evaluation of sustainable urban district...

Evaluation of Sustainable

Urban District Developments

The case of Stockholm Royal Seaport

LOUISE HOLMSTEDT

Doctoral Thesis in Industrial Ecology, 2018

KTH Royal Institute of Technology

School of Architecture and the Built Environment

Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering

SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden

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TRITA-ABE-DLT-1838

ISBN: 978-91-7873-036-0

Printed by Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm, Sweden 2018

Akademisk avhandling som med tillstånd av KTH i Stockholm framlägges till offentlig granskning för

avläggande av teknisk doktorsexamen i Industriell ekologi fredagen den 14 december kl. 9:15 i

Kollegiesalen, KTH, Brinellvägen 8, Stockholm.

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”Man får inte va dum, då blir man militär”

(Frank Årman, 1953 – 1991)

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Abstract

Urban sustainable development is now seen as one of the keys in the quest for a

sustainable world and increased interest in developing sustainable urban districts

has become an important feature of urban sustainability. However, if cities and

their districts are to be part of this transition, it will be necessary to determine the

state and progress of urban developments. Evaluation and follow-up activities must

therefore be an integral part of modern sustainability work.

This thesis investigated evaluation methods and strategies for determining

progress towards sustainable urban district development. The Stockholm Royal

Seaport district in Sweden was used as the research arena in studies based on

urban metabolism theories, including a single case study approach, focus group

interviews, the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development and quantitative

data analysis. The thesis main results can be summarised as follows.

A structured frame for use in theory and practice can strengthen programme

development and minimise the risk of built-in problems in environmental and

sustainability plans for new urban districts. The proposed evaluation model for

Stockholm Royal Seaport displayed strengths regarding core evaluation activities,

such as communicating a strong vision and recognising continuity in the evaluation

process. It displayed weaknesses as regards organisational structure and system

boundaries.

The proof-of-concept implementation of a Smart Urban Metabolism

framework enabled real-time evaluation data on district scale to be generated and

processed. The implementation process also led to identification of limitations in

the framework, such as access to business sensitive data, failed integration of data

streams and privacy concerns. Dynamic, high-resolution meter data can provide a

higher degree of transparency in evaluation results and permit inclusion of all

stakeholder groups in urban districts. The frequently used energy performance

indicator kWh/m2 (Atemp) was shown to be an insufficient communication tool to

mediate knowledge, due to conflation of consumption and construction parameters

and the need for prior knowledge for full understanding.

Keywords: Evaluation, Follow-up, Sustainable urban development, Sustainable

districts

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Sammanfattning

Hållbar stadsutveckling betraktas idag som en av nycklarna i strävan efter en

hållbar framtid och det ökande intresset för att utveckla hållbara stadsdelar har

blivit ett viktigt inslag i urban hållbarhet. Om städer och dess stadsdelar ska ingå i

hållbarhetsövergången måste det emellertid bli möjligt att fastställa tillståndet i

dem. Utvärdering och uppföljning måste därför bli en integrerad del av modernt

hållbarhetsarbete.

Denna avhandling undersökte därför utvärderingsmetoder och strategier för

att bekräfta framsteg mot hållbar stadsdelsutveckling. Stadsdelen Norra

Djurgårdstaden i Stockholm, Sverige har använts som forskningsarena och genom

resultat baserade i teorier från urban metabolism, inkluderande en enskild

fallstudie, fokusgruppsintervjuer, ramverket för strategisk hållbar utveckling och

kvantitativ dataanalys kan avhandlingens huvudsakliga resultat sammanfattas

enligt följande.

Ett ramverk som kan användas både i teorin och praktiken kan förbättra

kvalitén vid programutveckling och minimera risken för inbyggda problem i miljö-

och hållbarhetsplaner för nya stadsdelar. Den föreslagna uppföljningsmodellen för

Norra Djurgårdsstaden visar styrkor kring grundläggande uppföljning så som

kommunikation av en stark vision och att uppföljningsprocessen bör vara

kontinuerlig. Modellen är svagare i områden gällande organisation kring

uppföljningen och systemgränser.

Konceptimplementeringen av ett ramverk för smart urban metabolism

resulterade i möjligheten att generera och hantera realtidsdata på stadsdelsnivå.

Implementeringen ledde också till identifiering av begränsningar i ramverket,

exempelvis gällande tillgång till företagskänslig information, integrering av

dataflöden och integritetshänsyn. Dynamiska och högupplöst mätdata kan öka

transperensen i utvärderingsresultat samt möjliggöra att alla intressegrupper i en

stadsdel kan få tillgång till information. Den ofta använda energiindikatorn

kWh/m2(Atemp) visades vara ett otillräckligt kommunikationsverktyg på grund av

att den blandar konstruktions- och konsumtionsparametrar samt att den i viss mån

kräver förkunskaper för fullständig förståelse

Nyckelord: Utvärdering, Uppföljning, Hållbar stadsutveckling, Hållbara stadsdelar

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Acknowledgments

I have not been alone on the journey towards this dissertation and I would like to

take the opportunity to express my appreciation to my fellow travellers. First of all,

over the course of this work I have encountered countless of inspiring, interesting

and wonderful people who supported me in one way or another. Unfortunately it is

impossible to acknowledge you all, but I truly hope that you feel my appreciation

even if your name is not mentioned below.

My deepest gratitude goes to my co-supervisor Nils Brandt. Thank you for

introducing me to the research world and to the field of sustainable urban

development, teaching me to navigate complex research subjects and projects and

for always having faith in me. Without you this thesis had not become reality. I also

would like to express my appreciation to my main supervisor Maria Malmström.

Thank you for lending me your sharp eyes, great mind for details and for always

encourage me to push one step further to improve the quality of my work.

Additionally I would like to extend my gratefulness to my second co-supervisor

Karl-Henrik Robèrt. Thank you for sharing your deep knowledge in strategic

sustainable development, your outstanding ability to find ways forward and your

infectious enthusiasm.

Dear colleagues, both old and new, at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Thank

you for creating an inspiring, friendly and fun work environment! Hossein

Shahrokni, Anders Nilsson, Sophie Pandis Iveroth, Stefan Johansson, Kristin

Fahlberg, Marie Appelgren and Pia Stoll: thank you for being the best possible

companions in our joint journey towards understanding urban sustainability. Olga

Kordas, Oleksii Pasichnyi, Kateryna Pereverza, Olena Tatarchenko, Aram

Mäkivierikko and David Lazarevic: thank you for the always inspiring and

interesting conversations on urban transitions. Fredrik Gröndahl, Per Olof Persson,

Björn Frostell, Monika Olsson, Larsgöran Strandberg, Daniel Franzén, Karin Orve,

Kosta Wallin, Emma Risén, Isabelle Dubois, Rajib Sinha, Rafael Laurenti, Jagdeep

Singh, Mauricio Sodré Ribeiro, Hongling Liu, Jean-Baptiste Thomas, Guanghong

Zhou and Joseph Pechsiri: thank you for all of your encouragement and support,

and for making the former Industrial Ecology department such a great place.

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Friends and family, thank you all for your curiosity in my research, for always

patiently hearing me out and for providing much appreciated reality checks when a

geeky mind wanders off. Finally, Richard, my darling husband! Thank you for

being my number one cheerleader, for always standing by my side with

encouragement and support and for putting up with me over the past few years.

You are the theme song of my life!

Stockholm, June 2018

Louise Holmstedt

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List of Appended Papers

This thesis is based on Papers I-IV.

Paper I: Holmstedt, L., Brandt, N. & Robèrt K.-H. (2017). Can Stockholm

Royal Seaport be part of the puzzle towards global sustainability? –

From local to global sustainability using the same set of criteria.

Journal of Cleaner Production, 140, Part 1, pp. 72-80

My contribution to this paper was data collection and analysis, writing the paper,

and publishing.

Paper II: Holmstedt, L., Shahrokni, H. & Brandt, N. (2018). How to evaluate

and follow-up sustainable urban districts developments? Submitted

My contribution to this paper was data collection, data analysis and writing the

paper.

Paper III: Shahrokni, H., Årman, L., Lazarevic, D., Nilsson, A. & Brandt, N.

(2015). Implementing Smart Urban Metabolism in the Stockholm

Royal Seaport: Smart City SRS. Journal of Industrial Ecology 19(5),

pp. 917-929.

My contribution to this paper was initial idea development and analysis, and

critically reviewing the paper before submission.

After this article was published, I changed my surname from Årman to Holmstedt.

Paper IV: Holmstedt, L., Nilsson A., Mäkivierikko, A. & Brandt, N. (2018).

Stockholm Royal Seaport moving towards the goals - potential and

limitations of dynamic and high resolution evaluation data. Energy &

Buildings 169, 15 June 2018, pp. 388-396.

My contribution to this paper was part of idea development and analysis, writing

the paper, and publishing.

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Contents

1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Aim & Objectives of the Thesis ..................................................................................... 3

1.2 Scope & Limitations ...................................................................................................... 5

2 Background & Review of Research Area ........................................................................... 7

2.1 Sustainable Development, its Advancement & Spread ................................................. 7

2.2 Sustainable Urban Development .................................................................................. 9

2.3 Why the District Scale? ................................................................................................ 11

2.4 Industrial Ecology & Sustainable Urban Development .............................................. 13

2.5 Evaluation ..................................................................................................................... 15

2.5.1 Evaluating Sustainability .................................................................................. 17

2.5.2 Evaluating the Built Environment.................................................................... 19

2.6 ICT Aiding Evaluation Data Collection ...................................................................... 20

2.7 Stockholm’s Approach to Sustainable Urban District Development ......................... 21

2.7.1 Stockholm Royal Seaport, Stockholm’s Second Large Scale Sustainable Urban

District Development ...................................................................................................... 23

3 Methods ........................................................................................................................... 29

3.1 Qualitative Approaches ............................................................................................... 32

3.1.1 Single Case Study ................................................................................................. 32

3.1.2 The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development ................................ 33

3.1.3 Interviews & Workshops .................................................................................. 35

3.2 Quantitative Approaches ............................................................................................ 38

3.2.1 ICT & Real-Time Evaluation Data in Stockholm Royal Seaport .................... 39

4 Results & Discussion ........................................................................................................ 41

4.1 Determination of Sustainability Targets Facilitated by a Structured Frame ............. 41

4.2 Key Evaluation Processes to Determine Progress towards Sustainability ................ 43

4.3 Implementation of an ICT-enabled Framework Managing Evaluation Data ........... 48

4.4 Potential & Limitations of Dynamic, High-resolution Meter Data ........................... 50

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4.5 Methods Discussion ..................................................................................................... 54

5 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................... 57

6 Future Research & Author’s Reflections ........................................................................ 61

References ............................................................................................................................... 63

1. INTRODUCTION

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1 Introduction

The world is faced with the massive challenge of breaking the unsustainable spiral

of modern living. To begin the transition towards a world in balance with the

Earth’s limitations, better and smarter use of its finite resources must become a

reality (e.g. Rockström, 2010; Steffen et al., 2015). To date, more than half of the

world’s population lives within an urban setting and this trend is expected to

continue (United Nations, 2018). In addition, the population of the world is

growing, creating even greater pressure on limited resources (UNFPA, 2014). With

the continuing urbanisation trend, the world’s cities have therefore become a focal

point for modern sustainability work (Williams, 2010; United Nations, 2015a).

Cities have for long been centres of economic growth and innovation, but are also

the geographical centre of major resource and energy use, waste generation, land

degradation, carbon emissions etc. (Metzger & Rader Olsson, 2013). However,

thanks to their configuration, they also hold potential to function as one of the keys

in the required transition towards sustainability (e.g. Rees & Wackernagel, 1996;

Niza et al., 2009).

As cities represent both part of the problem and the solution in the quest for

sustainability, they hold good potential for improvement (Grimm et al., 2008).

Governments, academia and numerous other stakeholders have therefore devoted

much attention to sustainable urban development trying to incorporate the ideas of

sustainability into the reality of cities. Lately, the creation of sustainable urban

districts has attracted strong interest and has also become and expansion route for

many growing cities (e.g. Fränne, 2006; Medearis & Daseking, 2012; City of

Malmö, 2013). Furthermore, the development of new sustainable urban districts is

often subject to more rigorous sustainability objectives, intended to better meet

future sustainability challenges (Pandis Iverot & Brandt, 2011; World Smart City,

2017).

However, with increasing time, effort and resources being devoted to sustainable

urban development and sustainable urban district development, assessment of

results and progress become vital. Without, it becomes impossible to ensure that

investments are used and directed in the best possible manner, to confirm that

1. INTRODUCTION

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urban developments are heading in the desired direction and to avoid future

mistakes and lock-ins (Robèrt et al., 2010; Davidson & Venning, 2011; Sharifi,

2013). Evaluation of the built environment has largely been a matter of assessing

construction features and building performance parameters (Leaman et al., 2010).

However, accounting for sustainable urban development will require incorporation

of considerable additional aspects and parameters (Brandon & Lombardi, 2005).

Understanding and determining the mode of the built environment can thereby

become increasingly complex to encapsulate and manage.

With respect to evaluation, the intermediate district1 scale also poses an

opportunity to better understand and develop the processes and mechanisms

needed in the evaluation process. Many of the components constituting the built

part of modern societies are relatively well studied and understood as single units

(Sharifi, 2013). However, the systems and the interconnections between the

individual units when assembled are less explored and developed. Incorporation of

a systems perspective, i.e. viewing cities and their district not as single building

blocks but rather as a whole, will be necessary in order to fully understand their

potential. As city districts to a great degree comprise similar functions and

structures to full-scale cities, they can function as small-scale models in the work of

developing evaluation routes and processes for evaluating urban sustainability.

Practitioners and researchers have increasingly started to acknowledge that the

district scale is a good arena for deepening the knowledge base on urban

sustainability (Sharifi & Murayama, 2013). Therefore, some progress regarding

how to evaluate the outcome has also been made. Several of the better-recognised

and standardised third-party evaluation programmes are now including the district

scale in their concepts (e.g. BRE, 2011; USGBC, 2013; IBEC, 2014). This is an

advance and one example of a step towards a more systematic approach for

evaluating sustainable urban districts, as it includes encapsulation of processes,

themes and aspects to be considered (Sharifi & Murayama, 2013).

Other advances in sustainable urban district evaluation are evident in the growing

number of district developments with the stated ambition of being sustainable (e.g.

Joss, 2010; Kwang, 2016). This ambition often leads to the formulation of

sustainability goals and visions for the development that in turn results in a

stronger incentive to evaluate the outcomes. In addition, many of these new

1 The notation ‘district’ is used interchangeably with ‘neighbourhood’ or ‘community’ in the literature.

1. INTRODUCTION

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developments attract more attention than conventional developments and/or are

marketed more strongly, creating pressure to demonstrate progress (Covenant of

Mayors, 2013; Sustainable Cities Platform, 2017). Both higher ambitions and

pressures have resulted in evaluation activities have moved up on the agenda to an

increasing extent (Shen et al., 2011; Hiremath et al., 2013; Braulio-Gonzalo et al.,

2015).

