An online seminar, hosted by UCL, that brings together public and private real estate sectors and academics to explore climate and energy challenges faced by real estate owners, managers and investors and how carbon neutral green roofs and a circular economy approach could help.

We know we need to green our cities to adapt to climate change, for health and resilience into the future and that green infrastructure, renewable energy sources and a circular economy approach are key.

Speakers will explore opportunities and questions around retrofitting carbon neutral green roofs to reduce energy demand, provide cooling and stormwater management. The approach brings economic, social and biodiversity benefits but also presents challenges.

Participants will be invited to raise questions specific to their sector or of interest in relation to their area of work.

We will also be discussing the new partnerships and network models needed across real estate, construction, design, policy and other sectors, to develop and apply these approaches.

The event will be chaired by Rokia Raslan, Bartlett Vice Dean for Innovation & Enterprise, Associate Professor of Building Performance Simulation at the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources.

Speakers include:

Professor Yolande Barnes, Chair of the Bartlett Real Estate Institute, Non-Executive Director at Space Syntax.

Yolande is internationally recognised as an expert in her field of real estate markets, world cities and global real estate trends. Yolande’s particular specialities include residential markets, regeneration, land, urbanism and mixed use neighbourhoods.

As Chair of the Bartlett Real Estate Institute, UCL, Yolande’s role is to explore and understand how real estate contributes to all types of value: social, environmental and economic. She does this looking at all sectors and across the globe, drawing on the best research and findings that the whole of UCL has to offer, writing readable and understandable, practically-orientated, useful articles and publications for the industry and offering executive and short courses as well as bespoke research services. Most of Yolande’s writings can be found on the Savills Research website where she was until recently Director of World Research.

Dusty Gedge, President of the European Federation of Green Roof & Wall Associations, Director of Livingroofs.org, UCL Green Infrastructure Industry Expert-in-Residence.

President of the European Green Roof & Wall Association since 2009, Dusty was instrumental in helping develop a green roof policy for London (2008) writing the technical report to support the policy. He also wrote a review of the policies success in 2019. An internationally recognised authority on green roofs, he has been working for a number of years to develop approaches to retrofitting the existing roof stock in London and other cities. In doing this, he has develop ideas of how carbon neutrality and the a circular economy could unlock the market to upscale green roofs across London.