Green Answers and Roofs: The City of London Development Corporation

greenbang is one of my favourite ecoblogs. I was particularly taken with its recent Q&A series with Simon Mills – the sustainable development coordinator for the City of London Corporation, which manages affairs in the Square Mile. His answers are a model of clarity- evidently Simon is not a politician. I like the way his answers include links to information resources, and are so well-informed across a range of subject areas. Some of the answers are quite surprising and definitely worth reading. The series works as a great example of transparency, a core Greenmonk value.

The City of London has a policy for “green roofs”. Here’s why:

Firstly we have identified green roofs as a valuable resource for biodiversity in our Biodiversity Action Plan, and have produced guidance notes for developers on both Green Roofs and Vertical Habitats.

Secondly we have identified how important green roofs are to combat the impacts of climate change– basically they act a giant sponges, soaking up excess rainfall and releasing it slowly, so as not to overwhelm the sewers.

Who knew? The format greenbang used is interesting – giving each answer its own blog entry, rather than compiling them into one uber-interview – works really well. So here are the questions:

What is the plan for making buildings zero carbon at the 2012 Olympics?

As the owner of three of London’s most vital wholesale markets, serving the fresh produce needs of London’s businesses, what is City of London doing to get more local, organic and Fairtrade produce sold through these markets?

What is the City of London doing to change the mindset of its resident corporations to make the same everyday steps to be greener that individual consumers are?

What is the City of London doing to encourage a ‘buy recycled’ policy?

With a huge unmet demand for food growing space from the population in the area, are the City of London looking into alternative growing space such as Green Roofs?

Why is the City so bad for cycle parking? – it’s a close-run competition with Westminster on who offers the fewest proper parking stations.

While I realise the City Of London is a particular approach to city and financial district governance, with a long and distinguished history, I would love to see greenbang, which has some global coverage ambitions, run a series of interviews with officials in cities such as New York, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Frankfurt.

photo courtesy of Cimm.