Impression of the proposed Euston Tower

• YET again Camden’s planners are intending to approve a development that is incompatible with our chances of securing a liveable future on this planet.

Construction globally is growing at the equivalent of an additional Greater London every six weeks.

This is what we are up against, a global economic system based on exponential growth that does not take into account the impact on people and planet.

Construction in Camden is part of the problem.

A planning application has been submitted for a new building to replace the existing Euston Tower (2023/5240/P).

If built, the construction of this tower will cause over 55,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, around 6 per cent of the total created annually in the whole borough of Camden.

How does this make sense when Camden Council is spending millions to reduce emissions by a tiny fraction of that? The construction materials used will weigh over 90,000kg, much of it resulting from harmful mining and resource extraction from around the world.

Of the 55,000 tonnes of GHG, greenhouse gas, emissions, 19 per cent results from the steel used in the new structure and 23 per cent from the new concrete cladding.

The manufacture of steel requires a huge amount of energy and currently results in over 7 per cent of global emissions.

Cement used for concrete results in 8 per cent of global emissions. Their use in construction should be minimised wherever possible.

The proposal for rebuilding the Euston Tower is a greedy development, with a 40 per cent increase of the floorspace over the existing building.

The building services required for this deep-plan building results in 21 per cent of the GHG emissions.

The developer has no intention of doing the right thing by our precious biosphere. If they did they would retain and retrofit the existing building.

There is a lot of “greenwash” in the planning application documents, which like most “business-as-usual” development these days trumpets how great it is in terms of “sustainability”.

This is deceptive and misleading. It pretends that reusing the existing building’s core and foundations results in green building; but this is far from the truth.

The carbon footprint of the new building is 711kg emissions for every 1m2 of floorspace.

The GLA’s current benchmark for new office buildings is 950kg, with an aspirational target of 600kg.

In order to be considered “green” the aspirational target should be met as a minimum.

However we should be challenging whether any new construction of this scale is acceptable at this current time.

We have a very short time to change the current catastrophic direction of travel, with global emissions continuing to rise every year and the trend in global heating locked in for years to come.

A recent statement from the executive secretary of the United Nations’ climate change committee said that this is as little as two years in which to act.

We need to stop “business-as-usual” which is driving the destruction of our future. Please object to this application by the deadline (May 5).

To do this, go to Camden’s website, – planning – search for planning applications, and input the planning application number (2023/5240/P).

Then click on the planning application number on the left to take you to the page where you can leave comments.

CLIMATE EMERGENCY CAMDEN