With over half the world’s carbon emissions emanating from our built environment, the cataclysmic effects of ‘business as usual’ urban and infrastructural development is necessitating a drastic rethink as to how civil society, state, corporation and academia can collaborate to ‘build back better’ and shape positive sustainable outcomes. This requires leaders to identify global trends, associated risks and key themes influencing the built environment. Evidence-based, interdisciplinary sustainable design is needed to shape diverse, equitable and inclusive habitats, from the macro-scale of cities to the micro-scale of individual developments that are resilient and futureproof for the benefit of present and future generations.

With over half the world’s carbon emissions emanating from our built environment, the cataclysmic effects of ‘business as usual’ urban and infrastructural development is necessitating a drastic rethink as to how civil society, state, corporation and academia can collaborate to ‘build back better’ and shape positive sustainable outcomes. This requires leaders to identify global trends, associated risks and key themes influencing the built environment. Evidence-based, interdisciplinary sustainable design is needed to shape diverse, equitable and inclusive habitats, from the macro-scale of cities to the micro-scale of individual developments that are resilient and futureproof for the benefit of present and future generations.