Ebbsfleet Garden City

We collaborated with Ebbsfleet Development Corporation (EDC) to develop an Environmental Sustainability Strategy and Action Plan for an exciting new 21st century Garden City in Kent. To maintain and secure additional funding for the project in the future, a robust and technically accurate Environmental Sustainability Strategy was fundamental to support the overall business case activities of EDC—this is where we came in.

Where London meets the Garden of England

The principles behind a Garden City are to encourage community engagement, provide high-quality affordable homes that blend the best of town and country and to expand job opportunities with integrated and accessible transport systems. But at the heart of a Garden City lies a mission of sustainability; to provide a development that enhances the natural environment with a comprehensive green infrastructure network and net biodiversity gains, using zero-carbon technology to ensure climate resilience.

The vision of Ebbsfleet Garden City is just that—to integrate the surrounding urban and rural communities by offering a wide range of jobs and high-quality homes within the Garden City in easy commuting distance whilst simultaneously creating a sustainable development.

Once complete, Ebbsfleet Garden City will provide up to 15,000 new homes and 30,000 prospective jobs, all in prime location for conducting business with easy access to London and Paris.

From conducting extensive analysis and employing our expertise, the Action Plan we produced establishes the most appropriate and sustainable course of action to support the delivery of the Garden City vision.

Solution

To allow progress to be efficiently monitored and benchmarked, we determined a set of clear sustainability KPIs—something which had not been done previously. The strategy has considered the three pillars of sustainability—social, environmental and economic with the main focus on environmental sustainability to develop a strategy which can set the basis for continuous improvement.

We produced a simple and concise Strategy and Action Plan which communicated the key messages and actions in a way that was accessible for parties not previously involved in the project or with limited technical knowledge. Applying a clear methodology and set structure which could be followed no matter what topic area a party was interested in, we developed a clear, informative and engaging document. The Action Plan clearly specifies the next steps to be taken including indicative costings to support EDC’s business case. These were derived from conducting a high-level appraisal of the current baseline context, a gap analysis to identify opportunities for improvement and identifying linkages to each topic.

Aside from detailing our own strategy and action plan for sustainability at Ebbsfleet Garden City, we interlinked our work with other EDC strategies being written by other consultants, such as the Smart Cities Strategy, broadening and strengthening the holistic sustainable approach the development.

We compiled a Low Zero Carbon Energy Strategy to confirm existing performance against industry benchmarks and identify strategic site wide options for LZC energy. We reviewed the potential for renewable options by conducting feasibility studies including; District Heating Network, ground source heat pumps and biomass boilers.