An investigation of corporate approaches to sustainability in the US engineering and construction industry

Sustainability involves focusing on a project’s impact in three areas: (1) environmental; (2) economical; and (3) societal. In reality, companies’ approaches in the three areas are not evenly distributed. A study of current trends in the US construction industry related to the emerging focus on sustainable construction will be of great value for the engineering and construction industry to recognize the differences in corporate approaches to sustainability, for the sake of team alignment. A random cross‐section of 300 companies, consisting of 150 owner companies, 75 contractor companies and 75 design firms representing a variety of industries, was selected from annual company data assembled by the weekly construction news publication Engineering News Record (ENR). To identify sustainability‐related concepts within the context of these company documents, content analyses and chi‐square statistical analyses were performed on the selected companies’ publicly available annual reports and mission/vision/values statements. The primary objectives are to: (1) identify concepts of sustainability that are currently being emphasized within the US engineering and construction industry, possibly at the expense of other concepts; and (2) develop an understanding of the relationships between various company and industry groups related to the fundamental concepts of sustainable construction.     

Sustainability and the impact of Chinese policy initiatives upon construction

The environment has been perceived as an international issue, and ways of attaining sustainability are becoming important for countries seeking sustainable development. The international community has been active in developing policy frameworks towards achieving the sustainability, such as an ecological modernization approach and environment assessment. Developing countries deserve special attention in the effort to make sustainability an operative criterion in their development activities. Given the difficulties that developing countries are facing, their perceptions of the concept and principles of sustainability differ in various contexts from those of developed countries, and the attainment of sustainability is much more difficult. Therefore, the establishment of a global partnership is important for the vision of sustainability to be realized and operationalized in the world. The current stage of economic development in China provides an opportunity to incorporate environmental provisions into the national development strategies from a relatively early stage, rather than attempt retrofit to strategies. However, at present China's policy initiatives expressed in its Agenda 21 remains only a visionary concept. A comprehensive policy framework and realistic implementation measures are needed. The environmental impacts of the construction industry are extensive, particularly in developing countries. However, as in many developing countries, China's sustainable construction is still at its primary stage and current practice is unsatisfactory.     

“欧洲绿色之都”评选与城市可持续性评估的思议

在全球城市化率整体已经跨越50%时,城市维度的可持续性水平早已是影响全球可持续发展的关键。对城市可持续性的评估已经成为近年来城市研究领域的热点议题之一＂。欧洲绿色之都＂奖项就是基于这一理念提出的,对建设良好可持续环境做出努力的欧洲城市的表彰称号。评选建立在对城市可持续性评估的理解上,其理论框架和实践经历一定的发展过程,反映了可持续思想的变化发展。结合2010/2011年的欧洲绿色之都的评选案例,对作为评选核心技术的城市可持续度评估指标体系进行分析和解读,最后在此基础上总结评选项目和评估体系的经验和作用。     

A review of construction companies' attitudes to sustainability

In the last decade several initiatives have been taken to encourage the construction industry to support the agenda of sustainable development. On the basis of public disclosures made by companies listed on the UK Stock Exchange this paper reviews current attitudes to sustainability and corporate social responsibility. The findings suggest that very few of the major companies positively embrace these ideas. It is subsequently argued that the fragmented and diverse nature of the industry further complicates the transition towards sustainable construction. The conclusion is that even though the construction industry has its own sustainability agenda, relatively few companies have changed their business paradigm.     

浅谈建筑生态设计

以建筑生态设计的原则为出发点,从节约水资源、节约能源、节约土地资源、入文环境、绿化生态环境等方面探讨了建筑的生态设计策略,从而提高城市发展的可持续性,实现建筑业的可持续发展。     

Sustainable housing and urban construction in China

In order to ensure China, a populous country, to develop in a sustainable way, it is an urgent task to disseminate the concept of sustainability and put it into practice for urban construction. However, it is impossible for China to simply copy the experiences of developed countries, since China has the higher population and building density and less availability of reusable energy per square meter floor area. Therefore, it is necessary to develop the sustainable building technologies applicable to various climate regions, economic conditions, and residential customs in China, as well as sustainable to the most occupants and owners. Based on an introduction of the current situation of the development of construction industry and the energy consumption of buildings in China, this paper analyses the requirements, characteristics, standards for sustainable housing and urban construction, and recommends series of technical approaches along with different phases of sustainable design and construction, which strengthen a good cooperation among researchers, designers and constructors of different majors including architecture, planning, building physics, building services, and so on. Moreover, some issues, which need further research and especially handling, are pointed out along with the recommendations. Finally, policy issue related with the sustainable development of urban construction in China is discussed.     