While progress has been made in the area of evaluating and monitoring the built

environment and its development towards sustainability, many challenges still

remain. One fundamental challenge lies in the sustainability concept itself. While

the well-recognised Brundtland definition have been in use since the 1980s stating

that sustainable development is “development that meets the needs of the present

without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”

(World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 31) sustainable

development continuous to be a somewhat value-based subject with a multitude of

interpretations in use (e.g. Lélé, 1991; Robert et al., 2005; Ramsey, 2015),

complicating evaluation of the subject. Related to determine what sustainability

entails in the built environment is also how to select which parameters to follow

within the system. The challenge constitutes of how to select, narrow down and

design a process without distort the evaluation results and/or mistakenly exclude

vital parameters. Examples of other remaining challenges include collection of

evaluation information, its use and presentation.

1.1 Aim & Objectives of the Thesis

Securing trustworthy, valid and correct information on sustainability initiatives in

the built environment is necessary in order to support, guide and, in particular,

determine progress towards a sustainable future (Lombardi, 1999; Brandon et al.,

2017). However, taking on the task of evaluating the systems making up modern

cities and their districts is a challenge comprising multiple dimensions (Brandon &

Lombardi, 2005). The challenge is partly to secure the evaluation process itself, i.e.

create a functioning, inclusive and transparent process managing all parts of the

system under evaluation. Another challenge is to secure and collect the necessary

information from the system in a usable format and in a manageable way (Brandon

& Lombardi, 2005; Saiu, 2017). The research in this thesis has therefore been

carried out from two perspectives: considering the evaluation process, what it

should entail and what is needed to secure the process, and the processes of

collecting evaluation information, managing it and presenting it to end-users.

1. INTRODUCTION

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The work presented in this thesis builds upon findings relating to development of

an evaluation process for Stockholm Royal Seaport2, an urban district under

construction in Stockholm, Sweden. As a response to a growing population, the

Stockholm City Council decided to start the work on transforming a former

industrial and harbour area into a new mixed-used urban district in 2008

(Stockholm City Council, 2008). In the planning process, it was also decided that

the area should have high sustainability and environmental ambitions. An

environmental and sustainability programme was therefore formulated, and will

act as the backbone for the development (City of Stockholm, 2010). The ambitions

set in the environmental and sustainability programme for Stockholm Royal

Seaport are high, raising questions about how goal fulfilment can be confirmed for

the district. Evaluation and follow-up ideas are listed in the environmental and

sustainability programme, including presentation of an evaluation model for

continuous follow-up of the district. The ambition is also for evaluation to be

performed in all development phases, from planning to operation, and to be

inclusive to all stakeholders within the district (City of Stockholm, 2010, pp. 46-

49).

The main aim of this thesis was thus to investigate and develop evaluation methods

for determining progress towards sustainable urban district development, and their

implications, using Stockholm Royal Seaport as the test arena.

Specific objectives of the work were to:

1. Test whether a structured frame can facilitate the process of determining

sustainability targets in urban district developments, while also

accounting for a holistic approach to sustainability (Paper I).

2. Describe key evaluation processes needed to determine progress towards

sustainability at the urban district scale and determine whether the

proposed evaluation and follow-up model for Stockholm Royal Seaport

can manage the evaluation process for the district (Paper II).

2 For full details of the Stockholm Royal Seaport development and the evaluation model, see Section 2.7.1

1. INTRODUCTION

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3. Describe and analyse the implementation of an ICT-enabled framework

for real-time management of sustainability evaluation data at the district

scale (Paper III).

4. Analyse the potential and limitations of using dynamic, high-resolution

meter data for evaluation of energy consumption in buildings and

households (Paper IV).

1.2 Scope & Limitations

Investigating routes to determine progress towards sustainability in the built

environment at the district scale was the main scope of this thesis. However, the

main focus was on the environmental aspects of sustainability, for two main

reasons. After an initial analysis of the Stockholm Royal Seaport environmental

and sustainability programme it became clear that its main focus is on

environmental aspects (Årman et al., 2012a; Årman et al., 2012b). Both the social

and economic aspects of sustainability are to some extent integrated, the social

more than the economic, but environmental sustainability dominates (City of

Stockholm, 2010). Consequently, since much of the research in this thesis revolved

around the implications and implementation of Stockholm Royal Seaport’s

environmental and sustainability programme and the processes for evaluating the

district’s performance in accordance, the programme posed a limitation and the

natural focus became on environmental sustainability. Additionally when this

research started, the Stockholm Royal Seaport district was just in its cradle of

construction. Planning and ground sanitation work had started, but the district was

not built or inhabited. Therefore, information and especially evaluation

information from the district was from the beginning limited and fragmented.

However, preparations for the evaluation process had been initiated, e.g. follow-up

of building standard plans from the contractors. This led to an initial focus on

environmental performance as the active stakeholders at the time mainly worked

within this sphere. Limiting the scope to environmental sustainability was

consequently a matter of information and data accessibility.

The Stockholm Royal Seaport district was used as the arena for the research

presented in this thesis. Consequently, some of the results may be limited by

context-specificity and the preconditions set out for the district. Such preconditions

include e.g. a Stockholm setting, i.e. implementation of the district was planned

within the deciding organisational structure of the City of Stockholm. Other

considerations are the geographical and ecological preconditions of the area, e.g.

1. INTRODUCTION

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Nordic climate zone, key ecological species etc., which may not necessary directly

translate to other areas.

Additionally, for clarification, the term ‘built environment’ refers to man-made

structures providing a setting for human activity. Thus the built environment in

this case ranges from individual buildings to the full district scale, including

supporting infrastructure and the spaces in between. The term ‘built environment’

is also used interchangeably with the term ‘urban developments’.

2. BACKGROUND & REVIEW OF RESEARCH AREA

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2 Background & Review of Research Area

As previously mentioned, accounting for sustainability in the systems making up

modern cities is a complex task to manage, as it comprises multiple dimensions.

Consequently, the work in this thesis intersected a number of different subject

areas. In particular, since the work was carried out from the dual perspectives of

the evaluation process and securing and collecting evaluation data, broader

consideration of surrounding topics was important. This chapter provides a brief

overview of the most important background components.

2.1 Sustainable Development, its Advancement & Spread

The industrialisation of the world significantly impacted human history and

marked a new era that forever shifted the interplay between humans and their

environment (Vitousek et al., 1997). While technology and inventions significantly

increased production capacity, and dramatically changed human life and lifestyles,

the aftermath and the continuing impacts on the Earth’s ecosystems are now one of

the greatest global challenges (e.g. Rockström et al., 2009; Reid et al., 2010;

Rockström, 2010). For almost a century, industrialisation was principally seen as

positive, as its effects improved prosperity for mankind in many important areas

such as food production, medicine, housing, prolonged life etc., ultimately leading

to a better way of life. However, in the 1960s concerns began to be raised regarding

degradation of environments (Carson, 1962; Wolman, 1965). Later, in a special

issue of the Ecologist entitled ‘A Blueprint for Survival’, Goldsmith and colleagues

formulated the need for change and stated that: “the principal defect of the

industrial way of life with its ethos of expansion is that it is not sustainable”

(Goldsmith et al., 1972, p. 15). In the same year, the world’s first Environmental

Summit was held in Stockholm, on the topic of Human Environment. It gathered

representatives from the member states of the United Nations, who for the first

time discussed international environmental issues (United Nations, 1972).

However, sustainable development truly entered the common language of the

world in the late 1980s, with the publication of the Brundtland report (Du Pisani,

2006). This renowned report presented an approach for achieving a desired future,


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acknowledging the need for development enabling the human population to co-

exist with its environment and for safeguarding the world’s ecosystems, but also the

need for action for social and economic prosperity for the whole of the Earth’s

population (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). The

Brundtland report had a great impact on the global community with regard to

sustainable development and led to the first Summit on Sustainable Development

in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Rio conference became an important milestone for

sustainable development, with further clarification of the Brundtland definition,

including the three pillars of sustainability, and the creation of Agenda 21, urging

member countries to formulate polices to minimise environmental impact and

improve the social conditions of individuals and the community (United Nations,

1992).

In the following years, yet another milestone was reached with the creation and

signing of a binding international emissions reduction agreement, the Kyoto

Protocol, in 1997 (United Nations, 1998). In more recent times, global sustainable

development work has largely focused on the threat of climate change due to

human activities and an important breakthrough came in 2015, when the Paris

Agreement was signed. With its central aim of keeping the global temperature rise

below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, it represented the first time

that nations came together for the common cause of strengthening the global

response to climate change (United Nations, 2015b).

Another recent development in the work towards sustainable development came in

2016, when the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) came into force (United Nations, 2015d).

The SDGs were based upon the existing Millennium Development Goals, which had

been criticised for being too narrow in their approach to sustainable development,

and therefore the SDGs were formulated with a wider range of topics to take the

development further. Moreover, the SDGs were developed by a broad stakeholder

base, including civil society, academia and governments (Thomson, 2015). The

overall aim of the SDGs is to end all poverty, but they also recognise that such

development needs to happen simultaneously with other strategies, e.g. fighting

inequity, improved global health, education, environmental protection etc. (United

Nations, 2015c). While the SDGs are not legally binding, they call for action by all

member countries, irrespective of income level, to pursue prosperity while

protecting the planet (United Nations, 2015d).


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While the global community has been actively working on sustainable development

for the past 45 years and progress has been made, achieving sustainable

development is a continuous and ongoing process. The goal of sustainable

development on global level could be summarised as identifying ways for mankind

to secure a livelihood for every person on the planet, while at the same time

securing the world’s ecosystems. However, in order to achieve that global goal, it

must be possible to prioritise, react and take action. As sustainable development

constitutes a multitude of challenges, affecting many different areas, the subject

can be broken down into sub-themes. By addressing each sub-theme, sustainable

development can become more manageable than the overall goal. Over the years,

numerous important sub-themes have been identified, e.g. climate change,

eutrophication, deforestation, poverty, equality etc., leading to more precise and

practical addressing of the subject (e.g. Mulder et al., 2011; United Nations, 2015c).

2.2 Sustainable Urban Development

Sustainable urban development is one of these evolving sub-themes. As most of the

world’s population lives within an urban setting, the urban environment and how

to transform it into a sustainable habitat has attracted great attention among

scholars, planners, practitioners etc. (e.g. UN-Habitat, 2008). Urban regions of

today are fully dependent on hinterland resource use, and consequently more

pressure and demands are placed on outside resources as cities grow. This means

that the effects of resource use in urban regions extend far outside their physical

boundaries, through import of goods and energy and export of wastes and

emissions (e.g. Rees & Wackernagel, 1996; Satterthwaite, 2011). Resource use also

tends to be higher in urban regions, mainly owing to a higher level of consumption

associated with an increased standard of living (Satterthwaite, 2011). On the other

hand, cities are economic drivers, centres for innovation, the location of work

opportunities, education, research etc. This means that finding ways of balancing

the seemingly conflicting and contradictory pros and cons of urban living is a great

challenge (Rees & Wackernagel, 1996).

Sustainable urban development could provide a frame for identifying solutions to

these challenges, as it could be viewed as sustainable development applied in the

context of urban settlements aiming to manage the consequences rising, and

ultimately prevent future consequences (Koch & Ahmad, 2018).

While sustainable urban development emerged and was mentioned in the

Brundtland report in the 1980s (World Commission on Environment and


10

Development, 1987), a unified definition of the subject has yet to be agreed. As a

result, several notations and definitions are proposed in the literature. For

instance, Camagni (1998, p. 6) states that sustainable urban development is:

A process of synergistic integration and co-evolution among great

subsystems making up a city (economic, social, physical and

environmental), which guarantees the local population a non-

decreasing level of well-being in the long term, without

compromising the possibilities of development of surrounding areas

and contributing by this towards reducing the harmful effects of

development on the biosphere.

Similarly Lee (2007, p. 6) propose the following definition for a city moving

towards sustainability:

A city moving toward sustainability improves public health and

well-being, lowers its environmental impacts, increasingly recycles

its materials, and uses energy with growing efficiency

Wu (2014, p. 213) define urban sustainability as:

An adaptive process of facilitating and maintaining a virtuous cycle

between ecosystem services and human wellbeing through concerted

ecological, economic, and social actions in response to changes

within and beyond the urban landscape

While these definitions somewhat differ in their perspectives, a common

denominator is that sustainable urban development not only needs to manage and

secure desired development onsite within the physical boundaries of the urban

area, but should also ultimately account for the impacts of the urban area and its

relations to its surroundings and the global context.

Reflecting the ambiguity of the subject and possibly because of local variations and

interests, numerous approaches and focuses can be found among urban sustainable

development projects. However, a popular approach in attempts to target and

reduce negative impacts from urban areas is to encourage the metabolic flows to

mimic the characteristics of ecosystems. These characteristics usually entail

reduction of energy and material flows and/or aim to convert the urban metabolic

flows from linear to circular, more in line with how natural ecosystems operate (e.g.

Girardet, 1993; Rogers & Gumuchdjian, 1997). Examples of such initiatives can be

found world-wide, for instance in Masdar City in Abu Dhabi (Crot, 2013), the


11

Vauban district in Germany (Medearis & Daseking, 2012), Hammarby Sjöstad

(Fränne, 2006) and Västra Hamnen (City of Malmö, 2013) in Sweden, BedZED in

the United Kingdom (Hodge & Haltrecht, 2009), Treasure Island (City and County

of San Francisco, 2017) and Portland (d’Ersu, 2017) in the USA. A feature in

common for these projects that is coherent with the ideas of mimicking natural

ecosystems is the quest to minimise energy use and/or transition to non-fossil

energy sources, reduce the need for personal transportation, minimise waste and

emissions etc.

While sustainable urban development has climbed up the global agenda for many

years, as reflected in SDG no. 11 (United Nations, 2015a), much work remains. The

increasing number of urban sustainable development projects world-wide could be

taken as a reflection of progress (Joss et al., 2011), but criticism has also been

raised regarding the risk of the concept becoming just a buzzword without real

content and impact (Joss, 2015). Scrutinising the real outcomes will therefore be an

important part of future work, in order to confirm progress within the area

(Portney, 2013).

2.3 Why the District Scale?

Historically, cities evolved when mankind was able to abandon the nomadic

hunter-gatherer life in favour of agricultural societies as farming techniques

developed (e.g. Oliveira, 2016). As a result, every urban area has its unique

characteristics, determined by a number of interrelated factors such as population

size and density, physical space, economic functions, labour supply and demand

etc. (Frey & Zimmer, 2001). There is thus no unified definition of cities, but

Satterthwaite (2011, p. 1763) describes a city centre as “a concentration of people

and enterprises and their buildings and wastes, infrastructure and usually some

public institutions.”

