Tools and decision making for sustainable urban development
Improving the quality of urban life is a fundamental aspect of sustainable development. It involves integrated decision making across environmental and socio-economic factors when considering both new projects and improvements to existing infrastructure. The need to minimise and manage environmental risks, use resources efficiently, improve the built environment and introduce innovative transport strategies requires a consistent and comparable approach to urban projects' evaluation. The aim of PETUS project was to provide a framework of practical evaluation tools that can be used to analyse urban infrastructure projects in order to assess them against standard criteria. In addition, the framework developed will provide transparent information for other interest and stakeholders groups to assess the success of projects and their transferability for application elsewhere. For this purpose, existing evaluation tools, case studies and EU legislation were brought together intricately linked to a monitoring procedure to track the sustainability of a project over time. The PETUS team identified numerous evaluation tools during their research that were being used in practice. A comprehensive set of information was collected from sector specific case studies illustrating tools' implementation and an extensive literature review. This includes characteristics and a summary of the tools, information on their application in practice and where they can be obtained. A guidance section incorporated in the framework provides procedures for monitoring action taken towards sustainability in the form of a Decision Support Tool. This facility enables end users to collect together information as an infrastructure project progresses which can be visible to all stakeholders involved. A matrix and a checklist were developed to assist the process of describing why specific decisions have been made at a certain point in decision making process, thereby increasing transparency and offering comparability. The Decision Support System is to help those involved in different types of urban projects to make quick but informed decisions on incorporating sustainability into urban infrastructure. Further research is required for the framework to be expanded upon to encompass additional areas.
