Towards a De-Polarisation of Climate Guidance for Landscape Design and Policy

For disciplines and professions concerned with the design and management of the physical environment, climate emergency has become an integral part of research and practice because these environmental challenges are inextricably linked to the land and how we use it. Working from an understanding of landscape as the vast infrastructure upon which we depend for everything, landscape is the setting for all matters of environmental sustainability, impacting towns, cities, and countryside, communities and well-being, economics, governance, and politics. This paper explores the extent to which landscape and landscape design are considered in professional guidance pertaining to climate emergencies and environmental sustainability. Noting a tendency for such policy and guidance in the UK to cluster around the opposite poles of generalised targets and highly detailed technological solutions, this paper raises questions about what is missing from the middle of this spectrum. Our findings show that beyond carbon and biodiversity targets and the technological solutions to meet them, policy has been slow to respond to the climate emergency in relation to the landscape level. Furthermore, policy frameworks largely fail to account for the cultural and/or intangible factors affecting carbon and sustainability measures, such as the quality of space and well-being. This research suggests that guidance and policy relating to holistic, integrated understandings of landscapes are key to addressing the climate emergency, which also provides quality places and spaces for our communities and nature alike.