The BEQUEST Framework: the Vision and Methodology
of a Collaborative Platform for Sustainable Urban Development
Mark Deakin [1] and Steve Curwell [2]
Abstract
The concepts of sustainable development that have emerged in the ‘post Brundtland’ era are explored in terms of a vision and methodology of sustainable urban development (SUD). The said vision and methodology of SUD result from the activities of an international network called BEQUEST, funded by the European Commission (EC). The project involved building consensus over the vision and methodology of SUD and sharing this across a wide range of stakeholders. This paper sets out the vision and methodology of the BEQUEST Framework for consensus building between stakeholder interests, represented here in terms of a collaborative platform for the planning, property, design, construction and operational stages of concerted actions on SUD. The paper goes on to examine some impediments to the realisation of the said vision and methodology, including the reluctance of stakeholders to consider either the ecology and equity of urban development, or concern themselves with the environmental, economic and social issues underlying the sustainability of cities. This paper shall suggest that if these impediments are to be overcome, a collaborative platform capable of integrating such matters is needed.
1. Unsustainable Cities
Cities, home to more than half the world's population and nearly 80% of citizens of the E.U. [Busquin 2000], are at the forefront of the battle to implement sustainable development. Cities can be seen simultaneously as a static receptacle of cultural heritage and as a dynamic mechanism, a machine with all the mobility, accommodation and other functions for supporting modern lifestyle needs. Clearly bothviews are relevant and BEQUEST has attempted to embrace them both.
As the economic and cultural powerhouses of nations, cities provide an abundance of benefits that are essential to meeting our development aspirations. However, they are the most significant consumer of ecosystem resources and services. For example it is estimated that in the developed countries around six to ten tones of building materials are used per person per year and 75% of energy is consumed in the use of the built environment [BRE 1996]. The view of the ‘unsustainable city’ was summarised by Ekins and Cooper (1993) as: an environment which has degraded and become polluted, with an overloaded or degenerating and inefficient infrastructure, which is unacceptably detrimental to human well-being, an economy that has ceased to be able to support the population’s expectations for either ‘wealth creation’, or ‘quality of life’, and a society that has become dysfunctional, resulting in increased stress and fear of crime, alienation, high crime rates, and subsequent outward migration.
2. Understanding sustainable urban development
What constitutes SUD is a complex and intractable problem. How to move towards SUD in existing cities and how the sustainability of urban development proposals can be assessed and evaluated, has been explored though a series of ten interactive workshops and through the activities of an electronic network, known as the BEQUEST Extranet. Through this iterative networking process BEQUEST has engaged in a more structured discussion of sustainability issues with a broader range of actors across a wider range of sakeholder interests than has been seen to date. The iterative, interactive discussion process, described as a ‘concerted action’ - the E.C’s formal title for this type of research where knowledge and experience is pooled together - has provided the basis of the consensus building elaborated in this paper [BEQUEST 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001]..
In this context the BEQUEST framework is a ‘vision’ and ‘methodology’of a collaborative platform described below and further supported by a set of protocols and assessments to use as a decision support system for evaluating the sustainabilityof urban development, rather than a utopian vision or blueprint for some idealised city. While consideration of physical models was not a key objective of BEQUEST, a number of case study examples were examined in order to recognize aspects of ‘good practice’ in SUD [BEQUEST 1998, 1999 2000]. The outcomes of this collaboration, in terms of protocols and assessments, have been grouped together in the form of a prototype electronic decision support system – the BEQUEST Toolkit – which contains a vision and methodology for improving the sustainability of particular urban re/development proposals [Deakin, et al, 2001, 2002a, b, 2003 and Hamilton, et al 2002, see also BEQUEST 2000-2, 2001].
3. Principles of Sustainable Development (SD)
The global interest in, and current concepts of, SD can be traced back to the 1980 World Conservation Strategy published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resource (IUCN). In the section entitled ‘Towards Sustainable Development’ the main agents of habitat destruction are identified as poverty, population pressure, social inequity and the terms of trade which work against the interests of the poorer countries[Busquin 2000].. This contributed to the concept of sustainable development [Hatcher, 1996], although the real watershed in interest emerged from the Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development [WCED 1987]. When the Commission tried to define sustainable development they were unable to agree on anything but this rather vague definition:
"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs and aspirations".
