Explore how community-led design shapes sustainable technologies like SuDS, driving equity and environmental resilience.
Reshmina William, PhD (Senior Project Manager, Isle Americas)
Does innovation truly benefit everyone, or just a select few?
As scientists and engineers, we like to think technology is an inherent force for good. But is it?
Technology doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it operates within a larger social framework that we don’t always consider when suggesting new approaches to solving design challenges. Our values and biases shape not just how we discuss technology, but also how regional, national, and local policies regulate and drive innovation.
Designers and innovators need to be aware of three major dimensions of equity when evaluating a technology’s benefits and costs:
- Distributive equity. How are the benefits and harms of a given technology distributed throughout society? Who has access, and how has that access been shaped by historical legacy and social structures?
- Design equity. What inequities are baked into the way a technology is designed?
- Procedural equity. Who is involved in the decision-making process, and why?
Equity is not simply a moral issue, it’s a practical necessity. When new technologies align with community values, they gain wider acceptance, reducing resistance and increasing the chances of long-term success. This is especially true for “green” solutions such as Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS), where public trust and engagement are essential. Designing with equity in mind isn’t just good ethics, it’s smart strategy.
SuDS: A Blueprint for Community-Centered Design
SuDS (also known as Low Impact Development or green infrastructure) mimics natural drainage regimes to reduce surface flooding in urban areas and improve water quality by retaining and treating stormwater at its source. At the same time, SuDS also enhances the biodiversity and natural amenities of the built environment, potentially leading to improvements in local communities’ physical and mental health.
However, SuDS is typically a distributed infrastructure solution – smaller solutions like rain gardens and green alleys are only effective at a regional scale if they’re implemented and maintained by private citizens across a larger community.
This need for community buy-in and trust lends SuDS well to a community-centered design approach. Involving public participation early in the design process not only allows engineers to better understand the needs, wants, and values of the community, but also allows for public education around key issues such as climate resilience. It integrates non-technical expertise into the design process, allowing local experts such as gardeners and apiarists, and community members with lived experience and knowledge of the area to improve the end solution.
SuDS+ Community Led Futures: Designing for People, Water and Place
Image by the SuDS+ project
In the UK, Isle has partnered with a network of local governments and utilities, regulators, universities, consultants, and non-profits to deliver a unique project that drives innovation in flood and coastal resilience in the face of a changing climate.
Isle is the Innovation Partner for the SuDS+ Community Led Futures project. This 5-year research program is based in the town of Stanley in North Durham. The project is funded by Defra as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programme (FCIP), which is managed by the Environment Agency. SuDS+ is delivered in partnership with Durham County Council, Environment Agency, Northumbria University, Northumbrian Water, Teesside University, Wear Rivers Trust, Arup, and Viridian Logic.
Communities are at the heart of the SuDS+ project: they set the vision and co-develop the SuDS infrastructure solutions to deliver the benefits they want to see in their local area. The SuDS+ approach de-prioritizes drainage as the primary driver for SuDS implementation, instead allowing communities to drive design focused on a suite of environmental co-benefits that meet their needs. For the multiple “left behind neighborhoods” who inhabit the SuDS+ project area, the project offers an opportunity for reinvestment in community infrastructure, with a focus on procedural and design equity.
Local partners are critical to project success
Caitlin Rogers, Isle’s Head of Environmental Innovation, got involved with the SuDS+ program because she wanted to learn more about the design and implementation of community-led SuDS across a whole project lifecycle. “It’s been a great way to gain first-band experience of [a community-led SuDS project’s] challenges and benefits,” she says.
Caitlin sees the immediate benefits that the SuDS+ project has reaped from this community-centered approach. “The SuDS+ project has provided the community with an opportunity to share what improvements they want to see in their local area,” she says. That allows improvements to be easily mapped in a way that meaningfully contributes to SuDS design and implementation.
However, Caitlin also recognizes the challenges that a community-centered design approach can face. It takes time to effectively engage with communities. This problem is exacerbated in projects such as SuDS+, which seek to engage large numbers of community members beyond the ‘typical’ community champions.
Caitlin’s suggestion is to engage early with a local partner embedded in the community, to facilitate participation with the right people. In the case of SuDS+, that person is Mark Davinson from the Wear Rivers Trust. As an integral member of the community who lives and works in the study area, Mark has the experience, relationships, and trust to ensure that the community’s views are at the forefront of decision-making.
For Caitlin, the project has had ripple-on effects for the rest of her career at Isle. “SuDS+ has led to a growing and expertise in flood resilience which I am now applying to two other FCIP projects, and to the creation of an Environmental Innovation focus for Isle,” she says.
SuDS+ recently broke ground on the first SuDS implementation of the project.
To learn more about the Suds+ project, sign up for the project mailing list. You can also learn more about our newest US Utilities Reservatório de teste, which is intended to tackle many of these same environmental equity challenges for communities in the United States.
Blog title image from the SuDS+ project