On a highly simplified level, cities could be viewed in terms of their physical

appearance, with buildings, street blocks and connecting infrastructure (Gullberg

et al., 2007). While this view is correct, it does not tell the full story. For the

physical structures in cities to be functional, comfortable and secure, several

functions are required, e.g. heating/cooling, water supply, sewage facilities, waste

disposal possibilities, food supply, transportation etc. (White, 2002). All these

functions generate inflows and outflows of energy and materials, creating a more

complex situation. How these functions are implemented, used and managed is one

key to altering the city’s overall environmental impact (Fraker, 2013b).


12

Furthermore, in most cases these functions have evolved over the course of time

and have been developed, implemented and improved over the years as technology

has advanced and needs and living standards have progressed. In addition,

implementing the subsystems to supply these functions often involves large

financial investments and political decisions, which combined can result in

reluctance and/or difficulties in making larger system shifts within a city’s

infrastructure, regardless of sustainability benefits (Fraker, 2013a). It can therefore

be a substantial undertaking to transform and shift a whole city towards more

sustainable operations.

As large-scale systems shifts and transformation of an entire city at once can be

associated with numerous challenges, finding ways for step-wise transitions could

be more desirable. To date, much of these transitions have been addressed by

aiming to improve individual structures within cities (Morgan, 2013). While

buildings represent an important and large part of the system in need of transition,

the building level is too narrow to incorporate all the required aspects of a

sustainable built environment (Sharifi, 2013). Moreover, concentrating on

buildings neglects the spaces and functions in between, which are an equally

important part and impact the overall performance. The urban district scale

therefore represents a promising entity, as city districts are usually large enough to

include required parameters and systems while retaining a holistic view, but at the

same time are smaller and less complex than a full-scale city (Fraker, 2013b;

Sharifi, 2013). In addition, city district development has become a common

expansion route for growing cities and is also now more commonly used as a way to

address and implement sustainability actions into the built environment, often

with higher ambitions with respect to sustainability than the norm (Sharifi, 2013;

Joss, 2015). Concepts such as ‘eco districts’, ‘smart districts’, ‘net zero districts’ etc.

have emerged, reflecting drives to introduce sustainable practices at the district

scale (Sharifi, 2013; Kwang, 2016). Furthermore, district developments with a

pronounced sustainability focus have become a form of urban laboratory for testing

new ideas and technologies, and could also act to lower the threshold to engage

essential stakeholders and drive development (Flurin, 2017).

However, it is vital to point out that some important challenges remain to be

managed when working with the district scale. Similar to the city scale, there is

variation in how to define the borders of an urban district. Some propose that it

could be defined by its geography and physical size (Taylor, 2012), by functions

(Barton et al., 2003) or by administration boundaries (Dempsey et al., 2012). With

these variations, it is important to specify carefully, for each case, what is intended


13

as the urban district. Specifications regarding relations to systems and/or functions

not present within the district itself but used, e.g. airport, hospitals, wastewater

treatment plants etc., also need to be addressed. Furthermore, information and

data collection can pose a great challenge, as information is rarely collected with

the correct resolution (Pandis Iverot & Brandt, 2011; Shahrokni et al., 2015).

While challenges remain to be addressed, the urban district scale shows promise

with regard to enabling a better understanding of the modern built environment,

its interconnections and sub-systems, while still maintaining a holistic view and

possibilities to incorporate the full scope of sustainability. Therefore the district

scale also shows promise as an entity to start transforming the built environment in

line with sustainability.

2.4 Industrial Ecology & Sustainable Urban Development

In the late 1980s, Robert Frosch and Nicholas Gallopoulos published the article

‘Strategies for Manufacturing’ presenting ideas on comparing the industrial

system’s approach to usage of energy and materials with that of Nature (Frosch &

Gallopoulos, 1989). This publication is often considered the starting point for the

field of Industrial Ecology (IE), which has since grown and evolved. While the field

of Industrial Ecology sprang from industry and often is defined as “the study of

technological organisms, their use of resources, their potential environmental

impacts, and ways in which their interactions with the natural world could be

restructured to enable global sustainability” (Graedel & Allenby, 2010, p. 32), it

has since spread into other areas of application. Reasons for this spread can be

found within the definition of the subject, with its holistic systems approach to

examining technical systems and their environment. As technical systems do not

necessarily need to be limited to industrial processes and can include most techno-

social systems, Industrial Ecology has become a useful field for transitioning

towards sustainability (Garner & Keoleian, 1995). Furthermore, as the built

environment could be viewed as a technical system and, as previously described,

requires incorporation of a holistic approach to transition towards sustainable

operations, Industrial Ecology ideas have proven to be a useful match for

sustainable urban development (Kennedy, 2016).

Originally, the field of Industrial Ecology was closely related to material and energy

flows of manufacturing processes, aiming to abandon linear resource use in favour

of creation of an industrial ecosystem, i.e. transformation to a cyclic process

(Erkman, 1997; Harper & Graedel, 2004; Korhonen et al., 2004). Therefore, the


14

analytical tools dominating the field sought to find answers to ‘What if?’ types of

questions, e.g. what if certain product materials were exchanged, could this reduce

the environmental impact while still maintaining the quality of the product?

Methods providing guidance on such questions that have been extensively used in

the field of Industrial Ecology include e.g. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)3, Material

Flow Analysis (MFA)4 and Industrial Symbiosis (IS)5.

While these analytical tools have proven helpful for identification of problems and

highlighting what needs to be managed, they have been less successful in providing

solutions (Ayres & Ayres, 2002). Therefore, Industrial Ecology scholars often point

out a need for additional tools focusing more on ‘Why?’ and ‘How’ types of

questions (Jackson & Clift, 1998; Andrews, 2000). Such an approach would mean

incorporation of theories resembling those in social sciences, e.g. political science,

psychology, business science etc. (Ayres & Ayres, 2002). Evolution of the discipline

and its application outside industry further supports the need for broadening the

input base, as the complexity of many of the examined systems means that

additional information is required in order for them to be fully understood and

analysed. Since the discipline of Industrial Ecology has been operational for less

than 30 years, development and evolution of the field can be expected, especially as

new applications are introduced. New theories and tools are therefore continuously

being added to the Industrial Ecology discipline, to better explain the systems

under study (Graedel & Lifset, 2016).

Industrial Ecology in relation to sustainable urban development began to emerge

on a limited scale in the mid-1990s (Kennedy, 2016). However, with the linking of

urban metabolism theories6 (Newman, 1999) and social ecology (Fischer-Kowalski

& Hüttler, 1998), cities and urban sustainability became a more widespread

interest for the Industrial Ecology community. Since then, there have been growing

numbers of studies trying to frame the multidisciplinary aspect of urban

sustainability supported by Industrial Ecology. The research focus and study area

in these studies have differed, but have included: waste systems (e.g. Murphy &

Pincetl, 2013), urban infrastructure (e.g. Agudelo‐Vera et al., 2012; Ramaswami et

3LCA is a method for identifying the environmental impact of a product or process in each stage of its life cycle. 4MFA is a method for quantifying the stocks, flows, inputs and losses of a resource. 5IS is the organisation of industrial organisms and their processes so that waste from one process can serve as raw material for another. 6Urban metabolism is described in more detail in Chapter 3.


15

al., 2012), carbon mitigation (e.g. Kennedy & Sgouridis, 2011), city-scale industrial

symbiosis (e.g. Vernay et al., 2013) and energy reduction (e.g. Reiter & Marique,

2012). The diversity of Industrial Ecology studies in relation to sustainable urban

development reveals a few vital aspects: Industrial Ecology can assist the built

environment in transition to sustainable operations in many different areas, and

the Industrial Ecology discipline is a useful guide for orienting and highlighting the

complexity of cities.

To date, it can be said that the discipline of Industrial Ecology covers roughly three

types of metabolism: industrial, urban and socio-economic (Kennedy, 2016). This

development has led to an additional number of studies which incorporate these

holistic perspectives and the practical applications of Industrial Ecology (e.g.

Kennedy et al., 2007; Broto et al., 2012; Newell & Cousins, 2015). However, while

Industrial Ecology has played a role in creating understanding and knowledge

regarding the metabolism of cities, work remains to be done. Future work needs to

include broad perspectives on urban metabolism, its mechanisms and

interrelations, but also more detailed perspectives, e.g. regarding specific flows

(Kennedy, 2016).

2.5 Evaluation

Evaluation has probably been an informal part of human behaviour for as long as

mankind has made conscious decisions. It has allowed humans to make judgments

by reflecting on their current state and the measures that have taken them there

(Shadish & Luellen, 2005). Evidence of more formalised evaluations can be traced

back several hundreds of years, further emphasising that, at an early stage in

history, contemplating cause and effect was perceived as important to making

informed decisions (Hogan, 2007). However, evaluation as a discipline has a

shorter history, and it was not until around the 1960s that it evolved into a distinct

practice (Calidoni-Lundberg, 2006).

Much of early evaluation work has its roots in programme evaluation7. In the post-

World War II era, governments around the world, especially in the United States,

funded programmes advocating social improvement. However, questions were

raised with respect to the actual outcomes and efficiency of these programmes,

7Programme evaluation is the systematic investigation of a programme, project or incentive, its outcomes, impacts and effects.


16

which resulted in pressure to scientifically investigate the outcomes (Hogan, 2007).

At the time, much focus was placed on the possibility to present definite statements

regarding programme success, i.e. evaluation of the programmes themselves,

mostly with the purpose of finding evidence for continuation of funding (Shadish &

Luellen, 2005).

Over the years, evaluation research and practice have evolved, adding to the

complexity of evaluation activities. The field and its applications have diversified

from programme evaluation favouring quantitative methods to accepting and

including qualitative approaches and numerous other fields of application

(Kellaghan, 2010). A multitude of evaluation approaches are thereby in use, and

determining the right approach to choose is sometimes the objective of the

evaluation (Calidoni-Lundberg, 2006). In general terms, evaluations can be

formative or summative, where the formative evaluation is normally performed

before or during a project and the summative evaluation on completion of the

project (Hogan, 2007). While it can be argued that no distinct separation should be

made between the two, the formative approach generally tries to confirm project

performance and design (Beyer, 1995) and the summative approach tries to

confirm project impacts and achievements (Brown & Gerhardt, 2002).

While, evaluation might appear as a seemingly straightforward area attempts to

formulate a standard definition has not been entirely successful (Scriven, 1991;

Karlsson, 1999). Partly this could be explained by its implementation i.e. evaluation

activities are performed within a diversity of fields and areas, all which uses their

own language and procedures. Another explanation could be found within the fact

that evaluation theory and its practical implementation does not always align

(Chelimsky, 2013). However, Scriven (1991) proposed a conceptual definition

stating that “Evaluation is the process of determining the merit, worth and value

of things and evaluations are the product of that process.” An evaluation should

thereby be viewed as an interdisciplinary process or tool to create a holistic view of

the evaluated area. This will in turn set demand on a number of functions required

to accomplish the end goal. Theoretically, this can be managed by carefully plan the

evaluation process, beforehand plan for its design, implementation and reporting.

The design phase of an evaluation process should thereby consider vital queries

such as: ‘What are the questions asked?’, ‘How the results should be used?’ and

‘Who is the result recipient?’. Consideration should also be taken of the process

itself, ensuing that it is systematic, methodical and transparent. Furthermore,

decisions need to be taken regarding system boundaries, scope, data sources etc.


17

(Scriven, 1994; Karlsson, 1999). An equally important and related task to planning

the design of the evaluation process is deciding how it should be performed and

reported. Important stakeholders and information holders need to be identified

and engaged in the process and the reporting format needs to be agreed

(Yarbrough et al., 2011).

However, this theoretical approach can be challenging to implement in practice

and, depending on the area under evaluation, these pre-requirements can become

complex. The reality in practice is often that evaluation activities are not well

planned and integrated (Gertler et al., 2016). Rather, evaluation is often an activity

which is added on in a late stage or after a project has been finalised (Calidoni-

Lundberg, 2006). The reasons for this differ, but it is important to identify why the

situation arises and the implications if the evaluation process fails. As these

situations can be topic-specific (Yarbrough et al., 2011), the following sections

elaborate on the implications from the sustainability and built environment

perspectives.

2.5.1 Evaluating Sustainability

Evaluation of the sustainability concept is an area which has grown with the

increased debate on global sustainability (Schröter, 2010). World-wide, attempts

have therefore been made to create trustworthy approaches to monitor the concept.

As sustainability work involves multiple dimensions, approaches for evaluation of

sustainability also need to be designed to be comprehensive, robust and capable of

assisting multiple stakeholder groups in taking informed decisions over both a

spatial and temporal scale (Sharifi et al., 2012).

However, many attempts have encountered difficulties when put into practice,

partly due to the loose definition of the subject (Schubert & Stömer, 2007; Sharifi &

Murayama, 2015). To date, no single unified definition is in use or agreed upon,

which can create a problem since the nature of sustainability thereby becomes

value-based and possible to interpret in multiple ways. Furthermore, many

sustainability initiatives are careless in determining how they define sustainability

(Allwinkle & Cruickshank, 2011; Randhawa & Kumar, 2017). From an evaluation

standpoint this represents a vital shortcoming and a challenge. Designing,

performing and interpreting the results of an evaluation where the end goal is

unknown can be pointless (O’Connell et al., 2013).

Despite the ambiguity in defining sustainability, there has been a general

consensus for some time that the concept rests upon the three pillars of ecological,


18

economic and social sustainability (e.g. Elkington, 1994; Hák et al., 2007; Vos,

2007; Kuhlman & Farrington, 2010). Lately, institutional sustainability, referring

to the interactions between societies and their governance, has also emerged as a

fourth dimension and is becoming more widely recognised (Komeily & Srinivasan,

2015). While applying the three (or four) pillars of sustainability is a common way

to describe the sought-after balance, it can also be a way to highlight the complexity

in evaluating sustainability. The balancing and overlap of the pillars to obtain

sustainability suggests a need for integration, collaboration and interdisciplinary

actions, which then need to be incorporated into the process of determining

achievements (O’Connell et al., 2013). In addition, different views regarding the

weighting of the pillars can result in higher emphasis in certain areas. As an

example, many of the ideas in evaluating progress towards sustainability have their

origin in different impact assessment frameworks. Although many frameworks

today claim to evaluate progress towards sustainability, their environmental legacy

is strong, while often overlooking social, economic and institutional aspects

(Wangel et al., 2016). Navigating among the many aspects that need to be

considered in a sustainability evaluation process can be daunting, but it highlights

one main challenge, the scope of the subject. Limiting the input, e.g. through

focusing on environmental issues, is one common route taken, but this significantly

impacts the results if the end goal is to evaluate progress towards sustainability

(Brandon & Lombardi, 2005).

