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S3E5 - The Wellbeing of Future Generations w/ David Clubb
17 Plays19 hours ago
Host Seth Scott interviews David Clubb.
David Clubb is the Chair of the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales. He is also the Head of Climate Action at Cardiff Metropolitan University. He also founded Afallen, one of Wales' leading sustainability consultancies. Prior to that, he was Director of RenewableUK, the award-winning trade body for sustainable energy.
Wales is realising several outstanding infrastructure goals:
1. The Wellbeing of Future Generations Act looks out for the generations not yet born
2. Active travel modal shift implementation including a "cycle superhighway"
3. 65% national recycling rate, one of the highest in the world
4. An 80-year Infrastructure Investment Strategy that starts with “Our economic well-being is without any doubt tied to our environmental, cultural and social well-being."
5. Nature on the Board
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Transcript
The Future of Infrastructure: 80-Year Vision
00:00:00
Speaker
One of the reasons why we changed our time scale, our time horizon from 30 years in the future to 80 years in the future was precisely because we don't think people are thinking long term enough.
Introducing the Podcast and Guest
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome back to Infrastructure Connections, the podcast where we explore what makes sustainable infrastructure work. Brought to you by the Infrastructure Sustainability Council. I'm your host, Seth Scott, and today we'll be speaking with David Clubb.
00:00:32
Speaker
David is a chair of the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales. He's also head of climate action at Cardiff Metropolitan University. He also founded Afallan, one of Wales' leading sustainability consultancies. And prior to that, he was director of Renewable UK, the award-winning trade body for sustainable energy.
The Future Generations Commission: Framework and Limitations
00:00:51
Speaker
His list of sustainability roles and accolades goes on and on and on. So without further ado, let's get introduced.
00:00:59
Speaker
Well, David, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. It's lovely to be here. Thanks a lot for the invitation. Got a lot to share and a lot of interesting conversation, hopefully. i hope so. You actually have a ministry for the future. That's fascinating.
00:01:13
Speaker
Well, that's one way of describing it. What we have in Wales is a Future Generations Commission. And yes, ah long-term thinking is mandated to be part of that approach. But in fact, the the legislation goes much further than having a Future Generations Commissioner. that It carries an obligation on all public bodies in Wales to try and make Wales better in a variety of ways and also to work in different ways. So long-term thinking is one of those five ways of working as we call it. And and there are other ones as well, which are aiming to try and break down silos and and have public bodies working more closely together. So that's that's the principle of it.
00:01:48
Speaker
Whether it works quite so well in practice is a different issue, but certainly it's a very, very useful framework that enables public, private and third sector organisations to understand the ways in which we should be working together.
00:02:00
Speaker
So how did this come into effect? um How did it work before? What was the push for it? And what's changed since then? The Act was came into power in 2015, and that is 15 plus years after Wales had ah voted for for devolution and had its own, and as it was at the time, an assembly, but is now a Senate of Parliament with lawmaking powers. And at the outset, the goal was to have sustainability running like a golden thread, was how it was described today. through all of the activities in Wales. So that's where we ended up with an act which which prescribes having a future generations commissioner and all of the obligations that public sector bodies have to sign up to.
00:02:43
Speaker
So in some ways, i would say it's been an outstanding success in that we now have this framework, which is sort of like a common language that people can use. And it's... um It's well recognized.
00:02:54
Speaker
However, a lot of people would say that the the act is also a bit tuthless in that it doesn't have any way. You can't go to court, for example, to enforce the Future Generations Act on public bodies that you think are not complying with it.
From 30 to 80 Years: A New Heuristic for Planning
00:03:06
Speaker
So it's more of a hearts and minds and and and a framework, I would say, than something that can actually hold governments to account in the the court of law.
00:03:16
Speaker
As I understand it, the Wellbeing for Future Generations act um appoints a commissioner for future generations that actually acts in the best interest of those not yet born.
