystem Services noted that because of these and other benefits, the value of living near green infrastructure is as much as £300 per person per year.

The unique, transferable platform for testing alternative funding mechanisms for green infrastructure may be used as a template for future green infrastructure projects that may be initiated by communities, local authorities or businesses at a range of spatial scales. The design and implementation of a qualitative in depth evaluation of the prototype green infrastructure project through interviews and consultation with project officers and other stakeholders in Melbourne, will be critical in order to collate individual experiences and derive learnings from the process of implementation. The learnings will be expected to be widely applicable and will allow refinement and validation of the conceptual framing of identifying the wide range of benefits and beneficiaries. Furthermore the evaluation will result in recommendations that can improve the transferable model and make it more applicable to be applied globally as well as understanding the specific circumstances in Melbourne.