Creating a comprehensive and inclusive, yet manageable, evaluation process for

determining progress towards sustainability may never be fully unified but a few

critical aspects need to be generally considered. Due to the broad nature of the

subject, evaluation information will most likely need to be collected from several

stakeholder groups. The need for multiple stakeholder involvement is hence a

potential challenge for a functioning evaluation process (Shahrokni, 2015). The

challenges lie partly in creating a common understanding between stakeholders on

the need for collaboration. Collaboration between non-natural partners can be

complex for a number of reasons, including protection of business and business

ideas, difficulties in appreciating the value of the activity or legal reasons

(Shahrokni et al., 2015). Creating a common understanding can act as a facilitator

to make stakeholders engage in the processes, and thereby find ways to overcome

obstacles on the way.

The time aspect also needs to be considered because, since sustainability work

should be a continuous process, the process of evaluating such work also needs to

be continuous (Brandon & Lombardi, 2005). The time aspect can pose a severe


19

challenge, as it will require long-term engagement by affected stakeholders and set

demands on the processes and evaluator (Yarbrough et al., 2011). Introducing

evaluation plans early can be one way to overcome this challenge, by creating a

mutual understanding among stakeholders regarding why and how the evaluation

should be performed. Furthermore, by introducing evaluation ideas early in the

process, potential barriers to evaluation can be identified at a stage where they can

be managed without potential loss of evaluation information.

2.5.2 Evaluating the Built Environment

As described in Section 2.3, the built environment consists of numerous systems

and functions supporting, sustaining and facilitating the city lifestyle. However, in

order to understand these systems, their impact and why they are important to

monitor, further details are needed. In addition, societies as they are known today

are far from sustainable, meaning that changes need to be made for the cities of

tomorrow if mankind is to overcome the global sustainability challenge (Rockström

et al., 2009; Robèrt et al., 2013). Evaluating the built environment and ongoing

initiatives and projects to bring about this change is necessary for confirmation of

progress. However, blindly evaluating, without first considering what the desired

outcome should be, will probably not guide cities and urban districts in the right

direction. The evaluation process should therefore begin by finding answers to

questions such as ‘What is a sustainable built environment?’ and ‘What is a

sustainable urban district?’, and from there start to sort and design the evaluation

process (Brandon & Lombardi, 2005).

Evaluating the built environment is not just about the construction sector and its

impacts, since the built environment affects, and is affected by, several different

sectors. Among the most significant sectors to consider are e.g. land use, space

efficiency, water and waste systems, energy systems and transportation. These

sectors, among others, therefore need to be incorporated into the evaluation

(Brandon & Lombardi, 2005; Gullberg et al., 2007). For instance, as cities grow

and become more populous, more natural space will be claimed to expand the built

environment. Natural areas are seldom restored, which can lead to degradation and

suppression of natural habitats, increasing the risk of disturbed local ecosystems

(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005; United Nations, 2012). Modern cities

are dependent on transportation to support their inhabitants with goods and

necessities and to carry people within and around the city. The transport sector is

dominated by fossil fuels, making it one of the main contributors to greenhouse gas

emissions (Chapman, 2007). In addition, the infrastructure for transportation

requires large physical spaces and vast quantities of materials. Cities are dependent


20

on outside energy inputs for operation of many of the systems providing the

necessities and comforts associated with cities, e.g. electricity, heating/cooling,

good and services etc. Global energy production is largely based on fossil fuels and

nuclear power, meaning that energy production and ultimate energy use contribute

to global warming and long-lived radioactive waste products. Waste and residues

are part of the built environment and have increased in volume with the trend for

cities to become larger and more densely populated (Baccini, 1997; Baccini &

Brunner, 2012). Furthermore, waste streams are becoming more complex (Singh et

al., 2014), posing challenges with regard to health aspects, resource efficiency and

resource recycling (Wilson et al., 2012).

The example sectors listed above need to be further analysed and broken down into

greater detail when designing the evaluation process. Moreover, prioritisation

among sectors may be necessary, depending on the scope of evaluation but also on

local conditions, e.g. protection of specific biotopes, scarcity of water etc.

Mainstreaming a process for evaluating the built environment can therefore

become a challenge and perhaps not fully desirable. A certain degree of flexibility to

accommodate local conditions and prerequisites can be vital. The importance of

local adaptation can also be seen in several of the third-party certification

programmes found on the market, where country-specific editions are emerging,

e.g. BREEAM-SE (SGBC, 2016) and Citylab (SGBC, 2018).

2.6 ICT Aiding Evaluation Data Collection

The built environment has been acknowledged as an important arena in the

transition towards a more sustainable future, but collection of evaluation data for

confirmation of progress has long been a challenge. Effectively gathering evaluation

data and/or data on sustainability parameters can rapidly become complex

(Brandon & Lombardi, 2005). A vast number of parameters and data points can be

considered for collection and a large number of possible indicators can be

formulated for presentation of results (e.g. Bell & Morse, 2001; Becker, 2005;

Årman et al., 2012b; Årman et al., 2012a). A significant breakthrough therefore

came when information and communications technology (ICT) solutions began to

be introduced as a tool for collecting information in cities and building stocks

(Lombardi & Trossero, 2013). These new ICT-based solutions and development of

the internet provided new opportunities to collect and manage evaluation data,

both in terms of facilitating the collection process itself and also with regard to

following potential new parameters.


21

ICT-based solutions have also provided the possibility for increasing the frequency

at which feedback can be given, as real-time metering can now be performed on

many of the common parameters found in the built environment (Hilty, 2008).

Progress in meter technology and building installations has also made it possible to

separate energy and material flows in buildings, enhancing the potential for

customisation and providing e.g. occupants with a better way of understanding

their personal consumption patterns and actions (Hilty et al., 2011). Individualised

indicators, customised to suit the receiver, have thereby become a possibility. With

more abundant and more easily accessible information from smart metering

systems, receivers of evaluation information should be able to react faster and

make more conscious decisions, ultimately easing the sustainability transition

(Shahrokni et al., 2015).

While significant improvements have been made with respect to evaluating the

built environment and ICT-based solutions have simplified the collection and

management process, the full practical potential still remains to be unfolded. Many

ongoing initiatives around the world are working on how best to use the potential

of the technologically advanced and connected cities now emerging (e.g. Kwang,

2016; World Smart City, 2017). However, there have also been criticisms about

overconfidence in what ICT and so-called ‘smart cities’ really can accomplish (e.g.

Hollands, 2008; Vanolo, 2013). Nevertheless, ICT can enable the creation of

technological infrastructures that has the potential to facilitate a transition towards

sustainability by facilitating relevant information collection (e.g. Anttiroiko et al.,

2014; Lee et al., 2014).

2.7 Stockholm’s Approach to Sustainable Urban District Development

Stockholm has a relatively long history of environmental work and was the first city

to receive the European Union’s Green Capital Award, in 2010 (European Green

Capital, 2009). The Stockholm Conference in 1972 was not only a starting point for

much of the environmental work in the world, with the creation of the United

Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the Stockholm Declaration, but

also made Stockholm somewhat of a role model, due to the Swedish Government’s

encouragement in gathering the members of the United Nations to the conference

and to the success of the outcome (Hårsman & Wijkmark, 2013).

In the past few decades, much of the environmental and sustainability work in the

City of Stockholm has focused on the development and implementation of new

urban districts with an environmental and sustainability focus and profile. One


22

starting point for this approach came when the City of Stockholm applied to host

the Olympic Games in 2004 (City of Stockholm, 1996b). Stockholm did not win the

bid for the Games, but the planning for what was intended to be the Olympic

Village had proceeded during the decision processes, and as a result it was decided

to continue with the implementation plans. Stockholm’s first sustainable urban

district development, Hammarby Sjöstad, thereby became a reality.

Initially, the plans to develop the Hammarby Sjöstad site started in the early 1990s,

before the initiative to apply for the Olympic Games, as a response to increased

demand for housing in Stockholm (The Stockholm Town Building Office, 1991). An

environmental and sustainability profile was later added to the district’s

development plans, as it was a request from the International Olympic Committee

to incorporate an environmental focus in the application. To manage the request,

an environmental programme was formulated for Hammarby Sjöstad, and this was

later accepted by Stockholm City Council (City of Stockholm, 1996a).

The plan for the environmental programme initiated for Hammarby Sjöstad was

that it should function as a guiding tool for the development, creating consensus

regarding the objectives for the development. It was based on the idea of

minimising the metabolic flows within the district and rested on an guiding vision

stating that the development should be “twice as good” as state-of-the-art

technologies in the mid-1990s (City of Stockholm, 1996a, p. 4). To further specify

the vision, overarching aims were incorporated into the programme, e.g. “natural

cycles should be closed as near to the local level as possible” and “the need for

transportation shall be minimized” (City of Stockholm, 1996a, p. 7). The

overarching aims also acted as the starting point for formulation of the operational

goals, an attempt to quantify the overarching aims into practical, implementable

and measurable targets. Examples of the operational goals were “80% of

commuting is by public transportation, bicycle or walking” and “supplied energy

demand shall not exceed 60 kWh/m2, whereof electricity shall not exceed 20

kWh/m2” (City of Stockholm, 1996a, pp. 15-16).

In 2009, the Hammarby Sjöstad project was evaluated with the aim of investigating

how the environmental programme, with its vision, overarching aims and

operational targets, was reflected in the results of the environmental work within

the district (Pandis & Brandt, 2009). Apart from findings regarding how the

operational targets was fulfilled and reflected in the environmental performance of

the district, the evaluation also revealed four main aspects which should be

considered for successful implementation of environmental and sustainability


23

plans in future development projects with similar goals. It was found that a strong

and easily communicable vision was important. In addition, a need for clearly

formulated and well-established overarching aims and operational targets was

identified. Other aspect to transfer to new development projects was the

importance of a good project organisation and incentives for implementation.

Furthermore, lifestyle choices were identified as important to be incorporated into

future environmental and sustainability programmes, as the evaluation showed

that lifestyle becomes more important as technical solutions improve, thereby

transferring a larger part of the impact to personal choices (Pandis & Brandt, 2009;

Pandis Iverot & Brandt, 2011).

2.7.1 Stockholm Royal Seaport, Stockholm’s Second Large Scale Sustainable

Urban District Development

In 2008, the City of Stockholm decided to develop yet another former industrial

and harbour area into a residential and commercial space, and the Stockholm

Royal Seaport district was therefore initiated (Stockholm City Council, 2008).

Similarly to Hammarby Sjöstad, Stockholm Royal Seaport was intended to be one

of three8 new initiatives within Stockholm to meet high environmental and

sustainability ambitions (Stockholm City Council, 2009). The City Council

therefore gave the Development Department the task of leading the work on

preparing an environmental and sustainability programme for the site. The

programme was jointly formulated by several departments within the City of

Stockholm, academia and other key stakeholders, and frames future aspirations

within eight main areas9,10.

In 2010 the programme was approved by the City Council, meaning that it gained

political support (Stockholm City Council, 2010). The evaluation results from

Hammarby Sjöstad were used as inspiration for the programme development,

aiming to incorporate lessons learnt into this new development (Pandis & Brandt,

2009; City of Stockholm, 2010, p. 5). As a result, it was decided that, while the

programme should act as the backbone for the development, it should not include

specific goal levels and prerequisites. By decoupling the programme from e.g.

8The two other areas were the mainly privately owned western part of Liljeholmen called Lövholmen and the publicly owned million programme area Järva. 9The focus areas are: climate-adapted and green outdoor environment, sustainable energy systems, sustainable recovery systems, sustainable water and wastewater systems, sustainable transport, environmentally adapted residential and commercial premises, sustainable lifestyles and sustainable businesses. 10My translation from Swedish to English.


24

technological advances during the development and construction phases, the idea

was that the programme could better serve its purpose of being a guiding tool for

the total duration of the development. The programme therefore aims at framing

future environmental and sustainability visions, overarching targets and

operational targets, rather than specifically stating goal levels. The programme puts

forward the overarching vision for the development, stating that “Stockholm Royal

Seaport shall be developed into a world class environmental city district” (City of

Stockholm, 2010, p. 11), as well as future desired scenarios and operational targets

for the eight main focus areas (City of Stockholm, 2010). The Stockholm Royal

Seaport district will be developed in stages, and for each construction phase an

action programme will instead be developed with specifications and goal levels.

However, while the programme is designed to be generic and with a continuous

focus, it still includes some long-term specified goals. This is partly due to the fact

that Stockholm Royal Seaport has been selected as one of 18 projects around the

world to be part of the Clinton Climate Initiative (CCI), which aims to develop

climate-positive urban districts (City of Stockholm, 2010, p. 16). Climate-positive

development implies that when fully developed, net greenhouse gas emissions from

Stockholm Royal Seaport should be less than zero. Furthermore, the programme

states long-term goals within ecological, economic and social sustainability, as well

as further milestones for climate actions. Some examples of these goals are given

below.

Climate Actions11

By 2030, Stockholm Royal Seaport is fossil-free

By 2020, CO2 emissions are below 1.5 tonnes per person (CO2-eq.)

Ecological Sustainability Goals

Stockholm Royal Seaport has low use of energy, materials, water and

other natural resources

Stockholm Royal Seaport focuses on sustainable energy use, eco-cycle

solutions, environmentally efficient transport and buildings, and

sustainable production and consumption patterns

11 The climate goals are not consumption based


25

Economic Sustainability Goals

Stockholm Royal Seaport contributes to innovation, development and

marketing of Swedish environmental technology and knowledge within

sustainable urban district development, and to the development of

sustainable enterprises, products and services

The principles of Life Cycle Costing shall be applied in the construction

of the Stockholm Royal Seaport district

Social Sustainability Goals

Stockholm Royal Seaport is a place where “it is easy to do the right

thing”12 and its inhabitants develop the ability and knowledge to live and

work sustainably

Stockholm Royal Seaport promotes social integration through mixed

forms of housing ownership, housing in different sizes and integration

with existing buildings

(City of Stockholm, 2010, pp. 13-14)

One further development from the Hammarby Sjöstad environmental programme

is the incorporation of evaluation and follow-up ideas for the Stockholm Royal

Seaport district into the programme itself. A vital obstacle and drawback with the

Hammarby Sjöstad development was that it became difficult to determine whether

goals were fulfilled, due to lack of a plan for how this should be done. This lack of a

plan resulted in several different complications, such as loss of valuable evaluation

data, unmeasurable and poorly formulated goals etc. (Pandis & Brandt, 2009). By

incorporating a plan for evaluation and follow-up into the Stockholm Royal Seaport

environmental and sustainability programme, the idea was that the subject of

evaluation would be better integrated into other processes, increasing the status of

the activity and thereby also better securing the possibilities to confirm outcomes

(City of Stockholm, 2010, pp. 46-49). Furthermore, evaluation should be possible

in all development phases, and for several resolution levels. Figure 1 shows the

schematics of the evaluation and follow-up model for Stockholm Royal Seaport.

