Planning and Development | sustainsurveying

PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

Sustainable Development Through Better Decision-Making

Planning and development shape the places in which people live, work and interact with the natural environment.

Decisions about land and development involve more than determining what can be built and where. They require consideration of economic, social and environmental objectives, alongside questions of viability, infrastructure, climate resilience, biodiversity, natural resources and the long-term needs of communities.

Sustainable development therefore sits at the heart of contemporary planning and development practice.

Planning, Development and Surveying

Chartered surveyors play an important role in bringing together the different considerations that influence land and development decisions.

RICS describes Planning and Development surveyors as professionals who promote effective land management and administration as a driver of sustainable development. This involves not only the physical characteristics of the built and natural environment, but also its social, economic and environmental dimensions.

Surveying expertise can contribute to understanding development opportunities, site constraints, land use, viability, valuation, environmental considerations and the wider implications of development proposals.

Explore the RICS Planning and Development pathway

Planning for Sustainable Development

Every site and development exists within a particular environmental, economic and social context. Understanding that context at an early stage can help identify both opportunities and potential constraints before significant resources are committed to a project.

Sustainability considerations may include:

land use and development potential
climate change, adaptation and resilience
biodiversity and natural capital
flood risk and drainage
energy and carbon
transport and accessibility
resource use and circularity
landscape and the natural environment
community and social value
infrastructure and local services
heritage and the historic environment
economic viability and long-term value.

These issues are often interconnected. A whole-system perspective can therefore provide a more useful understanding of a development than considering individual sustainability issues in isolation.

A Changing Planning Context

Planning policy and regulation continue to evolve in response to pressures surrounding housing, infrastructure, economic growth, climate change and environmental protection.

The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 introduced significant reforms intended to accelerate housing and infrastructure delivery. RICS has highlighted the continuing importance of surveyors across valuation, planning, infrastructure, sustainability and land assembly as these reforms are implemented.

RICS - Planning and Infrastructure Act secures Royal Assent

At the same time, emerging issues such as biodiversity net gain, climate resilience, natural capital and changing approaches to energy and infrastructure are increasing the range of considerations relevant to development decisions.

RICS's 2026 Sustainability practice for surveyors identifies planning, land and resource stewardship as a key pillar of sustainable professional practice, connecting planning and development with responsible land use, environmental protection and equity.

RICS – Sustainability practice for surveyors

Planning, Development and the Environment

Development inevitably interacts with the environment. Depending upon the site and proposal, relevant considerations may include biodiversity, landscape, flooding, drainage, carbon, pollution, natural resources and the effects of climate change.

Increasingly, the challenge is not simply to minimise environmental impacts but to identify opportunities for development to contribute positively to resilience, biodiversity, environmental quality and sustainable places.

This creates important connections between planning and other areas explored by Sustain Surveying, particularly natural capital, environmental management, flooding, renewable energy and carbon.

Sustain Surveying and Planning & Development

Sustain Surveying provides independent professional analysis and advice on sustainability considerations affecting land, planning and development decisions.

Our approach brings together surveying expertise, sustainability research, RICS standards and guidance, planning and environmental policy and wider professional evidence to help clients identify and understand the sustainability opportunities, risks and considerations associated with a particular site, project or development proposal.

Advice may include early-stage sustainability review; identification of relevant environmental, social and economic considerations; analysis of sustainability opportunities and constraints; review and interpretation of policy and professional guidance; and consideration of how sustainability issues interact across a proposed development.

Where an instruction requires specialist planning representation, architectural or engineering design, Environmental Impact Assessment, ecological assessment, legal advice or another specialist technical service, the need for appropriately qualified professional input will be identified.