00:03:27
Speaker
Well, yes, I mean, they they they're supposed to act and on behalf of everybody who's here now plus plus everybody who's yet to come. So actually their biggest constituency by far is is people not yet born. And and that's something that we we're very mindful of actually in Infrastructure Commission, which I can come to later. But one of the reasons why we changed our time scale, our time horizon from 30 years in the future to 80 years in the future was precisely because we don't think people are thinking long term enough.
00:03:55
Speaker
and And for me, actually, there's a very simple heuristic that we use in the Infrastructure Commission, which is how do the decisions that we take now and improve the lives of somebody being born in 2105? And that actually makes the conversation quite real.
00:04:10
Speaker
And I think that public bodies in in Wales, probably similar to elsewhere, under extraordinary pressures to deliver and often in
David's Role and Broader Scope of Commission
00:04:18
Speaker
firefighting mode. And of course, if you're a firefighting, you will never get the chance to look up and see and potential ways of doing things different or better, or rather it's much harder to do that.
00:04:27
Speaker
So, um yeah, we think that the the ability to to look far into the future gives opportunity to think differently and to solve problems in a way that you might not be able to consider when you're really struggling for resource.
00:04:40
Speaker
So you're the chair of the National Infrastructure Commission for Wales. Tell me about that role and what you do there. We are a small body. There are and eight commissioners and a small program office. So by international comparisons, we're the smallest infrastructure body that there is globally.
00:04:59
Speaker
um And our role is to provide recommendations to Welsh government on the needs for future infrastructure in Wales. and And, you know, that enables us to take a place in society and make suggestions about things that other organizations probably couldn't take for various reasons.
00:05:15
Speaker
So despite being the smallest infrastructure commission in the world, you actually have a much larger scope than other commissions, it looks like. and It's not just roads and bridges, but you're also looking at hard and soft infrastructure. And this seems to include things like sports, wages, housing, poverty, inequality. That's a lot for you to tackle. So how do you tie it all together into coherent infrastructure projects?
00:05:39
Speaker
Well, it's important to realize that we don't actually have any interaction with ah with infrastructure projects. So we we provide advice really on on policy and long-term thinking. and We're not able by a mandate to look at an activity that's taking place in the next five years.
00:05:57
Speaker
And actually, that's really helpful for us because that takes us completely out of the political cycle. and We like to see, for example, we're we're consistently arguing for more investment into natural flood management, nature-based solutions, green infrastructure, blue infrastructure. and So what we're trying to do is to ensure that the Future Generations Act is actually visible within infrastructure. It should be complementary
Advocating Active Travel and Sustainability Initiatives
00:06:19
Speaker
to nature. We should be inviting nature into our infrastructure and we should view, we should have greater ambition really for infrastructure. So that's not just saying we're gonna pour concrete and and then maybe we'll bolt on some stuff afterwards. It has to be, how does this work best? And actually, do we need that infrastructure in the first place?
00:06:35
Speaker
So we would argue often it's better not to build and to think about what you've got already and to to adapt those sorts of of infrastructure than build new stuff. And actually, you know, within the constrained environment financially that we're in and building more means that you have to maintain more. so it sort of adds an ever increasing load. So often not building is the right solution. um So, yeah, our advice is is never project specific. it's It's more general than that.
00:07:04
Speaker
Tell us about active travel strategies that you're working on for purposeful journeys. What we want to see is a shift in how people perceive active travel. and We want to get modal shift, get people out of the cars. And for that, by and large, people will have their interactions on a daily basis with a commute of some description or with ah a service like taking children to school. So we have seen a lot of investment, record-breaking levels of investment in active travel in Wales. i mean, we're still a million miles away from...
00:07:31
Speaker
the Netherlands or Denmark where I used to live in in that sort of prioritization. But I would actually like to see ah active travel, if if we're serious about active travel and being at the top of that hierarchy, then we should see the budget for active travel being bigger than the budget for non-active travel. so So, I mean, it's definitely not that at the moment because you can imagine the roads maintenance budget on its own towards the active travel budget. But I would like to see that reversal.