12English translation of the district’s catchphrase ”det ska vara lätt att göra rätt”


26

Figure 1: The proposed evaluation and follow-up model for the Stockholm Royal Seaport development. Source: City of Stockholm (2010).

The City of Stockholm is now in the process of implementing its second new large-

scale sustainable district development project. This is an opportunity to take

advantage of lost opportunities discovered in the Hammarby Sjöstad project. For

instance, the continuous, high-resolution and dynamic evaluation ideas are an

ambitious new approach for the Stockholm Royal Seaport development and have

not been tested previously in practice in a Stockholm context. The City of

Stockholm has leverage in the Stockholm Royal Seaport development, as the City is

the main land owner in the area. The City of Stockholm can thereby set demands

on interested developers early in the procurement process. This has been used as a

route to ensure that set outcomes can be reached, as developers in the Stockholm

Royal Seaport district will be required to ensure that established goal levels are


27

fulfilled and that evaluation is possible. Goal levels and requirements will be set for

each construction phase, in a binding action programme13. Furthermore, technical

advances have enabled enhanced possibilities to use ICT-based solutions for

information collection and openness in installing and using ICT in residential and

commercial buildings within the development is also expressed in the programme,

as an aid to secure the evaluation process (City of Stockholm, 2010, p. 55).

13For the first two development phases the action programmes was not binding, as they were planned before the environmental and sustainability programme was legally valid.

3. METHODS

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3 Methods

To meet the research objectives established for this thesis (see Section 1.1), a

combination of methods was used. There were several reasons for this multiple

approach. Encapsulating the aspects of sustainability in the built environment is a

multidimensional challenge (Gray, 2010; Fraker, 2013b). As a result, no single

method can completely fulfil the necessary requirements. Furthermore, the work

focused on two main perspectives; the evaluation process itself and related

challenges linked to following and evaluating sustainable urban district

developments, and the collection, integration and use of high-resolution, dynamic

data. The research strategy was therefore a combination of qualitative and

quantitative approaches, as presented in Figure 2.

One method that includes many of the qualities required to address the issues in

this thesis is urban metabolism, which was therefore used as a foundation and

starting point for the research. Urban districts contain numerous materials and

energy streams, contributing to the overall impact of the development.

Understanding the flow, use and content of these streams can be an important

starting point in understanding how to reduce environmental impact and improve

environmental sustainability. It can also be a good starting point for evaluation and

follow-up activities, as it can highlight what needs to be monitored, and why. Urban

metabolism analysis possesses these qualities with its underlying analogy of

mimicking Nature’s way and approaching the city’s inflows and outflows by viewing

it as a living organism (Zhang, 2013). Furthermore, while urban metabolism

studies have explored the sustainability of cities for some time (e.g. Newcombe et

al., 1978; Kennedy et al., 2007; Lee et al., 2009), it is now also gaining a reputation

of being applicable on the district scale (Codoban & Kennedy, 2008), thereby

enhancing the knowledge of district metabolism. In addition, urban metabolism

studies can be performed both qualitatively and quantitatively, depending on the

extent to which the analysis is taken. The method thereby allowed for inclusion of

the varying character of the thesis objectives, as well as the dual research

perspectives. Figure 2 further illustrates the research strategy, with urban

metabolism at the base, the inclusion of qualitative and quantitative approaches

and what these implied specifically in this thesis.

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Figure 2: Research strategy employed for the work presented in this thesis.

The urban metabolism approach has some limitations, however. For example, data

availability can be limited when performing it on urban districts, as specific data

with the required resolution level and detail are rarely collected (Codoban &

Kennedy, 2008). In this thesis, this limitation was managed in two ways. For the

qualitative approaches (Papers I, II and partly III), data availability was not

required or necessary due to the nature of the objectives, as the main focus was on

the evaluation processes, what it should entail and how to secure it. In the

quantitative approach (Paper IV and partly Paper III), where data availability was

vital, it was one of the research goals to ease data collection and access in the

Stockholm Royal Seaport district, meaning that the research addressed the data

issue rather than being dependent on it.

Urban metabolism studies have also been criticised for being too fragmented and

concerns have been raised regarding the plethora of approaches, definitions,

system boundaries etc. that are in use (Barles, 2009). While several attempts have

been made to mainstream and harmonise the method regarding e.g. system

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boundaries and indicators (Pincetl & Bunje, 2009; Baccini & Brunner, 2012), the

broadness and umbrella-like approach of the method can be eligible and positive,

as it allows for inclusion of multidimensional types of problems (Broto et al., 2012;

Zhang, 2013). As the method was applied to the physical and geographical

preconditions of the Stockholm Royal Seaport district in this thesis, it was possible

to reduce some of the concerns regarding fragmentation in the method.

The remainder of this chapter provides further details regarding the qualitative and

quantitative research methods used in the thesis. Figure 3 provides details

regarding the content and interconnections between the research strategy, the

thesis objectives and appended papers. Objectives 1 and 2 of the thesis (Papers I

and II respectively), are addressed in the first of the two main research routes, the

evaluation process itself. Objectives 3 and 4 (Papers III and IV, respectively) are

addressed in the other main route, that of data collection and dynamics.

Figure 3: Content and interconnections between research strategy, specific objectives and appended Papers I-IV. SRS = Stockholm Royal Seaport.

3. METHODS

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3.1 Qualitative Approaches

Qualitative research is commonly used in social science and is the preferred

method when investigating information of a non-numerical character from a

bottom-up standpoint (e.g. Murray, 2010). It was a vital approach in this thesis, as

several of the objectives required stakeholder input and affect issues of a non-

numerical character. Furthermore, qualitative research includes a number of

methods, e.g. case studies, in-depth interviews, focus groups etc. (Flick, 2014),

which were necessary approaches in order to meet the thesis objectives. The

following sections therefore describe the qualitative methods used and the specific

details of the research presented in this thesis.

3.1.1 Single Case Study

All of the work presented in the thesis (see Figure 3) was carried out within the

sphere of the Stockholm Royal Seaport development; with its environmental and

sustainability programme (City of Stockholm, 2010) and planned evaluation

process (City of Stockholm, 2010, pp. 46-49) (Papers I and II), and related dynamic

data collection and use (Papers III and IV). As a consequence, the Stockholm Royal

Seaport district was used as a single case study. Case studies can be carried out as

single, multiple or embedded cases, and are the preferred method when

investigating and implementing new phenomenon requiring contextual data in a

real-life context (Scholz & Tietje, 2002; Yin, 2009). The case study approach also

allows for in-depth analysis of the study area and is useful when the investigator

has little or no control over the event (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2009). In this thesis,

it provided necessary contextual insights regarding implementation of a guiding

environmental and sustainability document in urban developments with related

stakeholder networks, as well as providing a context for dynamic sustainability

evaluation of urban districts.

The Stockholm Royal Seaport development was suitable as a single case study for

many reasons comparable to those identified by Pandis Iveroth (2014) in the

Hammarby Sjöstad development and by Shahrokni (2015) for the Smart Urban

Metabolism implementation in the Stockholm Royal Seaport development. The

first reason is that the environmental and sustainability programme developed for

the Stockholm Royal Seaport district is a unique approach to sustainable urban

development, due to its pronounced views regarding the holistic and overarching

tactics. As one of the first large-scale district developments aiming to comply with a

comprehensive environmental and sustainability plan developed in advance, the

Stockholm Royal Seaport development can therefore be of interest to many urban

3. METHODS

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development projects with similar aspirations. The second reason is the Stockholm

Royal Seaport project’s novel approach to urban district evaluation, with the

incorporation of evaluation ideas into the district’s environmental and

sustainability programme. Consequently, implementing such a model into practice

has not fully been tested before and mistakes will likely be made. It can therefore

be useful to describe not only the early attempts at its implementation, but also the

processes and barriers to its implementation in order to generate knowledge. The

third reason is that developing the Stockholm Royal Seaport district in accordance

with its environmental and sustainability programme will require coordination and

collaboration between many different stakeholder groups. A single case study can

therefore provide insights regarding opportunities and barriers to collaboration,

particularly regarding areas of responsibility, conflicts of interest and information

sharing. A fourth reason is that many of the structures in Stockholm Royal Seaport

are equipped with ICT-based solutions for information collection, so the district

provides an opportunity to better understand the use of dynamic, high-resolution

meter data. Access to such data is not yet the norm in Sweden and thus the insight

from the Stockholm Royal Seaport district can give a better understanding that is

possible to transfer to other projects.

Two main limitations regarding the single case study as a research method are

commonly raised. One regards the restricted possibilities for generalisation, so the

contribution to scientific knowledge has been questioned (Yin, 2009). However,

e.g. Flyvbjerg (2006) argues that this is misunderstanding and builds upon the

argument of statistical generalisability grounded on sample-based generalisation

seeking knowledge about objective scientific facts and therefore not applicable to

single case study design. The second main limitation of the single case study is that

it can lack objectivity, e.g. the investigator can be so involved in the research that

biased results can be produced (Benbasat et al., 1987). This limitation can be

reduced if the research is performed as a group effort, as was the case in this thesis.

3.1.2 The Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development

The Stockholm Royal Seaport development has set out to become an

environmentally and sustainably sound new district. However, that intention raises

questions regarding what this implies for the development (Paper I). The

development will lean on its environmental and sustainability programme for

guidance, but it is not known whether the programme can manage its task. To shed

light on the matter, a practical and clear method for analysis of the programme was

essential. The method also needed to manage the fundamental question of what a

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sustainable and environmentally sound city district should comprise in a

Stockholm context.

The method selected was the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development

(FSSD), due to a number of reasons. This framework explicitly presents a practical

definition of sustainability, with its eight sustainability principles (i-viii below) at

the core (Broman & Robèrt, 2017). Furthermore, the FSSD uses backcasting from

the sustainability principles in a generic five-level model developed for analysis of

systems with a methodical approach. These levels comprise: 1) the systems level,

describing the overarching system with its sub-systems within society and natural

systems; 2) the success level, describing the system at success; 3) the strategic

guideline level, describing guidelines for a step-wise transition towards compliance

with the success level; 4) the actions level, putting forward concrete actions

towards the desired success aligned with the strategic guidelines; and 5) the tool

level, describing concepts, methods and tools for monitoring the transition between

the current state and desired success.

The framework’s success level (level 2 in the generic model described above)

includes the eight basic sustainability principles within which any sustainable

scenario must exist, all of which are applicable for the global and the local scale.

These sustainability principles state that in a sustainable world, Nature is not

subject to systematically increasing:

i) concentrations of substances extracted from the Earth’s crust

ii) concentrations of substances produced by society

iii) degradation by physical means

and people are not subject to structural obstacles to:

iv) health

v) influence

vi) competence

vii) impartiality and

viii) meaning-making

(Broman & Robèrt, 2017)

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According to Broman & Robèrt (2017) these universal principles are applicable for

the whole of civilisation, and are devised as an exploration of the Brundtland

definition into operational boundary conditions for redesign of civilisation at large.

They are easily interpreted in the local context by simply stating that the

sustainable district does not contribute to violation of the universal principles: ‘Do

we contribute to the violation of those principles, at any scale?’

In Paper I, they were used to describe a holistic template for an ecologically

sustainable planet with regard to the sustainability principles. This template was

then used to frame and identify the most important sectors for urban development,

in order to adapt these sectors to local conditions and prerequisites. The integrated

local-global template was used to analyse how the environmental and sustainability

programme for Stockholm Royal Seaport relates to the full scope of ecological

sustainability and thereby look for a way to improve sustainability assessments of

the district.

3.1.3 Interviews & Workshops

The research interview is one of the dominating methods used for information

collection in qualitative research (e.g. Yin, 2009; King & Horrocks, 2010). In

general terms, the research interview can be described as a guided conversation

between the researcher and respondents and is useful for uncover the story behind

a respondents experiences and tracking in-depth information on a subject (Warren,

2001; Kvale, 2007). In more specific terms, the main task in interviewing is to

understand the meaning of what the respondents are saying in relations to their

world and the specific topic (McNamara, 1999). The research interviews can be

categorised in varying ways, but common strategies are the structured, semi-

structured and unstructured interview (e.g. DiCicco-Bloom & Crabtree, 2006).

The structured interview is characterised by a set of predetermined questions

which are addressed to the respondents, often with a limited set of response

categories. The advantages of this interview approach is e.g. that the interview

generates easily analysed results but it sets high demands on questionnaire

development (Wilson, 2014a). The more commonly used semi-structured interview

is more open than the structured, allowing for new ideas to be brought up during

the interview while still having a set of predetermined topics and/or themes to be

explored (Given, 2008a; Wilson, 2014b). The prepared topics and questions in

semi-structured interviews are normally in an open-ended format, allowing new

questions to be formulated over the course of the interview (DiCicco-Bloom &

Crabtree, 2006). The semi-structured interview can thereby uncover previously

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unknown issues, however results can become more difficult and time consuming to

analyse (Wilson, 2014b). The unstructured research interview takes the openness

even further. The conversation in an unstructured interview is usually only guided

by general goals of e.g. the research project and the interviewer has little influence

over the direction the interview is going (Given, 2008b). The unstructured

interviews lower the demands on how the interviewer phrases the questions but on

the downside requires a flexible and skilled leader as each interview is a novel event

(Wilson, 2014c).

A variation of the qualitative research interview with a single respondent is the

focus group interview were the interview is performed with multiple respondents at

the same time (Gavora, 2015). The intention of focus group interviews is to collect

information, opinions and knowledge through group interaction on a

predetermined subject (Morgan, 1996). The group interaction is an advantage in

focus group interviews, as it can create the potential of broader insights to be

developed, compared to single interviews (Liamputtong, 2011). Furthermore, it is a

good technique to use if it is possible to identify a number of individuals who share

a skill set or common factor. However, the goal is not for the respondents to reach

consensus regarding the subject but rather gather a variety of opinions and

viewpoint (Gavora, 2015). Commonly raised drawbacks with focus group interviews

can be identified in the realm of group dynamics (Liamputtong, 2011). A focus

group interview depends on the participants to feel comfortable to share and

express their opinions and to actively take part in the discussion. If the topic of

discussion is sensitive, the power structure of the group is uneven or if certain

respondents have dominating personalities it can influence the discussion (Keller,

2013).