Sustainable Urban Development Issues in Chinese Transitional Cities: Hong Kong and Shenzhen

Post-colonial capitalist Hong Kong and rapidly developing Shenzhen in China's socialist market economy have both adopted a pro-growth strategy to cope with challenges imposed by a globalizing economy. This development philosophy has exerted tremendous pressure on both cities, pushing them further away from the path of sustainable urban development. Despite the policy rhetoric of pursuing sustainable development, both city governments have refrained from identifying and analysing sustainable urban development issues. While the top-down elite-dominated polities in Hong Kong and Shenzhen are working hard to attain world city status, both cities lack a sustainable development strategy. Without a critical rethink of the growth-first mentality, sustainability principles such as an ethical utilization of natural resources and aspirations for intra- and inter-generational equity are not put on the policy agenda. Despite recent efforts to clean up the environment, it is uncertain how these two growing cities will proceed as the global economy itself is starting to capitalize on sustainability efforts to further capital accumulation.     

珠江三角洲城市水系统的可持续性评价

环境可持续性评价是规划建设可持续城市水系统的基础。为此，运用基于社会水循环的城市水系统环境可持续性评价方法，遴选了一组测评城市水系统环境可持续性的指标体系，并应用其对珠江三角洲地区城市水系统的环境可持续性进行了系统评价。结果表明：污(废)水处理率处于脆弱等级，提高污(废)水处理率应是珠江三角洲地区各城市维护其水系统环境可持续性的工作重心。     

高密度中心城区社区花园实践探索—以上海创智农园和百草园为例

作为一种城市绿地形式,社区花园对于高密度城市空间更新过程中需要解决的众多问题,包括对可持续发展、社区营造、自然教育等领域有着积极的作用。本文以上海创智农园和百草园为例,分别介绍了社区花园在城市开放空间和住区私属空间的营造过程,并对这两种不同空间属性的社区花园在不同的阶段上的参与主体和策略进行对比研究。基于作者团队为期3年的实践探索,旨在为促进城市社区花园的多元参与和可持续发展提供解决方向。     

建设“理想城市”需要更科学更务实的城市规划 2007版纽约城市规划的经验借鉴及其对我们的启示

面临城市化进程不断加快、人口持续增长和资源短缺日益严重等一系列严峻挑战,通过空间规划建设可持续发展的＂理想城市＂已成为当前备受关注的问题。以纽约2007年版城市规划为研究范例,其科学的编制过程、务实的实施措施,在引领城市发展成功转型中起到了重要的作用。纽约规划的经验,对于致力于建设＂理想城市＂的广东具有十分重要的启示。...     

Factors affecting environmental sustainability of urban renewal projects

Urban renewal programmes offer an opportunity to improve the environmental sustainability of urban areas by creating well-designed and well-constructed built environments. In this study, the contributions of built environment design elements to environmental sustainability were evaluated through a questionnaire survey with the participation of 323 people who previously worked in urban renewal projects. Implementing factor analysis, interrelated elements have been gathered under five factors: ‘transportation and accessibility’, ‘conservation of natural resources’, ‘built environment quality’, ‘supporting social life’ and ‘high-density usage’. To identify the importance weights of these factors, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) analysis was carried out with 40 academics and practitioners. Based on the results, ‘conservation of natural resources’ was found as the most important factor affecting the environmental sustainability of urban renewal projects. It is expected that the results of this study shall guide a wide range of urban renewal stakeholders, extending from designers to citizens, along the path of creating environmentally sustainable cities.     

