There has been awareness to some degree or another of climate change and environmental destruction for decades, but in recent years it’s been hard to ignore, with pictures of stranded polar bears and seas full of plastics. We’ve seen images of once lush and vibrant rainforests raised to the ground by logging, people and koalas trying to escape catastrophic wildfires in Australia, and young children trying to swim for their lives in filthy floodwater in Asia. We’ve heard about the dramatic insect decline and the knock-on impact on the bird population. We’ve seen coverage of climate activism, and possibly been disrupted by it. The seriousness of the situation has been made clear by the latest report from the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was described as “Code red for humanity” by Antoni Guterres, UN Secretary-General. According to a recent UNICEF report, one billion children are at extremely high risk of the impact of climate change, yet many people still believe that it’s years away and that science will save us.
At Momentum we believe we are – and have been since we were founded in 2012 – at the forefront of fighting climate change. We’re proud of the way we work with our clients every day to push sustainability boundaries and challenge ourselves to do things better. As part of all the projects we work on, we look at how to work towards the proposals and enable our clients to be compliant with current policy while also thinking about how to reduce and minimise the predicted impacts from the development and project.
Our work will continue to ensure more people can travel sustainably, while also creating safe, liveable, well-planned and equitable places and neighbourhoods.
At Filton Airfield in Bristol we’re working to deliver thousands of much-needed homes without putting a single additional car on the road. By enhancing public transport and introducing innovative strategies like mobility hubs and urban logistics, we’re enabling far greater density than typical urban extensions, without increasing use of the private car.
At a major development proposal in central London we developed a comprehensive consolidation strategy to bring down delivery vehicle numbers, leaving no stone unturned to push the boundaries as to what was deliverable and acceptable to the client and planning authorities for delivery consolidation. We devised a strategy involving a mix of cargo bikes, common procurement and more traditional approaches to consolidation, resulting in the forecast number of deliveries being cut by over 60%.
At Olympia, when Momentum was first commissioned in 2017, the initial master plan had five basement levels for logistics and freight vehicles plus extensive car parking. Through design development and strategic work with the client and wider project team we helped to reduce the logistics and parking area to one level of basement, with full future provision for electric vehicle charging enabled. The existing multi-storey car park is now permitted to be converted to a hotel and a school, which is a great step-change.
Closer to home, Momentum is accredited with ISO 14001:2015 for our Environmental Management System, where we commit to continuously improve our environmental performance through more efficient use of resources and reduction of waste; our London office is supplied with electricity through 100% renewable power. We have no car commuting and promote the use of active travel.
We are members of the London Property Alliance which has recently communicated the central London boroughs’ response to the climate change crisis. In our own Borough of Camden we are a signatory to the Camden Climate Change Alliance, a not-for-profit membership network founded by the borough to drive change on sustainability.
There is much still to do, both as a business and in our wider industry. It is essential that we all keep looking for practical and innovative ways to make development as sustainable as possible and drive the agenda forward in our industry. In the coming months we will be launching our company ESG strategy which will looking internally and externally at how we develop further and continue to improve our environmental, social and governance performance so that we provide a leading example across our part of the industry, to our clients and on future projects.
Read more about Momentum’s transport strategy work here.