This remains the ‘benchmark’ definition, but is often considered inadequate, and numerous other definitions exist, some good, others positively misleading. Nevertheless ‘Brundtland’ represented the emerging international consensus around the concept and the conflict between the demand for human development and protection of environmental systems into the future. The concept was further expanded at the Earth Summit, Rio 1992 [UNCED, 1992] in the Agenda 21 ‘Policy plan for environment and sustainable development in the 21st Century’. In all 27 principles were agreed in the final declaration.
The Agenda 21 principles have been criticised in terms of the human-centered nature of the recommendations, however they should be judged together with the other agreements made in Rio, i.e.; the Climate Change Framework Convention and the Biodiversity Convention
. The 27 principles interweave political, economic, legal, social and environmental dimensions. Thus a valid criticism is that the complex way in which they are framed undermines common understanding and appreciation. However, from the concepts underpinning the Brundtland definition, the Rio Agenda 21 Principles as well as that of a range of other views represented in the literature [Mitchell et al., 1995], there is widespread consensus on four underlying sustainable development principles, although not necessarily on their relative importance or interpretation. We can refer to these bio-physical and social principles as those of Ecological Integrity, Equity, Participation and Futurity . Together these principles suggest there are bio-physical conditions that sustainable development needs to meet and these require to be based on socially inclusive decision making which is fair to all.
4. Towards the Principles of Sustainable Urban Development
Following the discussion of ‘human development’ appearing in the Brundtland Report and Agenda 21 and ‘human settlement’ in the UN Habitat Conference in 1996, BEQUEST sought to draw upon these definitions as a means of moving the EU towards a framework for common understanding of sustainable urban development [UNCSD, 1996]. As identified above, in Europe human settlement is pre-dominantly urban in form (80% of EU citizens live in urban settlements). As a consequence, questions about sustainable development relate to matters concerning the future of the urban development process. In particular they relate to questions about ecological integrity and how to Build the Environmental capacity needed to not only conserve resources, but also QUalify the equity of such action viaEvaluations that foster participation in decisions taken about the future of urban development and SusTainability of cities.
4.1 The PICABUE model of SD
BEQUEST began with the principles; Ecological Integrity, Equity, Participation and Futurity in a ‘four sided’ model, known as PICABUE (see Figure 1). This combines the concern about the quality of the environment, the equity of resource consumption, as well as the participation of the public in decisions that affect their lives, particularly in understanding the future implications of decisions taken today, on the environmental systems and on current and future generations. This 4 dimensional description of sustainable development was used in the early stages of the project to explore common understanding and terminology for SD across the members of the network. This exposed significant gaps in the understanding and different prioritization of the four principles between the various professional groups involved in urban re/development, which emphasized the potential barriers to concerted action across professional boundaries in order to deliver SUD. These activities provided BEQUEST with a common language, vocabulary and terminology to begin to address and communicate what is meant by SUD. The agreed vocabulary takes the form of a ‘glossary’, setting out the terminology thrown up by SUD.
4.2 Targets and Indicators
Whether a given urban development meets the dual aims of ‘livability’ and sustainability is co-determined by the targets set by policy-makers. These have to reconcile conflicting demands and interests of various members of the community. The assessment systems and methodologies that are used to evaluate progress are critical. In the past twenty years many environmental assessment methods have been developed but these do not necessarily cover much of the wider set of criteria represented by SUD [Deakin et al, 2001, 2002].
Even in terms of minimizing environmental impact, there is a lack of clarity and agreement about what overall sustainability targets should be set and which indicators of progress should be employed. A number of experimental building projects in the E.U. have achieved reductions in energy and/or resource consumption of in the region of Factor 10 to 20, when compared with normal practice [BEQUEST 1998, 1999, EGBF 2001], but the mainstream is a long way from such performance levels. This supports the view, (expressed by Von Weizsacker et al 1997 and Fudge 2000), that the technology exists to ameliorate the vast majority of current environmental problems in, or created by, urban centres but only if all the best available technological practice could be generally instigated now. However, an immediate step change to Factor 20 reductions would bring with it a number of undesirable short-term consequences, and not just for the commercial viability of the construction industry, but the whole economy. This is illustrated by developments in Holland, which began by setting a good international example in the late 1990’s – to seek Factor 20 by 2050. However a subsequent change in government means that this target seems to be quietly forgotten. The introduction of smaller year-on-year, aggregated improvements, such as those suggested by the Wuppertal Institute’s Modelling a Socially and Environmentally Sustainable Europe (Wuppertal, 1998), appears a more viable route forward. The implications of attempting to achieve high level of performance improvements of this magnitude for the E.U. property and construction sectors has yet to become an area of serious (research strategy) debate, let alone practical action.