00:07:58
Speaker
So it' and and it's it's sort of obvious, really, you want the lowest impact and the healthiest options first. And again, that's perhaps where the Future Generations framework can help because if you are if people are ah walking, if people are cycling, then they're going to be healthier. So that's the first tick on the Future Generations goals.
00:08:15
Speaker
I understand circularity is important to you as well. In fact, um you're already at 65% recycling rate. That's one of the leading recycling nations in the world. But of course, circularity isn't just recycling. So what else are you also working on?
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's tricky that one because the recycling is actually probably the easiest thing to crack. That's about systems, that's about something, about behavior change. And that 65% takes us to the second highest rate ah in the world, which is something that Wales is very proud of.
00:08:48
Speaker
But the rest of it is ah is a much harder nut to crack. But I am quite impressed by some of the aspects where Wales is taking a real lead. So... ah Welsh Government funds and repair cafes in Wales. So we have a a large network of repair cafes. at The university I'm sitting in now has one that does regularly as well. So that enables people to get things fixed when they ah they break. and Not 100%, but certainly we've got um a good record on that. And of course, the longer you can use things, the less you need to buy new stuff.
00:09:17
Speaker
and The same with something called benthig, which means to borrow in Welsh, and that's a library of things. Again, it's a Wales-wide network where people can pay a small amount to to borrow something rather than having to buy it. Again, trying to reduce this proliferation of stuff, as you might call it. and So this all ties into one of Welsh Government's objectives, which is the foundational economy. So how do we ensure that the very basics are provided and kept locally?
Urban vs Rural: Infrastructure Challenges and Solutions
00:09:43
Speaker
And I think... That's probably as much as we're doing on circularity, but I think the things which are most exciting from the individual point of view, from the citizen point of view, would be there being able to get things repaired for free and and and and borrowing things, because that also encourages you to feel like you're part of society. And that's something at the moment where many people are worried. you know We feel that so fragmentation in society.
00:10:07
Speaker
So going somewhere we can get something fixed and talk to them about it and maybe volunteer your skills is a really helpful way of bridging that gap as well as making a tangible contribution towards reducing waste. You mentioned the the modal shift and the active travel strategies for purposeful journeys. um Some of the critiques that other countries have is that most of the roading infrastructure was built in the nineteen fifty s to 1970s to create those suburbs and exurbs that need the roads to connect them.
00:10:36
Speaker
And a lot of the European cities were built prior to that. So they have areas that were walkable before roads came along. So it's not so difficult to make them active travel areas. But I imagine because of the amount of development that's happened in Wales, you probably have a bit of both.
00:10:51
Speaker
So where do you see the challenges for or opportunities for each of those? Yeah, the the active travel issue in in cities is a challenge, but actually it's probably less of a challenge than in rural areas. So I live in Cardiff, which is the biggest city in Wales.
00:11:06
Speaker
ah Welsh Government and Cardiff Council put a lot of money into developing these cycle superhighways, Small incremental changes actually as I've taken my kids to school over the years have been really valuable. So drop curbs which were originally posited as ways to help people with disabilities get up and down from curbs have been an absolute boon to people using prams or and bikes or scooters taking their kids to school. So I see i see evidence in my school journey which is not the same as real scientific evidence of course but it does feel as though many people are benefiting from those smaller interventions. And I think we can't and we can't really overstate the value of having these small ah improvements made in in local infrastructure. That really does make a difference. And it's a pleasure to see people using those sorts of of infrastructures, as well as the big things, the cycle infrastructure.
00:11:56
Speaker
you know Ultimately, the goal is is good for for everybody, really. Even the people who are ah driving ultimately will see a benefit from driving. greater investment within active travel routes, because there'll be fewer people on the road. So the people who really need to drive can get there easier.
