RIBA has recently published the Social Value Toolkit for Architecture, developed in partnership between the University of Reading and the London-based Research Practice Leads, as an attempt to establish a common methodology for measuring the monetisation of social value through calculating the social return on investment.

Incredibly, the coal-fired capacity being used in the world today is emitting around 15 billion tonnes of carbon emissions each year, representing almost half of all our carbon emissions.Bryden Wood is working alongside non-profit TerraPraxis, as part of the Repowering Coal Initiative.

We’re developing transformative design and construction solutions aimed at retrofitting the existing coal-fired power plants for suitability with new nuclear, advanced heat solutions, while still retaining the substantial societal and economic value of the existing power plant infrastructure.The process will be both highly efficient and cost-effective, overcoming existing viability barriers and creating a realistic path to sustainable, reliable energy for areas of the world still reliant on coal-fired power.. Terra Praxis: new nuclear is key to helping achieve net zero.Kirsty Gogan and Eric Ingersoll co-founded non-profit Terra Praxis to facilitate the design and execution of complex, high leverage strategies aimed at inspiring, and mobilising leaders across multiple sectors.

Their goal is to initiate sustained action on the environmental crisis and transform our prospects for avoiding catastrophic climate impacts.Gogan says that although we’re starting to see a shift in thinking, the general perception of nuclear power remains a bit outdated, especially when we start to look at new nuclear, advanced heat technologies.

She points out that, in actuality, nuclear has consistently been identified as necessary in our climate mitigation roadmaps, by everyone from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to the International Energy Agency and the European Commission.. A leading environmentalist, Gogan says that she too started out as anti-nuclear, but her perception of nuclear technology changed after reading Professor David MacKay’s book, Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air.

The book illuminates just how difficult it would be to meet our decarbonisation goals with renewables alone, and dispels wrong assumptions held about nuclear energy based on old, outdated ideas.. Now Gogan serves on the UK government's Nuclear Innovation and Research Advisory Board, the board of US NGO, Nuclear Innovation Alliance, as well as the French NGO, Voices for Nuclear.I am talking about ambition, scale and the courage to be at the front of the pack, not hanging back and waiting to see what might be popular, what others might do, it is about forging a way forward ahead of current thinking with ambitions and aspirations beyond those of the current trends.. “The ability of an individual or a group of people to influence organisations and society.“.

How could every building be carbon neutral, how could we replace every coal and gas power station?These ideas are part of leadership but I believe leadership needs to go further than influence.

The ambition needs to link the influence with the capability and energy to deliver..When my son was in Junior school as part of a project, we did a historic walk around my hometown, Newbury.