LAFENTERPRISES’ ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITY IN CONSTRUCTION OF RESILIENT URBAN WATER SYSTEMS IN CHINESE CITIES

This article focuses on enterprises’ role and responsibility in improving urban resilience of water environment of Chinese cities, starting with the research efforts of Beijing Enterprises Water Group in recent years, the application of water pollution remediation technologies, then to the current status, key tasks, and problems in China’s water environmental remediation, as well as how to change people’s awareness of grey water facilities and infrastructures and promote public engagement. Mao Jianhua, the interviewee, argues that it is important to understand that the regional situations vary in China, water environmental problems are complicated resultants of industrial structure, infrastructure construction, and social management; to deal with China’s water environmental issues, we shall develop phased roadmaps combining with social-economic development. He believes that a working water environmental remediation is guaranteed by grey infrastructures and is facilitated or improved by ecological infrastructures. He also emphasizes that public engagement plays a decisive role in improving the resilience and sustainability of urban water environment.     

奥运建设对主办城市发展的影响

从历史出发．研究了各届奥运会的建设状况及其对城市发展的影响．从中总结奥运建设的关键问题：必须把可持续发展应用于奥运的规划与建设之中。得出结论：正确的奥运建设将为主办城市发展带来如下影响：推动主办城市建筑业．旅游业和房地产业的发展．加快城市基础设施建设速度,改善城市生态环境。并定义三个与城市发展相关的概念：奥运低谷、奥运资源与绿色奥运。     

Hidden Spaces and Urban Health: Exploring the Tactics of Rural Migrants Navigating the City of Gold

Urban health practitioners working in African cities require an in-depth understanding of the context within which they work in order to plan and implement effective urban public health programmes. This paper provides insights into the complexities of the urban African environment and its residents by describing and analysing the tactics employed by a population of rural migrants as they enter and navigate the City of Gold: Johannesburg. This population resides within inner-city areas that are broadly disconnected from local government initiatives, that I term here as ‘hidden spaces’. Reflecting on personal experiences and involvement in participatory photography and film projects within these ‘hidden spaces’, the paper considers the concept of ‘being hidden’ as something that can be both a deliberate tactic employed by particular urban populations to evade the state, and as a result of marginalisation where the state bypasses groups in need of intervention.     

Utilisation of underground pedestrian systems for urban sustainability

Underground pedestrian systems (UPS) have emerged as an urban phenomenon in the city centres of mega-cities, providing alternative walkways that are safe, accessible, efficient and pleasant for pedestrians. Despite many successful UPS in operation around the world, the application and performance of UPS are not yet well understood by local authorities. While previous studies debated the impacts on cities and people that the development of UPS would bring, an understanding of how to develop UPS to contribute to sustainable urban development, including economic viability, environmental livability and social equity, should be improved. This paper presents a detailed discussion of potential contributions and challenges in developing UPS within the context of sustainable urban development. It contains a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between UPS and urban development with regard to urban planning concepts such as the compact city, city resilience, sustainable transport and urban renewal, within the context of contemporary challenges such as the need to achieve economic sustainability, managing a non-renewable and vulnerable underground resource, and humanisation and social sustainability. It demonstrates why UPS development presents opportunities for and challenges to achieving economic viability, environmental livability and social equity, how to develop UPS so that they make effective contributions to sustainable urban development, and how the challenge of each issue has been addressed in light of the experiences of cities with UPS developments globally.     

