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Accounting For Sustainability Implementing A Resid
Accounting For Sustainability Implementing A Resid
Indicators-based projects are currently central to many urban sustainable development initiatives admin-
istered by local, city, and national governments, non-governmental organizations and increasingly, com-
mercial interests, such as corporations. However, the quantitative basis of many such projects means that
achieving urban sustainability objectives through them is often reduced to a technical task–that of gath-
ering data and ‘ticking boxes’. e size, scope, and sheer number of indicators included within many such
projects can also mean that indicator sets are often unwieldy. More importantly, unless administered in a
‘top-down’ fashion, indicators of sustainability can resist effective implementation. is paper begins from
the claim that the privileging of quantitative data in some stages of indicator-based projects tends to mask
possibilities for taking into account the structures of power and cultural-political assumptions within a
city. It is argued that emphasizing quantitative measures, such as indicator sets, without taking into ac-
count how they can both reflect and affect existing power and value structures weakens the commitment
to methodological holism that is central to the aim of achieving sustainability. In part, the techno-scientific
‘edge’ of indicators sets tends to privilege ‘value-free’ information over ‘value-laden’ knowledges. at is,
citizen participation and active involvement do not necessarily figure in selecting indicators of sustain-
ability, and local knowledges and inputs are sometimes overlooked. is is especially important in urban
contexts, insofar as the success of sustainability projects so often depends upon locally available resources
and conditions, and upon the use of these by citizens to support sustainable practices and to challenge
unsustainable practices. is paper elaborates an alternative, two-level process of community engage-
ment for indicators-centred sustainable urban development projects. At the first level, it involves citizens
as active participants in the task of developing qualitative rankings of indicators of sustainability across
four domains of social practice: economics, ecology, politics and culture. e approach asks participating
groups to reflect upon what kinds of things indicate whether or not a city is sustainable, who benefits and
who loses by acting to achieve sustainability, and what does it mean, in relation to prevailing values, to
negotiate the transition to sustainable practices around indicator sets. At the second level, it uses the un-
derstandings developed in the first level as a basis for more deeply involving people in learning about and
negotiating over what constitutes knowledge about how best to practice sustainable urban development.
Based the experience of recent projects aimed at reducing residential emissions in Melbourne, Australia
and Vancouver, Canada, the present paper discusses some of the practical issues that arise when setting
out to develop and implement qualitative indicators of sustainability that incorporate quantitative met-
rics, where the aim of such projects is to engage citizens in the job of achieving sustainability as a set of
practices, undertaken on terms acceptable to them in the context of the communities in which they live.
Keywords: assessment focus and flexibility, comparative urban sustainability, indicator development,
stakeholder participation, sustainability metrics and indicators
1 Introduction
Over recent decades, indicator-based projects have become central to a range of
community-development projects aimed at engendering 'sustainability'. Indeed, it
has been argued that "growth in the use of sustainability indicators is nothing short
of phenomenal" (Morel-Journel et al. 2003: 617; Rydin et al. 2003: 582). A
"sustainability indicators explosion" has been extended across the planet—and on
the back of processes of globalization—from neighbourhoods to international
policy-making and development initiatives, and from local 'social'
entrepreneurialism to multinational corporate 'social responsibility' initiatives.
Indeed, one of the most widely-used indicators frameworks, the Global Reporting
Initiative (GRI), sees "reducing report proliferation" as a major issue (2006).
Often primarily quantitative in approach, indicators-based projects are extremely
valuable tools for measuring where an urban area 'is' in relation to some or other
given concept of 'sustainability' or 'sustainable development'. However, much
urban sustainability work seems to draw a line around indicators and metrics, as if
this were enough. Indeed, a key finding of Levett-erivel's 2004 report to the
SUE-MoT consortium was that while "there are plenty of existing sustainability
metrics, models and toolkits", it remains the case that "there is no such thing as 'a
good tool' in the abstract". e report advises those developing sustainability tools
to be aware of the tool's "fitness for purpose". Moreover, the report suggests that,
of the "78-plus" tools that were examined, "few … come close to being
'sustainability' tools in terms of being inclusive, holistic, multi-dimensional and
capable of simultaneously addressing the social, environmental and economic core
issues together with other factors such as political, technical or legal constraints".
Indeed, "the concept of a 'true' sustainability tool may be impossible to achieve in
practice" (52-53; see also, Castillo et al. No Date: 39-40).
is said, the problem addressed by the present paper is that, in the context of
urban sustainable development projects, concentrating upon indicators in
themselves does not adequately bring into question the nature of the human
relationships that go into creating and reproducing a city on sustainable terms.
e main argument is that emphasizing quantitative measures, such as indicator
sets, without somehow undertaking the difficult task of accounting for how these
can both reflect and affect existing power and value structures weakens the
commitment to methodological holism that is central to the aim of achieving
sustainability. e suggestion developed here is that indicators-based projects—
most often measuring and assessing 'participation' or 'inclusion' in some or other
sustainability initiative, as signposts for 'sustainability'—can displace concerns
with understanding the city as a lived condition as well as a built environment.
at is, conceptually, the present paper addresses the interweaving of science with
society in indicators-centred urban sustainability projects.
In short, the paper looks at how the techno-scientific 'edge' of indicators sets can
tend to privilege 'value-free information' over 'value-laden knowledges', which
raises problems of an applied nature for the job of achieving sustainability. e
paper looks at the problem from a perspective grounded in urban planning and
community development studies, informed by critical social and political
theorizing. e normative argument is, therefore, one that recommends
approaching society in terms of sociality: the ongoing job of creating and
reproducing a social world that is 'the city'. Such a perspective partially
reconfigures the task of working to achieve sustainability: the job is re-centred to
focus upon a problematic or set of problematics that are inextricably linked to
questions of value and power. at is, the task of working to achieve urban
sustainability, in reference to some or other set of indicators or metrics is one that
needs to be understood in terms of pressing yet difficult to resolve problematics
that, nonetheless, need to be addressed (2008: 13).
is is to emphasize that the success or failure of indicators-centred urban
sustainability projects is, in important respects, dependent upon negotiated
outcomes relating to the selection and application of quantitative metrics. Such a
realization is especially important in urban contexts, insofar as the success of
projects so often depends upon locally available resources and conditions, and
upon the use of these by citizens to support sustainable practices and to challenge
unsustainable practices. In these respects, it is suggested that the development and
implementation of indicators-centred tools for putting into practice urban
sustainability principles is best achieved through the application of a "two-stage
tool or process" (Levett-erivel 2004: 54). Following a brief discussion that aims
to thresh-out some of the conceptual and theoretical issues raised above, the latter
part of the present paper elaborates a two-level process of citizen engagement for
indicators-centred sustainable urban development projects, and draws upon
recent experiences in Melbourne, Australia, and to a much more limited extent,
Vancouver, Canada. e paper concludes by discussing work on the projects to
date, and reflects upon some of the limitations of city-based approaches to the job
of achieving sustainability as a holistically conceived goal that the projects bring to
light.
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