|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Indicators of Sustainability
Indicators comprehend all the principal aspects of sustainability and must be adapted to the level of intervention. Indicator systems exist on macroeconomic levels (national statistics), on regional and town planning (in particular indicators for local sustainability) and on the level of buildings and their life cycle. Research is organised along Environmental Assessment (EA) privileging the impacts in defined time and space system or Life Cycle Analysis privileging the global impacts over a longer period for artefacts (products) or services. Strategic environmental Assessment (SEA) attempts to enlarge EA by taking into consideration longer time periods and collateral effects. The management of urban fragments must take into account as well short, medium and long term time perspectives as well as local and global indicators and strategic aspects.
Ecological indicators take into account resource consumption and impact on the ecosystem. The state of the art for LCA is given in general in the SETAC methodology discussions, mainly based on CML effect categories, newest evaluation (aggregation) methods are proposed within the ECOINDICATOR 99. Basic data are organised along SPOLD formats and consistent upstream and downstream databases exist in several countries. In the building sector the main discussions take place in IEA Annex 31 energy related environmental impact), CIB working groups, GBC (the international green building contest) and European research projects (i.e. REGENER). Crucial problems for building stocks are the operation energy related impacts, the evaluation of the ecological resource value of the existing stocks and the local impacts of buildings which fall between LCA and EI system limits.
Economical indicators for sustainable development exist mainly on macroeconomic level. The economic valuation of ecological and cultural resources is subject of international research and discussed (i.e. [BAE97]). Main issues in economic aspects in the management of urban fragments are the identification and reduction of running costs and their appreciation in a long-term perspective. Crucial issues are discounting rates to be adapted, external costs and taking into account long term risks.
Social indicators for sustainable development of urban fragments are strongly linked to the problems of social and population changes due to physical decay in housing and due to commercial activities. The deprivation of housing leads to social segregation and tends to concentrate low-income groups in specific regions. As a result the physical decay is accelerated through vandalism and breaking down of social infrastructure. The succession cycle of physical condition, population changes, organisational changes, economic changes are described in literature. The principal research effort will be to develop sets of indicators, which allow anticipating this processes (risk indicators) and performance indicators for long term socially sustainable management. Most research has been conducted in the perspective of town planning and neighbourhood planning. The innovation will be the perspective of the comprehensive management of urban fragments.
The cultural indicators of sustainable development will be based on a new defintion of cultural (architectural) heritage. Untill now cultural aspects have been limited in the building field mainly to monument conservation and historic urban fragments issues. The development of the last 20 years has shown that significant urban qualities, which are not concerned by monument and site protection, are disappearing. The notion of cultural heritage has been extended gradually from individual buildings (monuments) to the architectural heritage and a number of European and International agreements for the protection of these values have been implemented. (Council of Europe Charter of the Architectural Heritage (1975), Grenada Convention 1985, Malta Convention 1982. Several European initiatives have been taken for new comprehensive investigation methods (SAVE) taking also into account ecological resources (ReSAVE). In Germany industrial heritage conservation has been linked to town and regional development schemes (IBA Emscherpark). The principal innovation will be to develop indicators for a long-term cultural management of buildings stocks taking into account the architectural and cultural qualities of individual buildings and neighbourhoods in a comprehensive management strategy.
>
References
[ECO99] Goedkoop, M: The Eco-indicator 99; Preliminary report 1999. Pre Consultants . Amersfoort. NL www.pre.nl[EC96] European Sustainable Cities. Report of the Expert Group on the Urban Environment European Commission Directorate General XI Environment, Nuclear Safety and Civil Protection BRUSSELS, MARCH 1996
[SAV97] Danish Ministery of Environment and Energy : InterSAVE. International Survey on Architectural Values in the environment. Copenhagen 1997.
[WB94] WORLD BANK : Cultural heritrage in environmental assessement. Environmental assesssment sourcebook. Update. Sept. 1994. No 8
[WRI95] Hammond, A.; Adriaanse,A.; Rodeburg,E.; Bryan,D.; Woodward,R.: Environment indicators: A systematic approach to measuring and reporting on envoronmental policy performance in the contex of sustainable development. Worls Resource Institute. Washington D.C. 1992
[ISO95] ISO : ISO14001 Environmental Management Sytem . Draft Standard. 1995
[WB94] WORLD BANK : Economic Analysis and Environmental Assessment . . Environmental assesssment sourcebook. Update. April 98 . No 23
[EC98] A study to develop and implement an overall strategy for EIA/SEA - Research in the EU. ISBN , 92-828-3568-5
[SET93] SETAC; A conceptual framework for Life-Cycle Assessment, Novem, 1993
[SET96] UDO DE HAES, H.A. (edit): Towards a methodology for life cycle impact assessment. SETAC, Bruxelles. 1996
[ISO97] ISO/TC207/SC5: Life cycle assessement - principles and guide
[HOF98] HOFSTETTER, P.: Perspectives in Life Cycle Impact Assessment. A stuctured approach to Combine Models of the Technosphere, Ecosphere and Valuesphere. Kluwer, Boston 1998