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Figure 1
The four-fold definition of sustainable development
The principles of ecological integrity, equity, participation and futurity, have a clear and distinct and strategic meaning for urban development and the built environment. They relate to land use, architecture, monument conservation, transport and infrastructure, housing, commercial buildings and public facilities. The spatial reality is that current urban centres consist of a complex amalgam of existing buildings, transport and infrastructure systems developed over a long time period. 90% of existing structures will be in use 30 years time [CEC 2000]. Thus SUD becomes a process for adapting the existing built environment over time in a way that supports more sustainable patterns of living and working. Priority needs to be given to addressing the political, economic and social barriers to implementing the emerging cleaner, resource efficient technologies. At the same time, it ought to be recognized that the realization of targets of urban sustainability may extend beyond the borders of the city (the ‘ecological footprint’), implying that sustainable urban planning and development requires a more balanced portfolio of policy measures than is currently the case.
4.3 The Principles of Sustainable Urban Development
From this broad analysis of current understanding and practice it is clear that none of the models explored above, of themselves, provide an adequate ‘picture’ of ‘Sustainable Urban Development’, but a number of important common factors emerge, which represent the key principles of SUD:
·SUD is a relative rather than an absolute concept.
·SUD is a process not a product or fixed destination.
·SUD relates considerations of ecological integrity, equity, participation and futurity of the urban development process.
·This in turn relates to the planning, property development, design, construction and operational sectors of the urban development process.
·Progress towards SUD must integrate Environmental, Economic and Social issues underlying the urban development process and sustainability of cities.
·Integration of the issues underlying the urban development process and sustainability of cities proceeds within a given institutional setting.
These points provide the terms of reference needed to ‘frame’ the relevant issues (structure them ) and lead on to a formulation of the protocols that are needed to not only procure SUD and required, butdirect decision makers towards the assessments which are required . The so-called toolkit through which the vision and methodology become a collaborative platform that evaluates the sustainability of urban development.
5. The BEQUEST Framework
How do we know that the urban interventions we make today will lead to, or assist in supporting, more sustainable communities in the future? It is clear that the answer is very location specific; it depends on the local environmental, economic and social constraints relevant in any particular urban area. Therefore BEQUEST does not attempt to impose an answer to this question directly. Rather it seeks to provide a frame of reference within which those who have to make such decisions can work and understand the context of the decisions taken. The framework relates the four main dimensions of SUD: the urban development activities, the sustainability issues (environmental, economic, social and institutional), spatial level and timescale (see Figure 2).
5.1 The urban development activities
As identified, SUD is a process. As such, good practice guidance on SUD and on the use and procurement of assessment methods need to be integrated with the urban development process from strategic planning on one hand to utilisation of the resulting built environment at the other. The main activities and their sub-activities, are Planning (strategic and local), Property Development (public and private interests), Design (urban, building and components), Construction (new build, refurbishment and demolition) and Operation (use, facilities management and maintenance). Each of these involve a separate but interlinked process where specific methods of assessment are needed to evaluate the sustainability of urban development.
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Figure 2
The BEQUEST Framework
5.2 Environmental, economic and social issues
As outlined earlier, human activities create effects which are more or less sustainable. These activities are created by, or are consequences of, sources of environmental, economic and social stress. Environmental stresses include depletion of natural resources, pollution, excessive land use with consequent loss of biodiversity. Economic stress is often a cause and effect of loss of production, decaying building stock, and/or of inadequate finance or incentives. Transport and utilities are important industrial sectors that effect and are affected by other economic sectors. Social stress may include lack of access to facilities, inadequate safety and security, poor health or general loss of well-being which is often associated with poor sense of community. Good governance is necessary to create equality of access to resources along with social participation and judicial means of redress are all part of the institutional framework necessary to support SD. All these aspects, and the spiritual dimensions of life, are moral codes and ethical systems.
