UCL’s Knowledge Broker Academy focusses on academic-policy engagement where academic research can be better positioned to meet the evidence demands of policymakers. As a KBA fellow for 2025-26, I am using my fellowship’s micro-grant funding to align my research interest in more-than-human debates with planning discussions. By collaborating with NLA, we were able to gather a team of academics, practitioners, consultants and planners from local authorities during London Climate Action Week to explore the challenges of more than human planning in practice. Acknowledging the strides already made, ranging from sustainable urban development to climate-resilient urban design, I started the roundtable by asking whether existing mechanisms such as Nature based Solutions (NbS), Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), ecosystems thinking and facilitation of blue green infrastructure are sufficient when they are still largely human-centric. When the diverse inhabitants of the environment extend beyond the human to include multi-species communities from plants, soils, microbes, birds, fungi, insects, native and non-native animals, how can this more-than-human thinking be enshrined in planning practices? What gestures are there to ensure that planning processes are not simply about designing ‘nature for people’ but ‘nature with people’? 

In taking stock of the situation, our discussion identified hurdles including the constraint of administrative boundaries for local authorities while addressing ecosystems that extend across boroughs. Equally, with local plans focussed on significant challenges of housing delivery, we could see how little traction is there for pushing existing mechanisms such as BNGs beyond the requisite percentage of 10 percent. As both the Principal Tree Officer of Brent Council, Julie Hughes and Enfield Council’s Head of Strategic Planning and Design, May Hope, pointed out, when many development sites have no biodiversity to begin with, improving BNG by 10 percent means little even though BNG might be a great tool for advocating green design. Under such circumstances, can we look for non-statutory options in the form of biodiversity offset even when the tendency is towards like-for-like solutions? 

The role of Greater London Authority (GLA) as an overarching entity emerged in the discussion with their green infrastructure policy seen as a valuable step in bringing more than human interests into planning. Asha Tomlin-Kent, Senior Policy and Programme Officer – Environment at GLA highlighted its Local Nature Recovery Strategy as a clear example of how planning ca be directed by more-than-human concerns especially given the onus of the newly launched national level Land Use Framework. Similarly, London’s Green Infrastructure Framework was also identified as a first of its kind in gathering data and providing guidance for practitioners despite questions of how to enforce it or keep it updated. There is no lack of aspiration in this context even as implementation can be difficult. Both Professor Tim Waterman from the Bartlett School of Landscape Architecture and Cannon Ivers of LDA design emphasised the need to overcome silos bringing in ecologists alongside landscape architects to ensure that the discourse around nature is not regressive or watered down. It will also give currency to emerging solutions such as rewilding. Their focus on maintenance and care was about relying not only on monitoring initiatives such as BNG through Habitat Management and Monitoring Plan but also shifting towards community stewardship against funding realities. 

As Morgan Taylor from Greengage reminded the roundtable, with the question of trade-offs still dominating decision-making processes, we need to use non-planning levers such as insurance and financial incentives (green finance, natural capital markets, etc.). While nature-positive strategies make sense at a national level, we are still several iterations away from trying out new ones such as embodied nature. Till then, our conclusion is that all logic cycles for more-than-humans will ultimately be for the benefit of the humans.