Sensible City’s Weblog

Just when you think that the “mainstream media” isn’t paying attention to the real environmental issues, they run two headline global stories on Ecocities. When we took on the Ecocity World Summit as a client, there was concern about whether or not we could get big media to pay attention. But as the worlds largest and only significant global gathering of ecocity pioneers approaches, ecocity thinking is rising fast in world consciousness. Below you can get CNN’s take on two of the Summit’s major contributors.

[ Building The Future ]

LONDON, England (CNN) — It’s easy to overlook the impact buildings have on greenhouse gas emissions, but the places where we live and work contribute over 30 percent of global greenhouse emissions.

An artist’s impression of how the Dongtan eco-city will look like when it is completed. The first stage is due to open in 2010.

Although the term “green architecture” was only coined about 20 years ago, architects have been embracing environmental or sustainable design for decades.

Today, architects are transforming our urban landscapes in ways which were previous unimaginable. Aided by cutting edge design and construction techniques, the bold new structures of today owe much to the techniques used by pre and early industrial pioneers. [Read this article]

And Peter Head was given his own profile, talking about his work in Dongtan.

[ Future Player: Peter Head ]

(CNN) — Peter Head is Director of urban design and development at Arup, the global design and business consulting firm.

Peter Head, of global design and business consulting firm Arup, is a noted pioneer of sustainable development.

Head is in charge of planning and development for Dongtan, the eco-city planned for construction on Chongming Island near Shanghai. Head himself describes it as: “the world’s largest sustainable development project.”

It was while he was overseeing the construction of the Second Severn Crossing — a bridge across the Bristol Channel linking England and Wales opened in 1996 — that he first became interested in sustainable development.

[Read This Article]