Improving eco-efficiency of the built environment tools for local action

Even if a single town or a lone neighbourhood seems insignificant in terms of global phenomena, climate change, biodiversity losses and burdens on nature’s regenerative capacity are always the results of local action. Numerous rating tools and accounting methods are already available for measuring neighbourhood eco-efficiency, regional carbon footprints and pollution loads, immediate levels of particulates in the air and regional material, energy and waste flows. However, the local developers of the built environment may find it difficult to select the tools that apply to the local conditions. In addition, due to a lack of standardisation and transparency, different tools assessing the same sectors of eco-efficiency may produce remarkably discordant results. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine how regional eco-efficiency evaluation results can be uniformly compared and how the available eco-tools respond to the demands of urban development projects in Finland, which acted as a case country of the study being one of the Nordic countries. A collection of 37 available tools was reviewed and a functional toolbox was composed according to the expectations of the designers and constructors involved in improving the eco-efficiency of the built environment. The qualitative research was based on a comprehensive literature review, and some of the methods reported in grounded theory were utilised for analysing the data. As a result of the study it was stated that not only the individual tools evaluating different sectors of regional eco-efficiency could be improved but also that the already available sophisticated accounting methods of material flows, energy use and pollution loads could be added to the rating systems of neighbourhood eco-efficiency and built environment sustainability. In addition, ensuring the adoption of the principles of life cycle thinking into the whole framework of measuring local sustainability and regional ecoefficiency was found to be essential.

[1]  K. Perreault,et al.  Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches , 2011 .

[2]  Seppo Junnila,et al.  Implications of urban structure on carbon consumption in metropolitan areas , 2011 .

[3]  Thomas Wiedmann,et al.  Integrating ecological, carbon and water footprint into a "footprint family" of indicators: Definition and role in tracking human pressure on the planet , 2012 .

[4]  Manfred Lenzen,et al.  A research agenda for improving national Ecological Footprint accounts , 2009 .

[5]  D. Dodman.  Blaming cities for climate change? An analysis of urban greenhouse gas emissions inventories , 2009 .

[6]  Adolfo Carballo Penela,et al.  Applying physical input–output tables of energy to estimate the energy ecological footprint (EEF) of Galicia (NW Spain) , 2008 .

[7]  F. Chapin,et al.  A safe operating space for humanity , 2009, Nature.

[8]  A. Bryman,et al.  Business Research Methods , 2004 .

[9]  Eddie C.M. Hui,et al.  A methodology for eco-efficiency evaluation of residential development at city level , 2010 .

[10]  Alan Meier,et al.  City carbon budgets: A proposal to align incentives for climate-friendly communities , 2010 .

[11]  A. Ramaswami,et al.  A demand-centered, hybrid life-cycle methodology for city-scale greenhouse gas inventories. , 2008, Environmental science & technology.

[12]  W. Poganietz,et al.  Economic-environmental monitoring indicators for European countries: A disaggregated sector-based approach for monitoring eco-efficiency , 2011 .

[13]  G. Huppes,et al.  A Framework for Quantified Eco‐efficiency Analysis , 2005 .

[14]  N. Schulz.  The Direct Material Inputs into Singapore's Development , 2007, Journal of industrial ecology.

[15]  Daniel Mendoza,et al.  Modeling energy consumption and CO2 emissions at the urban scale: Methodological challenges and insights from the United States , 2010 .

[16]  Rebecca C. Retzlaff Aicp.  Green Building Assessment Systems: A Framework and Comparison for Planners , 2008 .

[17]  Seppo Junnila,et al.  Dense downtown living more carbon intense due to higher consumption: a case study of Helsinki , 2011 .

[18]  Matthew E. Kahn,et al.  The Greenness of Cities: Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Urban Development , 2008 .

[19]  Mark A. J. Huijbregts,et al.  A bright future for addressing chemical emissions in life cycle assessment , 2011 .

[20]  Seppo Junnila,et al.  Neighborhood eco-efficiency A Finnish perspective , 2011 .

[21]  Gjalt Huppes,et al.  Three Strategies to Overcome the Limitations of Life‐Cycle Assessment , 2004 .

[22]  Frank Southworth,et al.  The geography of metropolitan carbon footprints , 2009 .