In this thesis focus group interviews were used to determine whether the evaluation

ideas and model (see Figure 1) presented in the Stockholm Royal Seaport

environmental and sustainability programme are sufficient for demonstrating

progress in the district. Furthermore, the focus groups interviews intended to shed

light on how to manage the evaluation process in practice (Paper II). The City of

Stockholm had assigned seven working groups consistent with each of the focus

areas presented in the environmental and sustainability programme14 to further

develop the operational goals stated in the programme. These groups were selected

14 The focus area sustainable business was not yet assigned a working group and was therefore not included in the interview study

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for the focus groups interviews as they consisted of stakeholders largely responsible

for the implementation of the operational goals in Stockholm Royal Seaport and

thereby also shared a common skill set. Another advantage with selecting the

predetermined working groups were that the participants were already used to

working together, facilitating group dynamics during the focus group interviews.

Each group consisted of five to seven representatives from different city

departments, but also other stakeholders important and relevant to the specific

focus area. Seven semi-structured focus groups interviews were conducted. Each

interview was recorded and transcribed.

The focus group interviews were preceded by an in-depth analysis of the

environmental and sustainability programme, and metrics and indicators were

formulated15. The programme analysis also included an initial identification of

potential barriers to practical implementation and goal fulfilment. The in-depth

analysis was used as a starting point for the focus group interviews, with the overall

intention of deepening understanding of the operational targets in the

environmental and sustainability programme, of obtaining stakeholder input on

the results of the in-depth analysis, of better understanding the planned evaluation

process and of initiating a discussion on the potential barriers to practical

implementation of the programme and evaluation process (Papers I and II).

In addition, in order to determine whether the proposed evaluation and follow-up

model could manage the evaluation process for the district, it was essential to

identify and frame what this process could entail (Paper II). A review of the

literature in the field of evaluation in general, and evaluation and follow-up of the

built environment in particular, was therefore conducted. The intention with the

review was to identify vital categories, process steps and parameters which need to

be considered in district sustainability evaluations. As a consequence, the review

did not intend to be fully comprehensive with regard to specific evaluation details,

e.g. indicator selection or specified data points, but sought rather to showcase the

essentials. The literature reviewed included technical manuals for some of the best-

known neighbourhood sustainability assessment tools, evaluation frameworks in

use and evaluation governance. Documents reporting experiences from evaluation

activities performed in practice were also included.

15 See Paper II for full description and results from in-depth programme analysis

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Stakeholder input was also required for the primary implementation of a new

framework managing data collection, integration and calculation engine in the

Stockholm Royal Seaport district (Paper III). The framework is based on the idea of

urban metabolism previously described in this chapter, but for its implementation

stakeholder input was required for several reasons. The in-depth analysis of the

programme revealed a potential approximately 150 indicators in need of

management (Årman et al., 2012b). While many of the potential data points and

indicators were being collected for e.g. billing reasons, finding ways of collecting,

integrating and using those for the purpose of evaluation was not tested and

secured. The information is collected by several different stakeholders and

organisations within the city. Using the existing information for other purposes

would thereby require a level of interoperability allowing integration of data

sources, which would require collaboration between data owners. Furthermore, it

was identified that only about 15% of the initially identified indicators can be

managed by existing technical solutions (Brandt & Nordström, 2011), meaning that

finding ways of integrating remaining indicators was vital. Data owners, city

departments and other significant stakeholders therefore needed to come together.

This was accomplished through a partner project consisting of 18 partners with the

goal of meeting the operational goals in the Stockholm Royal Seaport

environmental and sustainability programme. Through partner workshops

addressing themes such as integration of real-time data from smart meters in

homes and buildings with real-time data from other significant data providers (e.g.

utility providers and waste management companies), decision and development of

initial key performance indicators and discussions on system boundaries, the SUM

framework was developed and implemented.

3.2 Quantitative Approaches

While much of the research presented in this thesis was qualitative with regard to

developing and deepening the understanding and securing the evaluation process

for the Stockholm Royal Seaport district, in the future quantifiable data will be

required in several areas, e.g. energy conservation, in order to follow progress in

the district. Quantitative research methods entails a structured way of collecting

and analyse data from different sources and usually includes the use of tools e.g.

computers, calculation software or statistical programmes to derive results

(Golafshani, 2003; Wu & Little, 2011). Unlike qualitative information the nature of

quantitative data is numerical or measurable (Denzin & Lincoln, 1998). A

quantitative research approach is therefore appropriate when the research question

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can be inquired by numerical or measurable information (Glesne & Peshkin, 1992).

However, qualitative research data does not need to be strictly limited to natural

occurring numerical information as non-quantitative phenomenon can be turned

into quantitative data (Wu & Little, 2011). As quantitative research methods often

entail a level of standardisation one main advantage is that results can be easily

compared and generally require less time for data collection and analysis than a

qualitative research approach (May & Williams, 1998). However, one general

disadvantage can be limited understanding regarding underlying details in

collected data which can influence the results (Eyisi, 2016).

3.2.1 ICT & Real-Time Evaluation Data in Stockholm Royal Seaport

Quantitative data analysis of energy use in building and households were made

possible through the SUM development (Paper III), resulting in the possibility to

collect high-resolution, dynamic evaluation data from two residential buildings

within Stockholm Royal Seaport. The data from the buildings was analysed with

the purpose to better understand the potential and limitations of how access to

more detailed energy evaluation information can be used in transitioning towards

sustainability by energy savings in buildings and households (Paper IV). The

quantitative data analysis was therefore in this thesis used as a mean to study how

the information could be used and not to for the purpose of specifically analyse the

collected data e.g. by determining its statistical significance etc. Using qualitative

analysis in Paper IV also allowed for the possibilities to compare results against set

goal levels and commonly used energy indicators. Four energy streams were

selected for the analysis: building electricity, district heating, hot tapwater and

household electricity, for two main reasons. First, they are the most commonly

consumed energy streams in multi-dwelling homes in Sweden (Energirådgivaren,

2011). Second, these four streams are solely related to living environment, i.e. are

used and consumed within the physical building, representing an important

delimitation for understanding of energy consumption in buildings and

households.

Each building studied contains a total of 20 apartments, varying in size from 51 to

100 m2. The two buildings are identical in terms of layout, i.e. have the same floor

area and number of apartments, are located next to each other and are designed to

have the same energy performance. Both buildings are equipped with onsite meters

for measuring consumption of building electricity and district heating with

resolution down to building level, and of hot tapwater and household electricity

with resolution down to household level. Data were collected onsite, but organised

and stored by a third-party operator. The datasets were retrieved for analysis from

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the third-party operator through an online information platform. Readings on a

daily basis were available starting in 2014. However, due to incomplete datasets in

2014 and 2015, the analysis was limited to data from 2016. Furthermore,

calculations of emitted carbon dioxide (CO2) were made using emissions factors of

43 g CO2/kWh (IEA, 2011) for the Swedish electricity mix and 90 g CO2/kWh for

district heating Based on a hot tapwater temperature of 55 ℃, an inflow water

temperature of 10 ℃, water density ρ(H2O) of 1000 kg/m3 and water heat capacity

(Cp(H2O)) of 4.19 kJ/kg,℃, each m3 of hot tapwater produced from heat-exchanged

district heating corresponds to 72 kWh (Gode et al., 2011). Atemp is 1801 m2 per

building16.

16Atemp is all building floor area heated over 10 ℃.

4. RESULTS & DISCUSSION

41

4 Results & Discussion

This chapter summarises and discusses the results contained in Papers I-IV. Paper

I presents an analysis of the environmental and sustainability programme for

Stockholm Royal Seaport from a holistic, ecological sustainability perspective.

Paper II describes key evaluation routes for sustainable urban district

developments, including an analysis of the proposed evaluation and follow-up

model for Stockholm Royal Seaport. Paper III describes the first implementation of

Smart Urban Metabolism (SUM) ideas in Stockholm Royal Seaport. Paper IV

analyses and highlights the potential and limitations in using dynamic, high-

resolution meter data for evaluation of energy consumption in buildings and

households. The chapter concludes with a discussion regarding methods choices.

4.1 Determination of Sustainability Targets Facilitated by a Structured

Frame

Paper I tested whether a structured frame could facilitate the process of

determining sustainability targets in urban district developments, while also

allowing a holistic approach to sustainability. The Stockholm Royal Seaport

environmental and sustainability programme served as a show case for

sustainability targets and FSSD was used to frame the sustainability concept. The

systematic review took its starting point in a global holistic perspective of

sustainability, the sustainability principles of FSSD, and scaled down to the

Stockholm Royal Seaport district. Through this, it was possible to uncover

perspectives in the Stockholm Royal Seaport environmental and sustainability

programme that had not previously been addressed.

The analysis revealed that the environmental and sustainability programme puts

forward a relatively successful vision and overarching goals compared to the

suggested holistic template for some areas, e.g. how to handle green areas,

restoring a polluted industrial site and making better use of the land for a growing

population in Stockholm. However, for most other areas problems were identified.

These problems were typically identified within the realm of implementation, i.e.

the transition between theory and practice, or where the district perspective was


42

too narrow a starting point, i.e. what seems sustainable for the district will cause

problems outside it. For instance, the Stockholm Royal Seaport environmental and

sustainability programme does not present a clear definition of what is meant by

sustainability. Trying to frame the concept of sustainability for an urban district

without clearly defining what should be framed poses a major obstacle to achieving

a successful outcome. Lacking a definition not only creates problems with regard to

correct versus incorrect requirements, but also creates organisational difficulties,

as it makes it difficult to ensure that the involved stakeholders understand and

work towards the same end goal. It also hampers the evaluation process, as the end

goal is not clear. As the aim of the environmental and sustainability programme is

to provide a frame for the development to reach sustainability, this is a crucial

drawback. In a larger perspective, it also emphasises the importance of providing a

clear definition and explanation of the end goal, as vital strategic questions could

be more easily revealed and it could ease identification of key stakeholders, secure

collaborations and develop required governance models.

Other identified problems were important governance and planning conflicts

between the local district and the surrounding city. The environmental and

sustainability programme for Stockholm Royal Seaport is setting the success level

of the development, and the end goal is for Stockholm Royal Seaport to become a

sustainable urban district. However, for many of the areas managed by the

programme, the governance and planning strategies are not aligned with the

strategies for the same area within the city or the outside region, despite being

completely dependent on each other. It is vital to acknowledge these governance

and planning conflicts, since the intention for Stockholm Royal Seaport is for the

local agenda to act as a role model, having positive effects on its surroundings (City

of Stockholm, 2010, p. 36). Without management and better alignment, the risk is

instead that the scenario will be reversed; the local or regional agenda will

influence the more ambitious planning strategies within Stockholm Royal Seaport.

Furthermore, a situation can thereby be created where key questions and/or

decisions are risked being bounced around and not be properly addressed, since no

stakeholder within the district fully owns the question. As an example, a need for

major system shifts was identified in Paper I for a number of areas in Stockholm

Royal Seaport, e.g. transportation, waste and energy systems, which are not solely

dependent on the individual district, but rather are influenced by the rest of the city

or extend even further outside the system. The environmental and sustainability

programme acknowledges that such a whole system shift is needed, but does not

present any paths for achieving this at an operational level.


43

Many of the problems in the Stockholm Royal Seaport programme identified in

Paper I were derived from the fact that several parts of the stated vision and goals

lie outside the scope of influence of the main project owner, the City of Stockholm

and the city’s Department of Development. This highlights the importance of

stakeholder involvement and of ensuring that all concerned stakeholders, both

within city departments and outside the city, are willing and interested in

collaborating in understanding their role and importance in the larger system

perspective. Planning and developing new sustainable urban districts is a process

engaging many stakeholders, all of whom need to be aware of the end goal in order

to avoid counterproductive decisions, sub-optimisations or path dependencies

which could later be regretted. Coordination of time frames, shared views of the

end goal and a holistic perspective are therefore necessary for successful transition

between theory and practice.

The need to break old planning and implementation patterns was also identified in

Paper I. The environmental and sustainability programme for Stockholm Royal

Seaport was developed with a broad stakeholder base, and the programme

acknowledges that implementation would benefit from broader stakeholder

involvement than the conventional (City of Stockholm, 2010, p. 37). In Paper I, it

was identified that the risk with the conventional routes of implementation for

Stockholm Royal Seaport is of stakeholders becoming compartmentalised, i.e.

working within their own spheres, which can lead to counterproductive decisions,

loss of the holistic perspective and long-term strategic essentials. The need for

breaking traditional implementation patterns also became evident when

accounting for the future. Much of the future success of Stockholm Royal Seaport

depends on the operations of the district when finalised. However, different city

departments and private stakeholders than those involved in the planning and

implementation phase will take over the majority of the operations. If these

stakeholders are not aligned, the results will mostly likely be business as usual.

4.2 Key Evaluation Processes to Determine Progress towards Sustainability

Paper II primarily sought to describe key evaluation routes for sustainable urban

district developments through a review of the evaluation literature and practical

district evaluation examples. The main findings from the review are summarised in

Table 1. Seven main categories were identified and 21 sub-categories provide

further explanations. Table 1 was intentionally designed without detailed

specifications, but rather comprised generic categories, process steps and


44

parameters. It was designed in this way as the essence of it was to encapsulate key

parameters which must not be overlooked in a functioning evaluation process.

Adaptation to e.g. a specific district development, higher level of detail or to local

conditions could instead be made within each of the identified categories if

necessary

Table 1: Summary of key evaluation routes identified as important for consideration when evaluating sustainable urban district developments (from Paper II)

Main category Sub-category Explanation Example

references

Evaluation

process

- Transparency

- Systematic process

- Target groups

- System boundary

Securing a

transparent and

systematic process

with well-defined

system boundaries

targeting the right

audience

(Scriven, 1994;

Karlsson, 1999;

Kennedy &

Sgouridis, 2011;

ICLEI, 2012)

Evaluation for

sustainability

- Definition of

sustainability

- Comprehensive

and holistic

- Vision

- Scope

Clearly express how

sustainability is

defined for the

specific case,

including vision and

scope of the

development

(Bentivegna et al.,

2002; Rockström,

2010; BRE, 2011;

Pandis Iverot &

Brandt, 2011; Sharifi

& Murayama, 2013;

USGBC, 2013; IBEC,

2014; Steffen et al.,

2015; Broman &

Robèrt, 2017)

Criteria - Well defined and

explained

- Validity

Which sustainability

criteria are selected

and are they guiding

the development

towards the end goal

(Rockström, 2010;

Robèrt et al., 2013)

Themes - Selection of

relevant and

relatable themes

Which themes

should be included

and why, e.g. land

use, water, energy

transportation etc.

(BRE, 2011; USGBC,

2013; IBEC, 2014)


45

Main category Sub-category Explanation Example

references

Indicators - Well formulated

- Manageable

- Guiding

Identification and

formulation of valid

measurable

indicators and key

figures guiding

towards the end goal

(Kristensen, 2004;

Stanners et al.,

2007; Tanguay et al.,

2010)

Data collection - Quantitative

- Qualitative

- Access/securing

data

- Privacy

- Periodicity

Metering and

technical

installations for

information

collection.

