Evaluating Sustainable Development

Book excerpt: Sustainable development has been characterised by an emphasis onenvironmental issues and an ad hoc approach to structuring thesubject which hinders the development of knowledge in a systematicway. The built environment contributes significantly to theenvironment but is also one of the major factors in determiningwhether a community is sustainable in the longer term. A structure is required which aids definition, provides a commonset of values, establishes measurement methods to define progress,and suggests a management system and decision protocol whichenables practitioners to engage and use the resultant structuresand information. This book provides a suggested structure in which all aspects ofsustainable development can be included together with a set ofevaluation techniques which can be used within the structure toprovide assistance to decision making.