A labeling system as stepping stone for incentives related to the profitability of sustainable housing

In 2004, the Dutch National Sustainable Building Center set up a research project to investigate the widespread belief that sustainable building is more expensive than standard building practice. The results disproved this assumption and demonstrated that sustainable building can be financially profitable. However, the research also showed that these positive financial aspects are hardly ever used to promote sustainable building. SenterNovem initiated a new research project in order to recommend practical solutions for the identified issues. Besides the sustainable and ‘regular’ building sectors, the new project included other sectors in an effort to develop new insights. Focused on housing, this second project revealed the inevitability of a labeling system that covers all activities (‘one language’). It recommends giving top priority to the introduction of a labeling system that translates sustainability in housing into a manageable and controllable system. The system should clearly identify the level of sustainability of a specific house. To gain acceptance among consumers, the system would have to tie in with consumer needs. The idea that many financial incentives can be linked to this labeling system was affirmed in a separate workshop. Just before the second research project was completed, the Dutch housing corporation Oost Flevoland Woondiensten (OFW) introduced a labeling system for their entire stock related to the topics of energy and health. Nine months after the launch, an assessment of this labeling system confirmed the results of the theoretical research and the workshop.     

The nature of positive

The ‘net-positive’ concept could serve as both a new direction and an aspiration for evolving sustainable design beyond minimizing human damage toward human habitation that is a source of life. This commentary posits that realizing that potential depends on how practitioners define positive. Describing net-positive as ‘buildings that “add value” to ecological systems and generate more than they need to fulfil their own needs’ moves net-positive beyond simply a technical challenge of creating surpluses to one that requires confronting the widely different interpretations of value and value-adding held within the sustainability movement. ‘Green’ building, like the building industry, generally defines and measures a building's value in terms of human benefit. Ecological sustainability defines value in terms of benefits to the systemic capability to generate, sustain and evolve the life of a particular place. Reconciling these different definitions could transform how society conceives of and designs the built environment. Building professionals seeking to translate net-positive into practice could play a leading role in that transformation. Practice will need to embrace ecological thinking to create design, construction and ongoing management processes that stimulate dialogue about what it means for humans to play a value-adding role in the ecological systems where they are constituents.     

社会基础设施概念下的城市景观设计教学策略与实践

社会可持续已成为全球城市化的重要议题,其中社会基础设施是实现这一可持续性的空间基础。风景园林本科设计课程教学有必要重新认知城市景观概念,从社会基础设施视角探索新策略。在哈尔滨工业大学风景园林专业的城市景观设计本科教学实践中,注重以社会可持续作为切入点,将城市景观视为重要的社会基础设施,引导学生研究场地中的行为与环境关系,探索新的概念与模式,用设计回应社会现实需求。     

Policy and practice restructuring urban neighbourhoods in the Netherlands: Four birds with one stone

Since 1997, the Netherlands Ministry of Housing has taken a new course in its effort to restructure urban neighbourhoods. Compared with traditional urban renewal policy, the new approach is both similar and different. The traditional policy was to ‘build for the neighbourhood’ and was thus mainly concerned with accommodating sitting tenants and providing social housing. The new policy differentiates its approach and targets a diverse urban population, specifically by reducing the stock of social rented housing and expanding the stock of expensive owner-occupied dwellings. This paper reviews the new policy and questions the conventional wisdom of avoiding spatial concentrations of low-income households. Instead, it proposes objectives that seem much more viable: objectives related to strategic housing stock policy, economic vitality, and the sustainability of the city. As an outcome of urban restructuring, cities may become vibrant, undivided, and sustainable while providing a housing stock for which there is a real demand—four birds with one stone, not a bad, score.     

The “Change” and the “Constancy” of Landscapes

Scientifically recognizing and wisely intervening the evolution of landscape is an important topic in Landscape Architecture, since evolution (change) is absolute. For human, landscape changes, however, can be measured in a relative sense. Upon such an understanding, the concept “persistent landscape” highlights the landscape’s continuity and stability over time, as well as the stable variety of physical environment. The key to understand this concept lies in landscape architects’ observation of not only the stability of natural ecosystems but also the harmony of cultural-social contexts. However, the rapid urbanization has caused many pressing problems such as the loss of characteristics in urban and rural area, environmental pollution, ecological fragmentation, and cultural fracture, which calls for landscape architects who can re-recognize the man-land relationship and formulate scientific strategies for sustainable development. In this issue, LA Frontiers hopes to offer landscape architects with insights to meet contemporary needs by embracing new landscape forms and implications, so as to create healthier and more poetic-quality living environments with cultural and spatial characteristics.