SURegen – Sustainability Indicators and Regeneration

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By Mohamed El-Harem, Craig Thomson and Tristan Parker.

Sustainability is now as important a business ethic as any other form of environmental improvement. In fact, the term itself has arguably come to summarise the overarching environmental aims and issues for any business or organisation (combining factors such as emissions reduction, impact on local communities, etc), as well representing a link to future business growth, due to the obvious long-term and evolving nature of the concept.

Through a combination of local government projects, central government bodies such as the Department for Communities and Local Government, and the work of organisations such as the Regional Development Agencies, urban regeneration has now become a key benchmark of sustainability. Although both public and private sector investment in regeneration projects is often substantial, even if an organisation has no direct links with local regeneration projects, the inevitable economic benefits (through factors such as increased employment opportunities) of improving the overall sustainability of a surrounding area are clear.

Just as with reducing carbon emissions, measurement and recording of data is the crucial first step in any successful sustainability project, including urban regeneration schemes. Many businesses still attempt to sidestep this first, fundamental stage of the performance improvement process, but its value is paramount.

Unsurprisingly, urban regeneration projects can initially seem daunting for stakeholders. Large-scale development is often undertaken in the schemes, and much is at risk, for both the local community and local businesses. To assist in this process, Salford University is leading the SURegen (Sustainable Urban Regeneration) project, a collaboration between universities, local authorities and businesses, which will map out the urban regeneration process and provide best practice benchmarks and advice for individuals and organisations involved in regeneration programmes.

SURegen is outlined by project leader, Professor Steve Curwell, as follows: “The project aims to tackle the problems caused by complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity of the urban regeneration process and its outcomes by assisting regeneration stakeholders in day-to-day decision-making and strategic processes by developing a web-based workbench to help decision makers in urban regeneration programmes collaborate more effectively and to learn key lessons from past mistakes by using case studies of best practice.”

Mohamed El-Haram, a SURegen Research Partner at Dundee University, highlights the importance of sustainability indicators for organisations with an investment in regeneration projects and how SURegen is specifically helping to identify the most efficient indicators for differing regeneration programmes:

“It is essential that some form of measurement is used to track and understand the progress of regeneration. This could be done through indicators that represent various environmental, social, economic, governance, political or institutional issues. Indicators for sustainability can play an important role in conveying information of the sustainability performance of a decision, action or context to policy makers and in communicating its impact to the stakeholders. One of the objectives of the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council)-funded SURegen research project is to develop a set of indicators that can be used to measure and monitor progress on, and the outcomes of, regeneration programmes.

“Sustainability indicators are increasingly available across the different governance layers and by organisations, creating a web of indicators that are often highly contextualised and focused on the values of those requiring them. Countless indicator sets exist for measuring sustainability and extensive work has been conducted in developing sophisticated sets reflecting a variety of contexts for different temporal and spatial scales.

“The challenge for SURegen isn’t to invent or reinvent another indicator set, but to identify sets of indicators that can help decision makers within the particular context of urban regeneration in order to evaluate sustainability. Highlighted is the significance of the urban regeneration context and the need within the SURegen workbench to reflect the contrasting sustainability priorities between different regeneration programmes during the selection of indicators for assessment. A mapping exercise of the existing sustainability-related indicator sets which spans the various scales of governance with (2) international, ( national, (9) city/local authority, and (5) neighbourhood sets conducted, in addition to a range of novel conceptual articulations of Sustainable Development. Starting with the UN Sustainable Development Strategy (UN, 1992; UNDSD, 2000) and moving to consider the equivalent at EU (European Commission, 2006), UK (DEFRA, 2005), devolved (i.e. Scottish Government [2005, 2009] and Greater London Authority [2005]), and the local authority level.

“Another set of indicators developed as part of the SUE-MoT project (http://www.sue-mot.org/), which aimed to assess the impact of individual buildings on sustainability, was also considered.

“These were consolidated to develop headline indicators reflecting the environmental and socio-economic dimensions of sustainability for the urban context. From a list of over 3,000 sub-indicators contained within these existing sets, sub-indicators for each of the emerging SURegen headline indicators were identified and presented at two workshops organised in Salford, in February 2010 and in London in April 2010. The findings of the research present a holistic set of indicators, which allow decision makers and other stakeholders to set their own priorities through their selection. This places emphasis on stakeholder participation with a view to reflecting the realities of decision making by enabling communities/stakeholders to identify key indicators that are relevant to the specific needs of their urban regeneration context.

“Such an approach acknowledges the multi-plural approach to assessing sustainability and places the responsibility of weighting of indicators with the decision makers and other stakeholders. It is important that all stakeholders are aware of the indicators that are being used to evaluate progress in regenerating the area so that they are applied consistently in all the projects that form part of the wider programme. Some stakeholders may have been engaged through the engagement process in the choice of indicators, but the final decision should be communicated to all stakeholders whether or not they have previously engaged with the process.

“It is intended that the final headline indicators will be used to inform the development of the SURegen workbench, currently under development.”

SURegen is a four-year project funded by EPSRC under its Sustainable Urban Environment programme (SUE2). If you would like to ask a question about the project, or receive future project newsletters, please email enquiries@suregen.co.uk