This paper reports on research conducted just ahead of the 2020 pandemic, that surveyed 350 built-environment practitioners in NSW, and in a diversity of fields, about the barriers and opportunities (personal, workplace, regulatory and attitudinal) they experience when seeking to deliver health-supportive places.

This paper details the approach and progress being made by the cross-sectoral Shade Working Goup (SWG) across health and the built environment to embed natural and built quality shade provision in places used by the community in New South Wales (NSW), Australia.

Built environment interventions must move beyond simple ecological sustainability to encouraging ways of life that are healthy for both humans and the planet. There are key challenges facing this new approach.

More and more of us living in denser cities where apartments and high-rise developments are increasingly common. This creates specific health concerns for residents of these areas, and for lower-income households in particular.

This paper addresses the ‘co-benefits approach’ as a means of integrating climate concerns into local planning and development control in general.