Infrastructure's Purpose: Enabling Societal Benefits
00:12:13
Speaker
Back in 2018, Wales passed that Wales infrastructure investment strategy. And I know that a lot of what gets built relies on the finance that can be behind it. So it was interesting to see that that policy looked into a five to 80 year period and it incorporated a lot of those things we talked about before, which are hard and soft infrastructure.
00:12:35
Speaker
I really like what Rebecca Evans, Minister for Finance and Local Government said when she said, instead of thinking first what infrastructure we should invest in, the question must be what should investment in our infrastructure enable?
00:12:48
Speaker
So what should infrastructure enable? Yeah, it's a really good way of thinking because, and so I think if we'd have been thinking about this properly back in the day, we would have been thinking about what should our infrastructure enable? It should enable distributed connection of renewable energy. Therefore, we're going to need grid and that's not been done. And so as a result, now we're facing all kinds of problems, political and engineering with how we connect new grid. So I think that that demonstrates a long-term thinking, how a long-term thinking approach would have perhaps done things differently.
00:13:20
Speaker
um And we've got other examples of where, for example, hospitals have been built sort of in the middle of nowhere. and Not quite, but outside of of major conurbations. And i get why that's easier. Greenfield development is always easier. But there was no existing bus routes, no existing public transport. So all you're doing is creating demand for private vehicles, which is going in the exact opposite direction from some of your other policies. So infrastructure should enable, in that example, very good health care.
00:13:48
Speaker
Well, good health care should be easily accessible. So the first thing you should be looking at is how can we make this place as accessible as possible, not, you know, let's build a new hospital out there. So what we're trying to do is turn around some of that thinking. But unfortunately, we're now dealing with the legacy of 20, 30, 40 years of policy, which it it encouraged out-of-town development.
00:14:09
Speaker
yeah for for various reasons, including financial. So you know we've got a job to do to turn it around. And again, that that helps. you know It's easy to look at it and say, oh, God, this is something we can never fix. But having an 80-year timescale is actually quite helpful in that um in our instance because you can it's not impossible to imagine 80 years being very different to what it is now. Whereas if you're looking at the the system that we've got now and it's you know it's it's a mess in places, you say, we can't possibly solve this.
00:14:36
Speaker
So taking that long term approach, I think it makes it more manageable. You can say, okay, we can do that. And we want we want our grandchildren to be able to enjoy and life free from the sort of mistakes that we've made.
00:14:48
Speaker
Absolutely. That
Cultural Infrastructure and Multilingualism
00:14:49
Speaker
makes a lot of sense. That way you're making sure that projects work together and that the whole portfolio fits together and that you're not creating more work out of building something, in say a greenfield.
00:14:59
Speaker
One of the things that New Zealand often gets compared to Wales for is the use of the indigenous language. So I understand that Wales is increasing the amount of Welsh speakers to a target of 20% of the population by 2050.
00:15:13
Speaker
What's fascinating to me is that this is part of the diversity of infrastructure goals. So tell us about those efforts and how they intersect with infrastructure. Yeah, it's ah it's an interesting one because, of course, back in the day, 100% our population would have been Welsh speakers and that's decreased now. It's about down to its lowest level. it's It's been, so I think it's um it's sub 20%, maybe it's about 16%, something like that, of the population of Welsh speakers. And what we're aiming for is a million Welsh speakers actually by 2050. So that's that would be more like a quarter, I think, of the population.
00:15:47
Speaker
um So it's and it's an ambitious goal, but the the changes that have been made in particular in primary and secondary education in Wales, mean that that goal is likely to be met in my opinion. So and what used to be a very niche product, which is Welsh language education,
00:16:04
Speaker
is now more or less mainstream where um I think it's probably about a third of of all primary school peoples will will be undertaking their education entirely through the medium of Welsh. And it may be something a little bit lower than that in secondary, but a number of our local authorities only have education through the medium of Welsh.
00:16:21
Speaker
you know We all have the capacity to learn multiple languages, or most of us, certainly if we're introduced to them at a young age and use them through schooling. And it its it improves health outcomes, it improves career outcomes. you know There are very, very many good reasons to want to support multilingualism.
