Social Sustainability and Inclusive Environments in Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment Tools

Abstract

Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment (NSA) tools are voluntary rating systems for certifying sustainable neighbourhoods in case of new constructions or urban renewals. They consist of categories and indicators to value specific performances. Their purpose is to objectify planned interventions assigning a final score which identifies the overall performance of the district in terms of sustainability. However, is it possible to affirm that these systems actually contribute to the improvement of inclusiveness and healthy living in the neighbourhoods? This question arises as a reflection on the two main issues that contemporary cities have to face urgently which are urbanization and ageing population, focusing attention on developed countries. In this regard, “new” urban spaces are called to achieve inclusion and healthy living for all the people and the neighbourhood represents the right scale for reasoning about. The present study investigates some of the most commonly used neighbourhood scale tools (BREEAM Communities, GBC Italia, DGNB Districts, Living Community Challenge, EcoDistricts) looking at how these systems can help to create more inclusive districts. In particular, the analysis aims to understand how much the social pillar of sustainability affects on urban wellbeing. In fact, there is the evidence that in most NSA tools environmental dimension shall prevails on the others. Through a review of each protocol’s “social” categories and of the recent literature on these topics, the study wants to underline criticalities and potentialities of NSA systems and tries to understand in which way a new protocol should act in order to help municipalities, planners and stakeholders in designing inclusive and accessible environments for all.

1 Introduction

According to United Nations (2019a), currently there are four demographic megatrends: population growth, international migration, population ageing and urbanization. These trends follow differing geographies with disparities between developed countries and developing ones. Furthermore, they all affect the sustainable development of nations.

With a focus on developed countries, it is possible to see that the number of over 65 persons is growing exponentially. For the first time in the history, in 2018, the elderly cohort has exceeded the one of under 5 children. This trend is expected to go faster during the next years—despite the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic—and over 65 will exceed the 15–24 group too by 2050 (UN 2019a).

Meanwhile, it is estimated that about 68% of the world’s population will live in urban contexts by the same date (UN 2019b). Therefore, it is crucial to understand the future aspects related to urbanization to ensure a sustainable development of cities and implement the goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN 2015). Specifically, the goal n. 11 Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable is closely related to the development of cities that recognize the centrality of people in transformation processes by providing equal opportunities for all. In this way, the New Urban Agenda (UN-Habitat 2017; UN-Habitat 2020) acts as an accelerator to achieve this goal.

In this scenario, population ageing together with migratory pressure influence changes in the urban environment. Specifically, population ageing can be considered as an opportunity to rethink cities as physically and socially inclusive environments, which means suitable places for all people and all ages.

This paper recognises social sustainability as the key to a broader understanding of the concept of inclusivity. Through the literature review on the topic, it aims to understand how this issue is addressed within the most known Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment tools, with a view to the drafting of a new protocol for the evaluation of social sustainability at neighbourhood scale.¹

2 The Social Dimension of Sustainability

Sustainability is a very complex concept in which different “dimensions” are intersected: environmental, political, regulatory, economic, social, cultural one. In 1994, Elkington coined the term triple bottom line by which sustainability has to be considered through the 3 “P”: people, planet and profit. It implies an approach that promotes economic growth while minimizing environmental impacts and ensuring social inclusion.

Sustainability is achieved when there is a balance between its three dimensions, which are dependent on one another (Colantonio 2009). Nonetheless, unlike the economic and environmental dimensions, the social one has always disregarded in policies and practices, probably because of its “immaterial” nature.

It is not easy to find a unique definition of social sustainability (SS) because this concept includes multiple facets. The definition by Polese and Stern (2000: 15–16) seems to be one of the most interesting, by which SS is the «development (and/or growth) that is compatible with harmonious evolution of civil society, fostering an environment conducive to the compatible cohabitation of culturally and socially diverse groups, while at the same time encouraging social integration, with improvements in the quality of life for all segments of the population».

Starting from this statement, the main aspects of SS are: social equity, social cohesion and participation, social exclusion, environmental justice, security, urban livability, quality of life (Colantonio 2009; Shirazi and Keivani 2019). As Colantonio (2009) says, it is possible to distinguish “soft” components (intangible, as social cohesion) from “hard” ones (tangible, as facilities presence).

