The need to address global environmental problems is urgent. The United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) cover a wide range of global concerns, from poverty, hunger, and gender equity to justice and climate action. Concerningly, the SDGs still have faith in economic growth and technological innovation as the means of fixing all global concerns, including climate change. What is not questioned is whether solving development and sustainability problems through economic growth for the accumulation of wealth for the few has led to many of the current unequal development and environmental problems. If unfair growth and wealth accumulation have been part of the problem, how can they be part of the solution? The problem with the SDGs is that their fulfilment relies on wealth creation without the fundamental concomitant of wealth redistribution. The one common driver of change affecting both sustainability and development that has not been included in the SDGs is wealth, the central focus of this book.
SDG 11 - sustainable cities and communities - presents a further paradox unless the issue of wealth and its fair distribution is grasped. Cities are the places where wealth is generated but are also places where only a minority are wealthy. The wealth generated in cities leads to higher consumption of resources, higher emissions, and higher disparities and inequalities. However, any version of a sustainable future will happen in the built environment made according to current ideals, like the present belief in overcoming all humanity's problems by becoming wealthier. A fundamental assumption of this book is that the first step toward a fairer habitat that can maintained with the resources available is only possible if we stop designing cities and buildings as if everyone were wealthy or had to become wealthy. To achieve this goal, it is essential to identify and raise awareness of the impact of wealth, to question how the myths about the advantages of wealth were built, where they come from, what shape they take in the built environment and who benefits from them.
Dr Emilio Jose Garcia is an architect and urban designer. Since 2013, he has been working as a Senior Lecturer in Sustainability and Resilience at the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has been teaching, practicing, and researching in Argentina, Mexico, and New Zealand while participating in international competitions and conferences in America, Europe, and Asia. He won a Holcim Award for Sustainable Construction in 2008. His current research concerns the development of new areas of study related to sustainability, resilience and their applications to urban and architectural design practices. His book, "Unravelling Sustainability and Resilience in the Built Environment" (2017), explores what sustainability and resilience mean when applied to the built environment, how they are related, and why they are still essential concepts for designers. His latest book "Collapsing Gracefully: making a Built Environment That Is Fit for the Future" (2021), challenges design approaches based on the myth that economic growth and technological development can solve social and environmental crises while proposing ways to avoid them.
Brenda Vale is an architect and academic. Along with Robert Vale, she wrote one of the first books on sustainable design and architecture, "The Autonomous House", in 1975. Following their design of several award-winning sustainable commercial buildings in the UK, they designed and built the UK's first autonomous house in 1993 and the first zero-emissions settlement in 1998. They have received international recognition, including the United Nations and European Solar Energy Society awards. They developed the Australian government's National Australian Built Environment Rating System (NABERS). Other books include "Time to Eat the Dog? The real guide to sustainable living", which analysed the impact on the environment of a western life-style and things people do every day, and "Living within a Fair Share Ecological Footprint", which has chapters written by many of their former and existing postgraduate students. The book "Architecture on the Carpet" explores the links between architecture and construction toys such as Meccano and Lego over the last hundred years. Recently, Brenda has co-authored many environmental books, including "The Environmental Impact of cities. Death by democracy and capitalism" (2023), "Heating with Wolves, Cooling with Cacti: Thermo-bio-architectural Framework (ThBA)" (2021), and "Everyday Lifestyles and Sustainability: The Environmental Impact Of Doing The Same Things Differently"(2018).
