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Abstract

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Cities, where most people live, face major challenges from climate change and biodiversity loss. Most cities are hot, dry, polluted and impermeable. Heatwaves, surface flooding, air and water pollution and lack of green space affect everyone, with the poorest and most marginalised the worst affected. The strategy globally for urban climate resilience is to retrofit the built environment with nature-based solutions (European Union, 2021). Green roofs, green walls, rain gardens, street trees, parks, lakes and other green-blue infrastructure provide valuable benefits, cooling the urban heat island, absorbing storm water, filtering air and water pollution and connecting people with wildlife. The benefits of nature-based solutions are well-researched. However, a lack of people skilled in design, delivery and maintenance of green-blue infrastructure is delaying urban climate adaptation (Landscape Institute, 2022). Universities have a unique opportunity to become demonstration centres, training students and staff of all kinds (academics but also Estates, Facilities Managers, landscape maintenance contractors and others) to design, install, maintain, record and celebrate biodiverse nature-based solutions in real-world situations, as a key part of climate and ecological recovery and healthy, liveable, equitable cities everywhere. Staff and students at University College London have been developing new partnerships and ways of working together, to retrofit the Bloomsbury campus for climate adaptation and other social, economic and environmental benefits. This paper shares how the Wild Bloomsbury plan and new education modules such as ‘Greening Cities’, have helped to generate these new collaborative, interdisciplinary partnerships, overcoming some of the challenges and supporting retrofit delivery.