Nature as a Stakeholder: Integrating Environment and Culture
00:16:37
Speaker
That's fantastic. That's something that we can learn from. Yeah, well, it's been so good. Great. My kids have both gone through Welsh language education, and I didn't as ah as a child myself. So I've learned as an adult.
00:16:51
Speaker
And it's wonderful to see them being effortlessly fluent in two languages, which of course helps them when they learn a third. Far from being harder, it makes it much easier. So this should be the default. It's it's sort of crazy when I think that it's not actually.
00:17:05
Speaker
and So i'd yeah I'd love to hear more about how New Zealand's tackling that because I think, of course, you've got... In a way, a similar, incredibly rich cultural and linguistic and heritage there to tap into. And I think it would be wonderful to to imagine that New Zealand was a completely bilingual country at some point as well.
00:17:23
Speaker
So part of that diversity of infrastructure and projects that you're working on is nature on the boards. And so tell us about how nature on the board works and the pilot that you'll be reporting on in January. and Well, we first came across this when we made it as one of our recommendations in our flooding report, which was to Welsh government, and you should be incorporating nature as a key stakeholder when you're coming to decision making about flood response. Yeah.
00:17:48
Speaker
because clearly nature plays a massive role in in flooding, in in how rainwater and acts within our ah our country. The degradation, for example, of peatland, which we've got a lot of in the uplands, has directly contributed towards flooding issues further down. And so we were keen that West government take that approach. Now, they rejected that recommendation, but...
00:18:11
Speaker
After thinking about it for a while, we decided that it would be helpful for us to think about how we could incorporate it ourselves. So we commissioned a couple of essays, one of which was talking about the cultural heritage of Wales and how nature has played integral part in our our cultural history going back to 1100 or so with the Mabinogion, which is a series of legends, myths and stories about Wales and how throughout history we've always had this very close relationship with nature. So we wanted to ensure that when we're making the case for why we should have nature represented in our discussions and our deliberations, we're really and sort of continuing a thread that stretches back now nearly 1000 years in Wales to this deep symbolic cultural ah connection to nature.
00:18:58
Speaker
And and we we started this ah process and in January last year. We tested it by having somebody who was already a nature guardian. So this is a new newish concept in the UK, but somebody who sat on a board and was the nature guardian there. So they came along and and attended one of our meetings. Our commissioners agreed that this would be a really interesting pilot.
00:19:19
Speaker
So then we appointed ah somebody, Elspeth, to sit on our commission as an advisor for nature, as a nature guardian. And so that pilot is coming to an end in, and well, it'll be a couple of months and we're going to share our learnings. But it has been absolutely fascinating because although I'm an environmentalist, I guess, I was a physicist by training, but I'm an environmentalist as well.
00:19:40
Speaker
and And implicitly, I might think, okay, well, I've really got nature's best interests at heart, but boy, does it change things when you've got somebody sitting in the same room who is there just to represent nature Even just by being a witness, you change how you interact and how you think. And of course, she's so much more than that because she actively contributes to many of our discussions.
00:19:59
Speaker
So we're hoping that this governance change of having somebody in the room there at board level can make a significant difference to how decisions are made.
Prioritizing Maintenance and Adaptive Approaches
00:20:08
Speaker
Not not big decisions, you know, not saying build that road, don't build that road. But it's really the small decision, the accumulation of of thousands of small interactions that we think can make a difference.
00:20:18
Speaker
I love the initiative to give nature a seat at the table. And not just a seat, but an actual body in that seat. I think there's a lot of opportunity there. I know um in Canada, they actually give an equity stake to Indigenous peoples so that they or to nature itself. um And we're seeing that spread. Australia has that as well. And even in New Zealand, we have a few organizations that are trying to give nature a dollar percentage, an equity percentage of their projects.
