Green infrastructure and planning policy: a critical assessment

Advocates of the green infrastructure (GI) concept claim it offers a progressive planning approach that facilitates synergies between economic growth, environmental conservation and social development. Although widely endorsed by both planning practitioners and academics, little academic literature exists critically evaluating what GI entails or the potential implications of its institutionalisation within planning practice. This paper addresses this deficit by critically examining the interpretation and representation of the GI concept in planning policy. The paper first critically analyses international interpretations of GI. Following this, the particular attributes of GI's interpretation in the Republic of Ireland are investigated. The paper demonstrates how the emergence of GI in Ireland relates to broader debates on attempts to reconcile environmental concerns with development aspirations in planning policy. It is deduced that GI may represent an approach to planning policy formulation wherein habitat conservation initiatives are primarily designed and justified relative to the ecosystems services they are seen to provide to society. The paper also cautions against the risks posed by confining GI debates to the deliberations of technical specialist. The paper concludes by identifying some issues that may arise in the implementation of a GI approach and suggests ways to enhance the potential benefit of the concept's use in spatial planning.