Sustainability in Social Housing: housing design to mitigate disparities in greenspace access in London

This project seeks to investigate the use of hydroponic vertical forests in social housing design to increase urban biodiversity, decrease pollution, and lessen the income health gap in housing in London, speaking to current ESRC priorities on climate change and housing.

It will assemble a comprehensive, multi-dimensional dataset for enhancing the economic feasibility and wider benefits - for environmental sustainability, tackling social and economic inequalities, and improving mental health and wellbeing - of vertical forests in urban social housing contexts.

It will combine theoretical and methodological approaches from human geography, critical environmental social science, and environmental science focused on urban ecologies.

Drawing on an innovative mixed-methods approach including biodiversity sampling, GIS, interviews and focus groups, the research will advance understandings of the complex relationships between access to greenspace and biodiversity, ecosystem services, health, exclusion and inequality in cities.

Moreover, by working with key local stakeholders and engaging citizens directly in the co-production of guidelines for the implementation of future urban greening initiatives, the project will develop a blueprint for counteracting prevalent dynamics of green gentrification, in which nature-based solutions and other environmental initiatives in cities frequently act to reinforce inequalities and promote social exclusion.

The studentship holder will work in collaboration with Newham Council, Brent Council, the Environment Agency, and environmental architect Stefano Boeri. Boeri, Dawn Butler MP, Newham Council, and the Civil Service Environment Network have written letters of support and collaboration for this research.

Overall, the project seeks to make important contributions not simply to academic knowledge across the social and environmental sciences, but also to empower local communities to shape the terms on which future urban transformations-especially urban greening projects-are enacted.