Sapporo Japan | Can we take a leaf out of their book in our future developments

This weekend The Independent has highlighted the City of Sapporo in Northern Japan as a world leader in sustainable conurbations. The city has a series of green art-parks, buildings are constructed and clad in locally sourced and re-cycled timber and bee-keeping is a project for all ages with many hives situated on the roofs of buildings, an activity which is used to educate and included the full cross-section of society.

What we have in common with the Japanese is the diverse variety of climate, from heavy snow covering in winter to warm humid summers this promotes all manner of opportunity for biodiversity which has been embraced in and around Sapporo. In this country our villages, towns and cities are already well-established, and where there are not historic parks we generally have a dense covering of buildings. With our retail centres waning in popularity and in the desperate search to re-purpose, now is the time to inject the biodiversity of our countryside into our built-up areas.

A brilliant nature incentive is currently underway in the centre of Derby in the Midlands, with Down to Earth Derby a collaboration between a group of enthusiastic garden-growers and Tim Smit of the Eden Project, who have a mission to green our inner city environments, growing food and teaching horticulture.

The opportunities to educate adults and children in the inner cities and use the natural environment as therapy for stress-relief and team-building, for food growing and a better understanding of the natural world are all there to be taken here, with a little imagination. The push to maximise lettable floor space in many towns and cities is now usurped by the need to fill existing floor space, and with a will from property owners to relinquish some of their holdings for the greater good of the environment, green walls, roofs and gardens threaded through and in-between the streets will transform the face of our surroundings.

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