Wangel, Josefin
- Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
Abstract
Certification systems for sustainable neighbourhoods started to emerge around a decade ago. This study analysed the content structure, weighting and indicators of two established certification systems for sustainable urban development - BREEAM Communities and LEED for Neighborhood Development Several limitations of these systems were identified: both have a bias for procedure and feature indicators over indicators that assess actual performance; performance demands are set according to a relative understanding of sustainable development; the focus is on internal sustainability, while upstream and downstream impacts of construction are disregarded; the number and distribution of mandatory issues do not cover essential sustainability aspects; and the disproportionately large number of non-mandatory issues makes benchmarking difficult and signals that sustainability aspects are exchangeable. Altogether, this means that an area can be certified without being sustainable. Moreover, the lack of continuous development of certification requirements in the systems means that they risk exerting a conservative effect on urban development, rather than pushing it forward. (c) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords
Sustainable urban development; Sustainable neighbourhood; BREEAM; LEED; Assessment; Indicators; Certification
Published in
Environmental Impact Assessment Review
2016, volume: 56, pages: 200-213
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
SLU Authors
UKÄ Subject classification
Environmental Management
Construction Management
Publication identifier
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2015.10.003
Permanent link to this page (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/84228