3.8 Environment covers all aspects of the City's external environment: conservation areas; listed buildings; areas of high townscape value; parks; open spaces; and watercourses. The City's physical environment is the basis for visitors and potential investors first impressions of Glasgow. Maintaining Glasgow's historic built environment, reinforcing this with new developments that demonstrate the highest standards of design and linking these urban elements to a high quality natural environment are key challenges for the City. In order to reflect  adequately all aspects of the City's environment, the Plan deals separately with Built Heritage, Natural Heritage and Vacant Land. Urban Design ties together all these aspects of the urban fabric and offers the context to link them with the natural environment. High quality, sustainability and designing for people underpin the aims and outcomes of this section of the Plan.

Glasgow Green Winter Garden

The Aims for the Environment are to:
encourage high standards of urban design that will contribute to urban sustainability and economic regeneration; protect or enhance buildings and areas of special quality and promote Glasgow's built heritage; improve the quality of, and access to, the City's greenspaces; and realise the development potential of 800 hectares of vacant and derelict land by 2005.

The Strategy for the Environment involves:
the protection of those things of lasting value in the built and natural environment and the application of the highest standards of design quality throughout the whole of Glasgow. The Strategy also involves removing the impact of blight by realising the development potential of vacant and derelict land.