Identification of

values that are not

physically

measurable.

(Darby, 2006;

Keivani, 2010;

Brandt &

Nordström, 2011;

Smith et al., 2011)

Organisation

structure

- Stakeholder

collaborations

- Stakeholder

inclusion

Identify and secure

functioning

organisational

structures and

stakeholder

collaboration

(Bulkeley & Betsill,

2005; Bayulken &

Huisingh, 2015)

The findings in Table 1 were in a second step used as a point of reference to analyse

the proposed evaluation and follow-up model for the Stockholm Royal Seaport

district (see Figure 1) in order to determine whether the model can manage the

evaluation process for the district. The analysis revealed that the proposed model

had a number of vital shortcomings in most of the seven main categories. Through

the analysis, it was determined that even though the model is designed and

developed with the intention to ensure that it will be possible to evaluate the

Stockholm Royal Seaport district in a continuous and dynamic way, it lacks vital

elements, definitions and process steps to fulfil its aim. On the positive side, the

model is relatively well designed when it comes to the core of evaluation strategies:

it provides an easily understandable and communicable vision, it acknowledges

that the evaluation process should be continuous, and it is relatively clear who the

target groups are and what the intended scope is.

The analysis further revealed that the model design is weaker in defining

sustainability and in determining and defining system boundaries. For example,

the model was designed to provide a route to secure and determine sustainability


46

and goal fulfilment in Stockholm Royal Seaport, but since very little clarification is

provided regarding what this ultimately should mean, it is debatable whether it can

fulfil this ambition. The Stockholm Royal Seaport environmental and sustainability

programme provides a vague overview of what is meant, by stating that all three

pillars of sustainability should be included and that the district’s vision should align

with the holistic view. However, translating that into practice through the model

will require more specification. Sustainability criteria would need to be selected

and would also need to be sufficiently precise to be usable in practice. A clear

definition of sustainability and correlated criteria would also reveal whether some

areas are overlooked in the evaluation process, much as demonstrated in Paper I.

Dividing sub-issues into themes can further ease the process of navigating among

the diverse aspects in need of consideration and identified in both practical and

theoretical cases in the Table 1 compilation. Theme categorisation could also make

it possible to place results from the specific case into the bigger picture, which

could be important in order to benchmark the results.

The model also showed deficiencies in the management and use of indicators. It

recognises that indicators should be used to present results but little guidance or

specifications is provided regarding how to approach the selection of indicators or

the management of these. Indicators are intended to facilitate the presentation of

results, reducing complexity and making it possible to provide customised

feedback. However, they also need to be well-formulated, manageable and

trustworthy, which can pose a challenge in the area of sustainable urban

development. Deciding on which indicators should be presented, why they are

important, for whom and to what degree of resolution is vital in order to obtain and

present trustworthy results on progress within the district. The only guidance on

this matter presented in the proposed model for Stockholm Royal Seaport is that

indicators should be used and also that the indicators should be related to the

district’s vision. The programme presents a few overarching and well-recognised

indicators, mostly related to energy and climate mitigation, but nothing about how

to approach the larger scope of sustainability or how indicators should be selected

or managed. This is a critical drawback, as the model should facilitate the

evaluation and follow-up processes and thereby also be able to clearly present the

outcomes for the district. Moreover, even with the generically designed

environmental and sustainability programme, the vision and operational targets for

each of the eight themes presented in the programme create a large number of

possible indicators. Adding on specifications, as is done in the construction phase,

will most likely further increase the possibilities. Managing the indicator process


47

will thereby be a key feature for the success of the model and needs to be better

integrated.

Information collection and management were also identified as underdeveloped in

the proposed model. When suitable, the model states that data should be collected

with the aid of technical solutions, but for the broader scope of evaluating progress

towards sustainability, complementary information that most likely cannot be

collected with ICT-based solutions will need to be obtained. The challenges

surrounding real-time data collection, customised feedback and integration of data

streams are not addressed by the model or the programme, but can pose

complications in practice, an issue addressed in Papers III and IV. In order to be

able to determine that the Stockholm Royal Seaport development is moving

towards its desired goals, it must be possible both to collect data and organise data

into the desired indicators, meaning that data retrieval and its related process must

function. The model as it stands today cannot sufficiently manage these issues, and

consequently cannot function as the aiding tool it is designed to be regarding data

collection if not better integrated.

In the environmental and sustainability programme for Stockholm Royal Seaport it

is pointed out that a broad and inclusive project organisation is likely needed to

successfully implement the ideas in the programme (City of Stockholm, 2010, p.

37). A broad and inclusive project organisation has also been identified as

important for improving many of the identified problems in the proposed model.

However, guidance on how to practically implement such a broad organisation is

not further described or incorporated neither into the programme nor into the

evaluation and follow-up model. City administrations in Sweden generally work

within their own sphere, on limited parts of the development and during a specific

time. Devising ways to enhance stakeholder collaborations and create joint routes

towards the end goal is vital to avoid counterproductive decisions. However, this

can be challenging for a number of reasons, e.g. conflicts of interest or lack of

experience of working with broader stakeholder involvement. The complexity of

forming a rigid and inclusive organisation also increases with the time frame,

which must be considered when developing new urban districts. Responsibilities

will also shift substantially between stakeholders from the early planning stage to

the operational phase of the district, but nevertheless they should have the same

intentions. There are usually also shifts in stakeholder involvement, from mainly

city departments and developers in early stages to maintenance (e.g. housing

associations) and private companies in the operational phase. Gathering, including

and engaging the diverse and large number of stakeholders needed to evaluate the


48

district’s performance will be a great challenge and should therefore be part of the

proposed model.

4.3 Implementation of an ICT-enabled Framework Managing Evaluation Data

Paper III presents the first implementation and evaluation of the SUM framework

in Stockholm Royal Seaport. Through stakeholder collaborations, four key

performance indicators were selected to be a primary part of the SUM framework

implementation: kWh/m2, CO2-eq./capita, kWhprimary energy/capita and share of

renewables (%). The SUM framework was implemented in one of the first

development phases in the Stockholm Royal Seaport district, and agreement to

stream live anonymised information on household level was reached with 40

apartments. The implementation of the SUM framework resulted in the possibility

to produce real-time feedback in the Stockholm Royal Seaport district and also

provided the possibility to evaluate experiences on implementation of the

framework.

Securing, planning and managing the evaluation process is of course an important

part of being able to follow urban developments, but equally important is

collection, management and presentation of information, which should ultimately

mediate the state of the urban district development. Access to evaluation

information, especially on a district scale, can pose a great challenge and the SUM

implementation therefore addressed a pressing issue in many urban district

developments. The SUM framework rested upon urban metabolism ideas, but also

addressed the issue of scarcity of valid information in urban districts by merging

ICT-based solutions with the original ideas. The implementation of the SUM

framework was successful, in the sense that it enabled possibilities to generate real-

time feedback streams in the Stockholm Royal Seaport district. However, much

could also be learnt from the implementation process itself. Several obstacles were

encountered during the implementation, which could generate knowledge for

future work.

The main experiences vital to highlight from the implementation process were

found within the realm of identification of incentives to share information, data

collection and integration, and feedback. When project partners were approached

and asked to participate, the questions ‘Why?’ and ‘What’s in it for us?’ were often

posed by the private stakeholders. Convincing and getting the private stakeholders

on board was therefore a challenge, partly because of difficulties in conveying the

value of sharing information and the possibilities to develop business models and


49

value chains. Consequently, it became important to find answers to the ‘Why?’ and

‘What’s in it for us?’ questions that arose. The first question was easy to answer (To

help the city make better use of resources), but the second was more problematic.

The business models and value chains emerging from digital economics are in their

infancy and getting private stakeholders on board at an early stage was a challenge.

The solution, in this case, was to offer a business model platform where data and

services could be given or sold. The underlying idea was that where there is an

efficiency to be made, there is likely an opportunity for business. The platform was

also built upon a trust-based agreement stating: “Please share your data with us. If

we can derive value from it, there is a high likelihood that you can too, and if not,

you can pull your data services back once the project ends”. Data were eventually

provided, but an important experience from this was that not all insights and

benefits can be uncovered before integrating data and making it available. Thus

without sharing and integrating data, potential future benefits may be lost.

In parallel to the initial hesitancy to share information, there was also the challenge

of overcoming the technical difficulties in actually being able to share information.

Systems are typically design to prevent intrusions and asking project partners to

create a connection was difficult in terms of both trust and technical specification,

even with agreement from each project partner to share real-time data. The

solution was instead to reverse the process, i.e. data were sent to an external layer

with no direct link to the partners’ internal information platforms. This

demonstrates the challenges in adopting new approaches and integrating partners’

opinions. It also shows that proof-of-concept is sometimes necessary to overcome

problems.

Challenges regarding feedback were not technical, but rather involved managing

the issue of how information can be made meaningful for the recipient. The SUM

framework aimed at becoming a tool valuable for all the stakeholders in Stockholm

Royal Seaport, from citizens to the city authorities. For some stakeholders such as

developers and city officials who have clear targets, feedback design could be

relatively straightforward as they need feedback on those targets. However, for

other stakeholders, and particularly residents, producing information that was

perceived as meaningful feedback was more complicated. Despite interviews with

residents aimed at findings ways to provide feedback with appropriate context

which could facilitate better decisions, the challenge largely remained.

Despite the above challenges and issues, in a wider perspective Paper III provided

unique experience on how the SUM approach can aid urban metabolism in cities


50

with high sustainability targets and, ultimately, ease the process of monitoring. It

also demonstrated the possibilities of integrating multiple recipients and provided

customised real-time feedback, with future potential to add more information

streams. In a short-term perspective, the SUM framework could serve as a

foundation for realisation of the Stockholm Royal Seaport district’s sustainability

programme with regard to monitoring the goals set and the possibilities to provide

real-time feedback. Moreover, in the field of Industrial Ecology the lessons learnt

from this thesis could serve as a basis to advance SUM, and other cities that have

set high sustainability targets can use the results when implementing their

monitoring plans. Trying to put SUM in a larger, long-term perspective could have

several implications, however. For instance, as new digital infrastructures become

more abundant, the vision could be that anyone in a city or city district would be

able to receive real-time feedback on the system consequences of their choices. In

an optimal situation, these consequences should include local and global impacts

regarding environmental, social and economic aspects. If further developed, SUM

could play an important part in achieving this vision. However, achieving it would

also require research and incorporation of many more information streams.

Hurdles to overcome include how to accommodate the metabolic flows and how to

provide real-time feedback on consumption streams such as food and goods.

Implementation of these streams was not considered in the SUM framework in

Paper III, but should be considered in future attempts. Access to such feedback

could help citizens to make more informed decisions and could also help users to

more self-governance.

4.4 Potential & Limitations of Dynamic, High-resolution Meter Data

Using real-time readings from two residential buildings in the Stockholm Royal

Seaport district, Paper IV examined the potential and limitations of using dynamic,

high-resolution meter data for evaluation of energy consumption in buildings and

households. Increased resolution and dynamics showed potential from both the

building and household standpoints. It provides a possibility to increase the level of

detail in evaluation results, thereby increasing the transparency regarding how and

where energy is consumed, eases detection of deviations in structure performance

and enables inclusion of stakeholder groups such as building occupants that are not

usually considered in building evaluation.

Inclusion of all stakeholder groups affecting the total energy consumption of a

building is important, as increased knowledge can influence behavioural actions,


51

enable conscious decisions and potentially ease transition towards sustainability by

decreased resource and energy use. However, to have an impact, the information

needs to be understandable. Concerns regarding the commonly used building

evaluation indicator energy use per heated floor area (e.g. kWh/m2, Atemp) have

therefore been raised for a number of reasons. This indicator shows a mixture of

construction and consumption parameters, so it may not be understood by all

information receivers and, most importantly, ‘area’ is not the sole determining

factor regarding energy use.

Figure 4 shows energy consumption and carbon emissions originating from the

occupants’ consumption of hot tapwater and household electricity in relation to

apartment area in the two buildings studied in Paper IV. As can be seen from the

figure, apartment size is not the determining factor for how much energy and

carbon is consumed and emitted. The results also show that use of hot tapwater

emitted more carbon than use of household electricity. As the impact factor for

district heating is twice as high as for electricity this is not surprising, but may not

be common knowledge for all end-users.

Figure 4 Annual energy consumption and carbon emissions per energy type in 2016, related to apartment area in the two buildings studied in Paper IV

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

51 59 62 62 62 62 62 62 74 76 76 76 76 84 84 84 84 91 100 100

Ca

rb

on

Em

iss

ion

pe

r H

ou

se

ho

ld A

re

a

[kg

CO

2/m

2]

En

er

gy

Co

ns

um

pti

on

pe

r H

ou

se

ho

ld A

re

a

[kW

h/m

2]

Household Area

Household Electricity Hot Tap Water Carbon Emissions


52

Several challenges to fully exploiting the potential of dynamic, high-resolution

evaluation data were identified. The data need to be systematically collected,

creating a demand for meter equipment and continuous management of collected

data. Potentially sensitive household consumer data need to be managed with

regard to integrity. The incentive to react to the evaluation information may also

need to be strengthened for the commonly consumed energy streams in

multifamily homes in Sweden. Furthermore, indicator adaptations need to be

considered, in order to better exploit the full potential of dynamic, high-resolution

evaluation data.

Much of research performed in this thesis focused on the requirements and

processes needed to ensure that sustainable urban districts can be evaluated and on

what should be incorporated and considered in the evaluations. However,

quantifiable data are needed to confirm progress and be able to benchmark against

set goal levels, especially within certain areas such as building performance,

emissions levels etc. Introduction and development of ICT-based solutions

therefore represents an important advance when it comes to ways of better

understanding the built environment, as it could aid information collection. ICT

entering the built environment has also opened up new ways to evaluate and new

ways to use information in the quest for sustainability.

Building performance is currently generally evaluated on a yearly basis with a static

indicator presenting energy use per heated floor area, e.g. kWh/m2, Atemp. This

static indicator provides an overview of the performance of the structure, but leaves

room for improvement regarding the transparency of results and inclusion of

stakeholders. The indicator reveals little detail of the specifics of the performance,

thereby limiting the understanding it can mediate. If the resolution were better, it

could aid the process of tracing and/or detecting deviations as they occur, leading

to possibilities to shorten respond times for maintenance, reduce inconvenience for

tenants and save resources. Another issue with the indicator kWh/m2, Atemp is that

it contains a mixture of consumption and construction parameters. In Sweden, hot

tapwater is generally produced from heat-exchanged district heating, which is a

construction feature, while the amount consumed depends on the residents’

behaviour regarding the resource. Higher data resolution could be a way to

overcome this mixing of data and thereby improve the transparency in evaluation

data. Dynamic, high-resolution building evaluation data also allow for a degree of

flexibility regarding data presentation. For instance, presentation of pure

household consumption streams could become a reality. This would mean a

significant improvement with regard to inclusion of a stakeholder group largely


53

overlooked in building evaluation, namely the residents. Providing information,

with the residents as the main information receiver, on energy flows that the

residents can influence could lead to more conscious use of these energy streams.