00:20:46
Speaker
So that'll be helpful. um Here in New Zealand, we also are fortunate we have a river that actually has been given legal personhood. So there is legal protections around that. so hopefully, yeah. that was that That was certainly one example that's been cited to us and one that um is is actively looked at by people here as a sort of good practice. And i like I say, I think that that is and admirable, but it can be a lengthy legalistic type process. And I think if we want to make change rapidly, which we certainly do, governance could be a a very quick way to do that. There's absolutely no reason why we couldn't have every public board in Wales tomorrow paying a consultant and to to be their nature guardian. That could happen. So that's that's why we we want to push on that one.
00:21:30
Speaker
That's a great idea. Where do you see the biggest challenges facing infrastructure today and into the future? Yeah, one of my my personal issues about infrastructure is that we're building more of it and not maintaining the the stuff that we have.
00:21:44
Speaker
So there was an interesting movement in the US called Fix It First, I think it was called. So instead of building new stuff, and fix the things we've already got. And I really do believe that ah there's an obsession with the new rather than taking care of the old. And that's what I really like coming back to some the earlier discussions about repair cafes and benthic the the library of things we should be doing more with the stuff that we've got and i think um there's a problem with central government in the uk really um you putting more money into capital um than would be useful compared to revenue. So we need to be able to pay people to patch things up. We need to be able to adapt the infrastructure we've got. of course, climate change, which we haven't really talked much about so far, but that underlies all of the discussions that we have, that underlies and underpins all of our recommendations that we make.
00:22:37
Speaker
and So infrastructure that we develop, new infrastructure must be adaptable. in principle, could be modular, should be able to change. Why not consider roads that have different functions or could be changed or or sort of depaved or whatever? You know, there we have to free ourselves, I think, from the thinking that has has historically been the case about certain things only have a structure, a a function in a certain way. and So the biggest changes really will come from us, from liberating us from our own shackles of the industries, the professions or whatever that we've come
Envisioning a Holistic Future for Infrastructure
00:23:09
Speaker
through. And that's one of the ways where partnership working
00:23:12
Speaker
and stakeholder working can really drive a benefit. And i imagine we break free of those shackles and we look 80 years into the future and we see that the next generation has been born and they're living in the world that we built for them.
00:23:26
Speaker
What does that world look like? What do you most look forward to seeing in that world? I think it is. Nature's got to be a big part of that. I would like to see flourishing nature because we know nature has so much to offer us through mental and physical well-being, a sense of peace, a sense place, sense of community. So nature has so to mental physical well-being, sense of peace,
00:23:45
Speaker
and a future where all of our children were born into a world where they had access to nature, no matter where you lived. and But that also that was integrated within our infrastructure. So our hospitals were full of nature. the Nature surrounded our schools. um You know, the the infrastructure has to have a purpose. um And again, coming back to that cultural aspect, why not consider how infrastructure should be part of our culture? So one of the things that we did with our flooding report was look,
00:24:16
Speaker
at how the narrative for flooding would work, how we would how in 2050 we would view flooding. One of the things that our consultants came up with was the idea of these river spirits. So you would have kind of monoliths standing by rivers that would, yes, be able to tell you the hard facts about the river and how likely it was to be flooding in the next week or so, but would also be there with the stories, the mythology of that local area.
00:24:43
Speaker
So you could go and ask of the spirit, um tell me stories about this local area. That for me would be a wonderful intersection of culture with infrastructure. um And I think it's quite a beguiling vision.
00:24:55
Speaker
<unk> fantastic idea. I'd love to see that happen as well, especially if it's manifested in actual sculptures. Yes. Yeah. I really do think there's space for that. There should be space for it. We should value, we should treasure culture and we should value and treasure those skills.
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
00:25:10
Speaker
That make a beautiful city. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate having you on today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks very much. And thank you for listening to Infrastructure Connections.
00:25:25
Speaker
Please take a moment to follow us wherever you get your podcasts and we want your feedback. Leave a comment down below to let us know what you think or drop us a line at the Infrastructure Sustainability Council.
00:25:36
Speaker
Stay tuned for the next episode of Infrastructure Connections.