Indoor and Built Environment

This paper describes how the competence of decision makers and those involved in the decision making process might profit by using supportive decision making tools for sustainability in practice. Based on the analysis of several case studies and a collection of tools, suggestions for different approaches in decision making have been analysed to describe both advantages and obstacles in planning and decision making. Following a holistic view on the subject of decision making, the EU financed project Practical Evaluation Tools for Urban Sustainability (PETUS) aimed to describe important necessities — the interaction between stakeholders, requirements for trying to understand each others situation, being prepared for new arrangements, being ready to collect and deal with new information and the usefulness of support through instruments. The development of the Decision Support System that includes a matrix and a checklist is presented.

This paper presents the methodological approach applied within the FP5-funded `Practical Evaluation Tools for Urban Sustainability' (PETUS) project to test the applicability of the developed `decision support system' (DSS) with current working practices and varying local conditions in different European countries. The effectiveness criteria applied, the testing strategy, procedures and instruments are outlined. The author analyses the results of the collaboration with potential end-users of the DSS during the testing and discusses the contributions made by testing to the DSS development, to the debate on sustainability in urban policy and in the broader `theory—practice' dialogue. The work shows a need for further mutual learning of theory and practice about urban change, political processes and partnerships to build on the path to sustainable development.

The concept of sustainability is becoming familiar and has already led to many initiatives of different types to put the concept into practice. There is a range of approaches, existing tools and methods that focus on the challenge of sustainability of European urban infrastructure. The actual problem is the transfer of knowledge to practice, the suggestion of ways of action and the integration of information. The Practical Evaluation Tool for Urban Sustainability (PETUS) research outcomes are presented here, on one side, as reflections upon these topics, and on the other side, as an operational framework developed with these objectives.

This paper outlines the main findings from case studies analysed within the Practical Evaluation Tools for Urban Sustainability (PETUS) project, about the practical use of tools for sustainable urban development in European cities. The paper looks across 60 case studies and identifies the main drivers for using tools, the benefits gained by using them and discusses why, in general, there is limited use of available tools. The main question raised by the PETUS project was, `why are so few tools for urban sustainability being used, when so many are available?' Recent years have shown a growing number of theoretical tools to assess and evaluate urban sustainability. However, experience also shows that only a few of such tools are being used in practice. The paper outlines the motivations for actors to use tools, the benefits achieved and the barriers for using tools. From this, different possibilities for improvements in the use of tools are discussed.

This paper presents the activities in the field of energy efficiency of two municipal networks — Municipal Energy Efficiency Network EcoEnergy in Bulgaria and Regional Network for Efficient Use of Energy and Water Resources (RENEUER) in south eastern Europe and their experiences in three key aspects — capacity building, network sustainability and information dissemination and the transferability of the results.

Sustainability is deeply rooted in the built environment and is inherently holistic reaching across environmental, social and economic issues at local and global scales. There is therefore a need for cross disciplinary working to ensure a sustainable approach. Although industry and government recognise the need to develop a more sustainable approach the built environment, it is slow to be achieved in practice.

This paper describes the development and operation of a computer based interactive guidance system that assists with the incorporation of sustainability in built environment policies, plans, programmes and projects allowing all stakeholders to be involved. PETUS was informed by the needs of practice and designed and developed to provide a mechanism for cross disciplinary working for sustainability.

Despite the development of urban drainage systems over the past 5000 years, there are still many challenges to their effective use. There are growing demands with respect to runoff quantity and quality, visual amenity (landscape aesthetics), protection of ecology and beneficial water uses and interaction with the operation of existing municipal wastewater systems. Current solutions that rely mainly on pipe networks may not be sustainable, especially in developing countries. By considering the driving forces in action during the first years of the 21st century, different scenarios for the future use and development of urban drainage systems can be proposed; all of them rather pessimistic. The implementation of the sustainable management of urban water will require an integrated approach to all the related problems, including the better delivery of urban drainage services.