It was shown in Paper IV, that the potential to use dynamic, high-resolution meter

data for energy evaluation was promising from both a building and household

perspective. However, to utilise this potential it must become common practice.

This is naturally to some extent a matter of data accessibility, as technical

installations need to be in place and this can present a challenge both with regard

to physical space in the buildings and the added cost associated with the

installations. Furthermore, if more detailed information is to have an impact, it

needs to be understandable without prior knowledge. Carbon emissions, and

energy as a measure by itself, can both be difficult to relate to fully. Communicating

these in ways appropriate to the receiver, e.g. by visualising the information, will

therefore become important.

As Figure 4 revealed, heated floor area is not the determining parameter regarding

resource use, but kWh/m2, Atemp is still the most frequently communicated energy

indicator for multifamily homes in Sweden. The indicator served a purpose when

detailed information was not accessible and when building evaluation was mainly

an issue of assessing constructional energy saving measures. This finding is

important, as it reveals a vital drawback in the conventional indicator for

presenting energy performance in building stocks. The findings in Paper IV

indicate that kWh/m2, Atemp is a blunt measure, as energy consumption is more

reliant on other parameters, most likely the number of residents in the apartment

unit and their consumption habits17. With the acknowledgement that the built

environment needs to be part of the solution to achieve sustainability, the kWh/m2,

Atemp indicator will not be an adequate communication tool. Furthermore, the

requirements set for the Stockholm Royal Seaport district demand that evaluation

of individual energy streams is possible and that the evaluation process is

transparent and inclusive for all stakeholders in the district. To fully exploit the

potential of this added information and include all stakeholder groups present,

better adapted indicators need to be considered.

17 Number of inhabitants in each apartment is not included in the study due to privacy reasons regulated by Swedish law.


54

A few challenges with dynamic, high-resolution meter data for energy evaluation

have already been raised, but it is important to mention other challenges

encountered during the course of this work. The two buildings studied in

Stockholm Royal Seaport were specifically selected because of the possibilities to

collect and analyse building performance data and occupant information with high

dynamics and resolution. Readings were first initiated in 2014 but, due to poor data

quality in 2014 and 2015, the information for those years could not be used for

further analysis. While the quality issues can have several sources of origin, this

highlights the importance of functioning management, knowledge of the installed

system and a clear plan for implementation to avoid loss of valuable information.

One additional challenge is that of personal integrity. All household consumption

data collected and analysed in this thesis were decoded, meaning that it was not

possible to link collected information with specific residents. This represented a

research limitation, e.g. since it was not possible to analyse and show energy use

per capita, but also a management challenge, since individual energy use is perhaps

one of the more interesting indicators for the individual consumer. One way to

overcome this challenge could be that consumers agrees to share their information,

but whatever solution is chosen, careful consideration is needed to avoid abusing

the integrity of the residents.

Another identified challenge concerned the incentive to react to the supplied

information. As the systems are set at present in Sweden, electricity is relatively

affordable and has a static billing tariff, meaning that there is a low monetary

incentive for reducing and/or shifting electricity loads. Moreover, the costs of

heating, water and hot tapwater are generally included in the monthly service

charge in multifamily homes, meaning that the costs are hidden to the individual,

which also reduces the monetary incentive for resource savings.

4.5 Methods Discussion

Analysing and investigating sustainable urban district development can be a path

lined with many challenges, much due to the ambiguity of the subject. Finding

suitable methods can therefore be difficult, and meeting the thesis objectives

therefore required a multiple approach, as previously explained in Chapter 3. While

the research strategy used may have been somewhat unconventional compared

with that employed in research on technical subjects, the mixed strategy was

necessary and is commonly encountered in the field of Industrial Ecology. One

explanation for the methodological challenges may lie in the fact that the field of


55

Industrial Ecology is relatively young, still under development and establishing

itself in new fields of application. As new areas of application are added, new

methods are adopted in an ongoing process, but meanwhile existing tools are also

adapted and used to the best extent. In addition, sustainable urban district

development could arguably also be categorised as a new field where method

adaptation is ongoing.

Linking Industrial Ecology and urban metabolism theories has been an important

advance in better understanding cities and urban districts. Industrial Ecology and

urban metabolism are an appropriate fit due to the characteristics of cities, with

their inflows and outflows of energy and materials. Ultimately, sustainable urban

development should aim at achieving the most cyclic system possible and urban

metabolism can therefore also be used to better understand how to evaluate the

journey towards sustainability. Urban metabolism theories were therefore used as a

starting point for this research, as described in Figure 2, as it possess many of the

qualities required to address the issues dealt with in the thesis. One of these

qualities was the possibility to combine qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Papers I-III all required stakeholder input and the contextual setting of the

Stockholm set-up to be manageable and addressed in greater detail. Paper IV

required quantitative data, which it was possible to derive through the work and

results from the qualitative studies. The umbrella-like nature of urban metabolism

studies is sometimes criticised, but in this work it was crucial for information

collection, as no single route could fully provide required information. Instead, the

combination of qualitative approaches used, which entailed the single case study

setting, interviews and workshops with appropriate stakeholders and qualitative

use of the FSSD, provided possibilities to penetrate and realise the thesis

objectives. Furthermore, as in-depth urban metabolism can include quantification

of specific energy and material streams, it was able to provide a base for all four

research objectives in this thesis (Papers I-IV).

The FSSD used in Paper I is an independent methodology not usually associated

with urban metabolism, but it could be argued to fit under the umbrella of urban

metabolism in this case. Since FSSD was used to describe a holistic template for an

ecologically sustainable planet with regard to the framework’s sustainability

principles and to frame important sectors for urban development, it was much in

line with the ideas of urban metabolism when applied to the Stockholm Royal

Seaport case. It can thereby be viewed as a supplementary tool for identification of

gaps from the desired scenario in the realm of urban metabolism to reach urban

sustainability.


56

Urban metabolism work has long struggled with limited access to valid data,

limiting the possibilities to perform detailed studies. The problem has become

more severe as urban metabolism has started to be applied on the district scale.

Gaining access to detailed information on the district scale will ultimately

determine the progress and the state of development. The development and initial

implementation of the SUM framework could therefore be seen as a way to

overcome the information scarcity. While development of the SUM framework was

a modest start, it shows the potential to develop both urban metabolism and

Industrial Ecology by introducing and merging ICT as a facilitator for information

collection.

A vital question working in a single case study setting is that of how results

translate outside the study area and how generalizable they are (Yin, 2009). It was

therefore important to review the thesis results in this light. Several of the

presented results are independent from Stockholm Royal Seaport and thereby fully

transferable to other district development projects with the intention to

incorporate sustainability. The importance to account for both local and global

sustainability and include a holistic approach in goal setting and implementation

presented in Paper I, acknowledging the complexity of evaluating for sustainability

and the importance to secure the evaluation process as presented in Paper II, the

ICT-enabled framework based in urban metabolism presented in Paper III and

value of dynamic, high-resolution meter data presented in Paper IV are all

examples of such results. Results which were unfolded in a Stockholm Royal

Seaport and Swedish setting could nevertheless be relevant for other sustainable

district developments, as adaptations could be made to other contexts and

experiences transferred. Such results include those coupled to the specifics of the

environmental and sustainability programme and the proposed evaluation model

in Papers I and II. In addition, they include organisational concerns, stakeholder

collaboration and the unfolded potential barriers regarding these presented in

Papers I, II and III.

5. CONCLUSIONS

57

5 Conclusions

Evaluating the built environment with the objective of determining sustainability

will involve a need to account for both local and global sustainability. Ultimately,

this means that local district development should adopt a holistic approach to

sustainability and also include this perspective in goal setting and implementation,

as shown in Paper I. In the Stockholm Royal Seaport case, applying a structured

frame (FSSD) to analyse the environmental and sustainability programme framing

the goals for the development revealed that the programme complied relatively well

with the suggested holistic approach to sustainability in theory, but suffered from

shortcomings when translated into practice. Too narrow a perspective on the

sustainable urban district and lack of robust sustainability principles and use of

these for identification of key strategic question were the main identified reasons. A

structured and all-embracing framework, sufficient to use in both theory and

practice, made it possible to identify the weaknesses in the programme. The results

indicated that use of a structured frame in the programme design phase can

strengthen the programme and minimise the risk of built-in problems.

The work presented in Paper II shows the complexity of evaluating for

sustainability. The main challenges in designing and implementing a functioning

evaluation process to determine sustainability in the built environment lie within

the ambiguity in defining sustainability, the difficulty in incorporating a holistic

approach to sustainability and the greater organisation and management demands

of the process. Analysis of the Stockholm Royal Seaport case verified some of the

theoretical results presented in Table 1. The Stockholm Royal Seaport district

represents a development where the evaluation process is clearly stated to be

important, but nevertheless struggles with the full implications. The proposed

evaluation model was shown to manage core evaluation activities well; it provides a

strong and easily understandable vision, it acknowledges that the evaluation

process should be continuous and it is generally clear who should benefit from the

evaluation information. The evaluation model also demonstrates the practical

utility of grouping sustainability aspects into themes and the possibility and value

of selecting themes which could be relatable. However, the model cannot manage

the process generated by the ideas of a more holistic and dynamic evaluation

5. CONCLUSIONS

58

process necessary in the field of sustainability. It shows drawbacks in the areas of

indicator selection, data collection and organisational structure. Furthermore, the

model and the underlying environmental and sustainability programme fail to

address how sustainability is defined and which system boundaries should be used.

To ease information and data collection, an ICT-enabled framework based in urban

metabolism was introduced and tested in Stockholm Royal Seaport (Paper III). The

framework implementation provided unique experience and proof-of-concept on

how SUM can help cities with high sustainability targets to collect and process

information from urban districts. Implementation of the SUM framework resulted

in the possibility to provide real-time feedback on four key indicators. It also led to

the identification of several limitations in the framework. The most significant

limitations were access to business-sensitive data and trust among data owners,

unclear business opportunities for industrial partners, a steep learning curve for

members of the consortium and privacy concerns. Operational and technical

limitations identified were dominated by failed integration of data streams,

incomplete datasets and data gaps.

The analysis of the potential and limitations of using dynamic, high-resolution

meter data for evaluation of energy consumption in buildings and households done

in Paper IV identified potential for both the building and household standpoints.

Dynamic, high-resolution meter data can improve the understanding mediated by

the evaluation information compared with conventional static building evaluation.

By increasing the level of detail in the evaluation results, deviations in structure

performance can be detected more easily and stakeholders not usually considered

in building evaluations can be included. The possibility to achieve comprehensive

stakeholder inclusion is important, as the total energy consumption of buildings is

affected not only by construction parameters, but also by the behaviour actions of

its occupants. However, for occupants to react to the information provided, it needs

to be understandable. Concerns have been raised regarding the commonly used

building evaluation indicator energy use per heated floor area (e.g.

kWh/m2(Atemp)). It has been identified as an insufficient communication tool for

two main reasons, energy consumption is mainly reliant on parameters other than

floor area and it mixes construction and consumption information, making it

difficult to interpret without prior knowledge and.

Four main challenges to fully exploiting the potential of dynamic, high-resolution

evaluation data were identified. Data need to be systematically collected, creating a

demand for meter equipment and continuous management of collected data.

5. CONCLUSIONS

59

Potentially sensitive household consumer data need to be managed with regards to

integrity. The incentives to react to the evaluation information may need to be

strengthened for the commonly consumed energy streams in multifamily homes in

Sweden. Furthermore, adaptations of indicators need to be considered, in order to

better exploit the full potential of dynamic, high-resolution evaluation data.

6. FUTURE RESEARCH & AUTHOR’S REFLECTIONS

61

6 Future Research & Author’s Reflections

This thesis investigated evaluation approaches at the district scale, using

Stockholm Royal Seaport as the test arena. The work was a promising start on how

to understand, approach and conduct sustainability evaluation of urban city

districts, but work remains to be done. In Papers I and II, the main focus was on

the evaluation process and how to secure and perform sustainability evaluations of

the built environment. In Papers III and IV, data accessibility and use of dynamic,

high-resolution evaluation information were investigated. In all cases, more

research is required.

Paper I convincingly demonstrated that a holistic all-embracing frame could

facilitate determination of sustainability targets, as showcased using the Stockholm

Royal Seaport environmental and sustainability programme, but the knowledge

obtained needs to be better transferred into practice. Potential for formulating

better guiding sustainability programmes was shown, but the key to achieving

sustainability improvements will lie in its practical future application. Future

studies should focus on how the process demonstrated could be reversed, i.e. how

to develop and formulate these guiding documents from a robust frame instead of

determining at a later stage whether the documents can meet the goals set and

guide progress towards sustainability. Related evaluation activities also need to be

raised on the agenda.

Paper II successfully identified key evaluation processes required to evaluate the

state of an urban development, but an important reflection is that in many cases

the evaluation process is added at a later stage. The problems arising with the late

approach have been revealed earlier, but an interesting aspect is that this pattern

seems to keep being repeated. The evaluation strategy should preferably be

developed alongside planning of an urban district development, but how to achieve

this need to be further investigated and developed. A possible barrier, and a

possible explanation for the repeated late approach pattern seen in Sweden, could

be the use of conventional planning routes. Planning and realising new urban

developments is a time-consuming endeavour involving numerous governing

bodies, city offices etc., all of which work according to a predetermined agenda.

6. FUTURE RESEARCH & AUTHOR’S REFLECTIONS

62

Transforming the process by making room for changes, e.g. evaluation demands

and strategies, will be a challenge, but a necessary step to break the recurring

pattern.

Some required future work with regard to SUM framework implementation is

mentioned in the Results & Discussion (Chapter 4), as part of the results from the

implementation process. However, a vital and important aspect for the future will

be indicator adaptation. As identified in both Papers III and IV, there is a need to

develop more suitable indicators for the end receiver as new stakeholder groups

begin contributing to transformation of the built environment. There are many

challenges in deriving such indicators, but they are urgently needed so that

everyone affecting the built environment can take actions to make it more

sustainable. Following on from Paper IV, further studies regarding specific

personal energy saving potential need to be performed. Paper IV successfully

demonstrated the potential for using dynamic, high-resolution meter data for

energy evaluation in buildings and households, but it did not attempt to quantify

the energy savings potential. Quantifying possible energy savings should therefore

be a future step, as well as scaling up the analysis to include additional buildings

and households.

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