Plant trees down high streets. Retrofit schools, hospitals and care homes with external shading. Cool down beds and install ceiling fans. Legislate for minimum indoor temperatures. Ban glass towers. Paint roofs white. Set up a cooling refuge in every community. Reduce glazing and install windows that open.
These are just some of the measures discussed by our panel of leading experts on climate and the built environment in this month’s 21CC podcast, convened to brainstorm what we can do, starting right now, to make towns and cities safe and liveable even as the long-predicted, human-caused warming intensifies.
Chairing this brisk and purposeful discussion is Saul Humphrey FCIOB, this year’s president of the Chartered Institute of Building: an industry veteran and professor of sustainable construction management at Anglia Ruskin University.
Giving us their insights are:
- Dr Arash Beizaee, senior lecturer in building energy at Loughborough University, an expert on thermal comfort, overheating and health in buildings who is developing practical, low-energy interventions to safeguard wellbeing;
- Dr Macarena Cardenas, senior advisor for resilience and nature at the UK Green Building Council and leader of industry-scale programmes across the built environment;
- Dr Hayley Fowler, professor of climate change impacts at Newcastle University and recipient of a Royal Society Faraday Discovery Fellowship for her Extreme Futures project improving how we forecast flash floods and prolonged storms more accurately;
- Dr Susan Roaf, emeritus professor of architectural engineering at Heriot Watt University and co-author of Adaptive Thermal Comfort: At the Extremes (Routledge, 2026), which calls for a revolution among building designers, owners, managers, and occupants to prepare for the future that is upon us;
- Jordan Turner, senior lecturer at the University of the Built Environment.
The future is here; there’s no time to lose.
