Sustainable Urban Districts: 2015 Global Review (WWF)

Director

Jan. 30, 2015

This project arose from the common desire of WWF and Lafarge to contribute original research to move the construction sector towards a sustainable future. We examined 11 exemplary urban districts and neighborhoods, from inception to habitation, and a systemic and holistic perspective. We identified areas of success and failure and uncovered new strategies to accelerate sustainable development on both a project and building sector level.

What did we find?

We found tangible conclusions for each of the 11 projects that help new settlements learn and improve. In the book, we extracted successful approaches that increase overall performance and sustainability performance.

We found that sustainability targets change the practice of urban development and the roles of contributors and beneficiaries. Implementing the lessons learned in these projects will significantly speed up new sustainable development projects worldwide. In addition, we've found strategies to achieve improved performance in the construction industry across the globe.

The report and its findings

The results are available in a comprehensively illustrated book, readable online at ISSUU.

The report contains a wealth of examples, recommendations and lessons learned on both a project level and a sector level and is conveyed in two seperate parts.

Part 1 is an overview of lessons and conclusions, covering among others:

How is sustainable urban development different?
A holistic design and 360-degree scope
Mind-shift: build to be resilient
Ambition setting
Business models
Work culture
Road map for Sector change
Performance monitoring

Part 2 details how the projects successfully apply the presented strategies. These projects inspire and prove that the suggested strategies significantly improve performance.

Each project shows a schematic timeline of which parties had what responsibilities. These overviews show a 'blueprint' of the project's planning process and reveal oversight in the character of each project.