The urban environment is the “cradle” of SS. The physical characteristics of the city have considerable influence on the components of the SS and vice versa (Bramley et al. 2006). For this reason, it seems necessary to measure “sociality” in urban context, in order to improve both spatiality and policies when necessary. However, its “intangible” nature and the lack of a unique definition make the evaluation difficult to achieve (Colantonio 2009), as it is possible to see below.

3 Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment Tools

Sustainability assessment tools are voluntary systems edited by no-profit organization to certify specific performances of the “object” to be assessed. The first examples were born in the 90s with the aim of controlling and limiting buildings energy consumption. In these cases, the number of environmental and economic criteria predominates over the social ones. This trend is still present in the most recent tools, confirming «the fundamental misunderstanding according to which sustainability is mainly intended in environmental terms, despite its strongly anthropocentric nature» (Acierno and Attaianese 2018: 267).

Neighbourhood Sustainability Assessment (NSA) tools were born in the early 2000s. During these years, in fact, cities, neighbourhoods and public spaces have been subjects of interest of sustainable studies since they can play a key role in sustainable development processes (Sharifi et al. 2021).

NSA tools are used both in the case of new constructions and urban renewals. They consist of categories, indicators and benchmarks to evaluate specific performances. Their purpose is to objectify planned interventions assigning a final score which identifies the overall performance of the district in terms of sustainability (Boyle et al. 2018). The assessment process is led by independent third parties and it has a cost. These characteristics are seen as the main critical aspects in fact they constitute a limit in the dissemination of these systems above all in developing countries.²

The most used NSA tools worldwide are: BREEAM Communities (UK), LEED Neighbourhood Development (USA) and GBC Quartieri (Italy), ITACA Scala Urbana (Italy), DGNB Districts (Germany), Living Community Challenge (USA), CASBEE for Urban Development (Japan), Green Star Communities (Australia), EcoDistricts (USA), HQE2R (France).³

They can be divided in “spin-off”—the most of them—which are the ones derived from building-scale systems, and “others”—as EcoDisctricts and HQE2R—which instead have been specifically created for urban-scale interventions (Sharifi and Murayama 2012).

This study aims to investigate the social dimension in five of these tools,⁴ in order to understand which are the actual limitations regarding SS and how these systems can help municipalities and planners to create more inclusive districts.

4 BREEAM Communities

The Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) was born in UK in 1990 and it is the first sustainable assessment tool at building-scale worldwide. In 2008 the urban-scale version was published with the name of BREEAM Communities.

This tool is organized in three steps (establishing the principles; determining the layout; designing the details) and six categories (Governance; Social and economic wellbeing; Resources and energy; Land use and ecology; Transport and movement; Innovation). The 2012 version—the most update one—consists of a total of 40 individual assessment issues. The certification is obtained when at least 30% score is reached.

The subcategory Social wellbeing⁵ is the 17.1% of the total and it aims «to ensure a socially cohesive community» (BRE 2017: 15). Here the social theme is expressly stated thanks to its 9 criteria, which are listed in Table 84.1.

Table 84.1 Social wellbeing criteria in BREEAM communities

4.1 EcoDistricts

EcoDistricts was born in Portland, Oregon (USA) in the first decade of the 2000s to promote health and justice in the cities. Its tool—named EcoDistricts too—is designed exclusively for neighbourhood scale. The protocol is «a rigorous, sustainable urban development framework for achieving people-centred, economically vibrant neighbourhood and district-scale sustainability» (EcoDistricts 2018: 7).

EcoDistricts has three key-elements: three Imperatives (Equity; Resilience; Protection), six Priorities (Place; Prosperity; Health and Wellbeing; Connectivity; Living infrastructure; Resource regeneration) and three implementation phases. If all the requirements are achieved, it is possible to have the final certification.

Among the six Priorities, only Resource regeneration concerns strictly the environmental field, in fact social aspects are more integrated than in other tools. Some of the most relevant social indicators, according to the author, are listed in Table 84.2.

