MIPIM Global Solutions: Urban Growth within Planetary Limits
With only 20 board meetings remaining until 2030, how will you track progress, ensure accountability and enable impact? In an earlier Global Solutions session we already heard from Professor Katherine Richardson that six of the nine planetary boundaries have been crossed, suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity.
Michael Ambjørn
CEO, PropTech Denmark
Panelists from Global Solutions session at MIPIM 2025. Photo: Thorbjørn Hansen / Kontraframe
Built environment leaders take on key questions for decision-makers
At MIPIM 2025, we followed up at the Global Solutions session, gathering more than 65 industry leaders from across the built environment who addressed some of the pivotal questions of our age, including…
1. A built environment beyond financial metrics
How can success be redefined to encompass environmental and social impacts, alongside financial returns? Is a triple bottom line possible? And how can we set it up so it is mutually reinforcing?
2. Carbon Accountability
How can embodied carbon disclosure influence investment and development decisions?
3. Technology & Innovation
How might material reuse, and circular construction be scaled beyond pilot projects?
4. Breaking Silos
What concrete steps can move us from ambition to execution through effective collaboration?
5. Long-Term Accountability
With limited board meetings before 2030, what mechanisms will you implement to monitor progress and ensure accountability?
Torben Klitgaard, CEO of BLOXHUB, framed the urgency: "The growth of cities presents major challenges to our earth systems. We need more viable solutions to secure a long-lasting future for the planet."
From Insight to Action
This session was not merely a discussion but a working session, which identified unchanging elements by 2035: The enduring human need for shelter and the need for sustainable approaches, to mention just two of many.
A panel of industry leaders - Anne Mette Boye, Chief City Architect, Aarhus Kommune, Dariush Rezai, CEO, Sweco, and Hala El Akl, SVP, Sustainable Investing & Operations, Oxford Properties - built on a thought provoking ‘state of urban development’ delivered by Torben Klitgaard, CEO of BLOXHUB
Concrete Examples
Aarhus Kommune emphasizes the integration of urban development with natural landscapes, promoting mixed-use neighborhoods to enhance social diversity (and biodiversity). Their Policy for City Quality and Architecture aims to create sustainable and attractive living environments for current and future residents. A notable challenge for the city is water - which in Aarhus comes from all directions, and is embraced as an innovation driver.
Oxford Properties has established a Green Financing Framework to support the transition to a low-carbon economy, aligning operations with sustainable investment and expenditure goals. As a pension fund the eye is firmly on the long term - both as an opportunity and as a challenge. And here there is a clear understanding that we are now in the age of the brown discount rather than green premiums.
Sweco Denmark has initiated The Planetary Project, a multidisciplinary knowledge and vision laboratory dedicated to exploring and developing the planet's future land use, pixel by pixel. The project's ambition is to explore scenarios for future land use that respect planetary boundaries, leveraging Sweco's interdisciplinary task force of specialists and collaborating with external stakeholders. A fundamental question posed by the project is: "If the planet were our client, how would we develop our society and manage the Earth's land areas?" This inquiry is central to their exploration of sustainable development and land management strategies.
A key challenge across all of the above is how to help leaders across the built environment better work with risk, well beyond the traditional metrics.
The Real Question: Who Will Act?
With perhaps only 20 board meetings before 2030, how will you ensure real accountability? Here is a question bank developed following the session, both incorporating and extending ideas from the debate:
📌 Developers & Investors
What business model shifts are necessary? How might we think about the long term, in new ways? Are our risk models up to date - and do they take account of planetary boundaries? Do we hope for a green premium in age or brown discounts? And in a data-obsessed age - how do we focus on the most important data points that can help secure our future, and that of the planet? In other words, what is our endgame?
📌 Policymakers
Which regulations will drive substantial impact? Which should fall away to lessen complexity and ease transition? And how do we better support more coherent and cohesive urban environments that take account of the elements that naturally cross between individual developments within our realm, including nature in all its forms (rising water levels, increasing wind force, challenged and changing biodiversity).
📌 Tech & Innovation Leaders
How can we scale proven solutions effectively? Who do we need to collaborate with? Who do we need to integrate with? And how do we continually learn from our friends and neighbours - both local and international? In other words, how do we avoid reinventing the wheel? And focus on the things that truly need to be reimagined? And help others avoid it too?
📌 Industry Experts & Advisors
As trusted advisors, how do we help people see the full picture, including the externalities? What barriers to action exist today, and how can we overcome them? Who else might need to know about our ideas? And how do we involve them - and bring them along?
Last but not least, the room grappled with the Buckminster Fuller assertion that:
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
Is this possible? What examples in the built environment do we have where this was true, and what examples do we have where it was the opposite? And what is the right approach now? The jury is still deliberating, and meanwhile we invite you to continue the conversation.
Thanks to all the leaders who took part in this pivotal, fast-paced exchange, brought together by Byens Netværk, Byggesocietetet, BLOXHUB, and PropTech Denmark. It is just the beginning.
What’s your next move?
Explainer: Embodied Carbon?
Embodied carbon refers to the greenhouse gas emissions generated during the extraction, manufacturing, transport, and construction of building materials – before a building is in use. This is distinct from operational carbon, which comes from heating, cooling, and operating the building over its lifetime.
As energy efficiency improves, embodied carbon represents an increasing share of a building’s total climate impact – making it a key focus in the decarbonisation of the built environment.
Explainer: Triple Bottom Line?
The triple bottom line expands the traditional measure of business success beyond profit to also include social and environmental value. Often referred to as People, Planet, Profit, it guides organisations aiming to create sustainable impact across society, climate, and economy. The goal is to ensure that business growth does not come at the expense of people or the planet – but contributes positively to both.
📚 Further Reading & Listening
Some of the resources we drew on as we prepared for this session
Books & Reports:
Doing business within the Planetary Boundaries – Stockholm Resilience Centre
Doughnut Economics – Rethinking economic growth within planetary boundaries – Kate Raworth
The Doughnut for Urban Development - A Manual
Circular Construction for Urban Development - A System
Building A Circular Future - Insights from Interdisciplinary Research
Podcasts & Talks:
🎧 How to make good business within the planetary boundaries - Let’s Talk Architecture
🎧 The Circular Economy Podcast – Interviews with circular economy pioneers
🎤 Johan Rockström on navigating planetary boundaries for a sustainable future
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