5.3 Spatial Levels
Urban development can take place at various spatial levels from the whole city down to that of an individual building and its material components. Equally, the environmental effects or other socio-economic implications can be felt from local to global levels. A planning proposal can lead on to various new industrial and commercial consequences for the environment, economy and society from the level of the whole city down to the neighbourhood scale. The provision of new buildings can effect the extraction of raw materials and the manufacture of components, which, in turn, can create emissions that can have effects on the environment from the local to global scale and so on.
5.4 Timescale
The importance of long-term thinking to SUD has been emphasized above. The timescale used by BEQUEST, i.e., short-term 0-5years, medium-term 5-20 years and long-term more than 20 years, represents the normal scale used in economic and strategic planning.
5.5 The Vision and Methodology
The full potential of the BEQUEST framework, its vision and methodology, (linking SUD activities, issues, levels and scales to the protocols and connection this has in turn to assessment) is still being investigated. The framework is already being used as a structuring device by other research groups, notably the European Green Building Forum [EGBF 2001] and in a project known as CRISP exploring the range of Construction and City Related Sustainability Indicators [CRISP, 2001], because of its recognized potential to identify various ‘gaps’ in understanding of SUD between a wide range of interests and stakeholders. These include the gaps between:
·the protocols for the planning, property, design, construction and operational interests of SUD,
·fuller environmental, economic and social assessments, focussing on the ecological integrity and equity of urban development
·assessment methods used at the city and building scale,
·and across three main stakeholder groups, i.e., those involved in:
oplanning and property development,
othe provision and management of infrastructure, and
othe design, construction and management of buildings.
6. The Collaborative Platform for SUD
The BEQUEST Framework, the vision that underlies it, as well as the methodology which supports it,offer the consensus needed to build a collaborative platform - set of protocols and assessments - for integrating SUD across the required scales of action, issues and stakeholders. It provides a device for framing current thinking and to build consensus on the steps necessary to develop more sustainable cities . BEQUEST provides a common language and vocabulary for opening up a dialogue between relevant stakeholders and it provides comprehensive terms of reference for developing the protocols needed to manage such change in a suitably innovative way. Such protocols are needed in order to direct decision makers towards the assessments which it is possible to undertake in evaluating the sustainability of urban development. The said protocols and assessments in turn form a toolkit for evaluating the sustainability of urban development and glossary defining the terms of reference for directing such actions.
7. Conclusion
BEQUEST has sought to identify the common issues underlying the growing interest in sustainable urban development and to structure them in such a way as to provide a framework for analysis. This has been done by first adopting the PICABUE definition of sustainable development, ‘mapping out’ the ‘fuzzy buzzwords’ associated with the concept as and then modifying it to include the issues underlying the urban re/development process. This has meant: fore-grounding the question of urban development and representing it as a life cycle of inter-related activities:
·agreeing the sustainable development issues underlying the urban process;
·identifying the environmental, economic and social structure, spatial level and time frames involved in SUD .
Visioning urban development in this manner allows a wide range of sustainable development issues to surface concerning the environmental, economic and social structure, spatial level and time scales of SUD. The methodology proposed to support this is that of an integrated, iterative process, building consensus from a collaborative platform.In order to facilitate this, the BEQUEST Framework of activities, issues, levels and scales of analysis:
·provides a 4-dimensional ‘model’ of SUD that adequately represents, but simplifies, the breadth and complexities of the issues faced in consensus building exercises of this type;
·forms the basis for common understanding and therefore for integration between a wide range of stakeholders;
·provides a framework for integrating analysis of SUD across activities, issues, level and scale;
·calls for a set of protocols that allow the planning, property development, design, construction and operational components of SUD, to be integrated within and as part of, the environmental, economic and social issues underlying the sustainability of cities;
·allows decision makers to select the assessments capable of evaluating the sustainability of urban development.
The framework’s ‘vision’ and ‘methodology’ is primarily that of consensus building, based ona collaborative platform and supported by a set of protocols and assessments, which takethe form of a decision support tool-kit for evaluating the sustainabilityof urban development.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the contribution of all members of the BEQUEST Network. The authors should also like to thank Ian Cooper and Gordon Mitchell for their close reading and constructive comments on an earlier draft of this paper. The BEQUEST project was funded by the Research Directorate of the European Commission under the 4th Framework Programme, contract number ENV4-CT97-0607.
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