Table 84.2 Most relevant social indicators in EcoDistricts

4.2 DGNB Districts

The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) was born in 2007 in Germany to promote sustainability in the building sector. After its version at building-scale, in 2012 the NSA tool was published with the name DGNB Districts.

In the last version (ed. 2020), there are 5 thematic areas (Environmental quality; Economic quality; Sociocultural and functional quality; Technical quality; Process quality), all of them with the same weighting (20%), and 31 criteria. It is possible to achieve the certification with a minimum of 50% score.

In this protocol, «people’s health and happiness should be a focal point when making design and construction decisions» (DGNB 2020: 7). The main social criteria are listed in Table 84.3.

Table 84.3 Main social criteria in DGNB Districts

4.3 Living Community Challenge

In 2014, the International Living Future Institute of Seattle (USA) created Living Community Challenge (LCC), a district-scale assessment tool, after the building-scale version.

It has a different structure from the other tools because it is not prescriptive, but it allows the analysis of urban areas to understand the potential of the place in improving citizens experience. For this reason, there are no benchmarks, and this represents its most important limit in application.

It has 7 categories (called Petals: Place; Water; Energy; Health and happiness; Materials; Equity; Beauty) and a total of 20 imperatives (ILFI 2017). The certification is possible only if all the imperatives are checked. The main social imperatives are listed in Table 84.4.

Table 84.4 Main social imperatives in LCC (ed. 2019)

4.4 GBC Italia Quartieri

The last analysed tool is GBC Italia Quartieri, made by Green Building Council Italia in 2015. It is the Italian version of the LEED Neighbourhood Development (USA).

It has three main assessment categories (Site Location and Connections; Neighbourhood Planning and Organization; Sustainable Infrastructure and Buildings) and two optional ones (Design Innovation; Regional Priority). There are 42 credits and 12 required prerequisites. The certification is available only with the minimum score of 40 points (GBC Italia 2015).

Compared to the other tools, GBC Italia Quartieri does not contribute much to social sustainability aspects. According to the author, the main social credits are related to “spatial quality” as showed in Table 84.5.

Table 84.5 Main social credits in GBC Italia Quartieri

5 Discussion and Conclusions

The carried-out analysis shows that the environmental aspects are the most considered, followed by the economic ones and finally by the social ones. In particular, regarding SS, the most common criteria refer to its “hard” part rather than the “soft” one. In fact, there are no methods to evaluate it objectively considering its partly intangible nature.

Looking at the various criteria in the previous tables, it is possible to affirm that: (1) the different tools are not comparable with each other because they differ from the criteria and weights assigned⁶; (2) the “spatial” criteria (e.g. public spaces, accessibility, mixitè) are much greater in numbers than those concerning social activities and sense of community (such as participation, involvement, equity). EcoDistricts and LCC are the only tools that work more in this direction, even if their weakness, as mentioned, consists in the fact that they do not provide for an objective measurement through benchmarks.

However, trying to evaluate the SS as a whole could be helpful in order to achieve inclusivity for all people in urban areas. This is one of the most important issues of the New Urban Agenda, which in fact promotes actions for inclusive cities and human settlements right through participation, civic engagement, sense of belonging, social and intergenerational interaction (UN-Habitat 2020).

In the ongoing Ph.D. research, the author is elaborating a protocol focusing both on tangible and intangible aspects of the SS. Starting from the carried-out analysis on the existing NSA tools (briefly reported in this paper), the new tool aims to reconsider the social dimension of sustainability as the key element for urban regeneration processes in developed areas. In fact, it seems necessary considering the two trends of urbanization and population ageing.

Specifically, the new criteria will all have the same weighting for two reasons: each aspect of SS is equally important and avoiding subjectiveness of the assessment process. The purpose is to have a tool that can be easily used by municipalities, planners and stakeholders in designing inclusive and accessible environments for all (Figs. 84.1 and 84.2).

Fig. 84.1

Monday farmer market in the Santa Marta neighbourhood in Venice stimulates social interaction in an area with high number of elderly residents. Rosaria Revellini (2021)

Fig. 84.2

“Afternoon” bench where elderly people in Santa Marta neighbourhood in Venice are usually seated, favoured by the tree shade. Rosaria Revellini (2019)