Food in sustainable development

The concept of sustainable communities in the UK has lead professionals in the built environment to embrace ideas about energy efficiency, waste recycling and water use with direction on these being included in policy documents such as UK Building Regulations. These regulations have begun to impact on designs for new developments within sustainable communities. As yet food, although being identified as a scarce resource in a period of rising population and climate change and despite being a significant contributor to carbon emissions rarely features in government policies or is even considered by built environment professionals in their designs; it still being the assumption that people will buy their food. Drawing on a three year evaluation of Harvest Brighton and Hove a lottery funded project to improve access to local food and embed sustainable food policies within an urban community and following on from a paper presented at Cobra 2010 this paper identifies how the urban food movement is beginning to influence policy makers in Brighton describing the new Planning Advisory Note and other key project outcomes. It provides planners, designers and developers with some innovative ideas about how food can successfully be included within the design processes for buildings and landscaping in the urban realm.