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The concept of sustainable development is now a foundation stone of the UK planning system. Since the Brundtland report of the late 1980s, the term has evolved to encompass what author John Elkington referred to as the triple bottom line approach, which attempts to rationalise development that promotes economic growth, but maintains social inclusion and minimises environmental impact. Indeed, with the publication of the government鈥檚 framework for sustainable development, there is cause to rename the approach, quadruple bottom line because of the importance attached to governance structures to underpin and bolster the opportunity to create sustainable outcomes.

Given the importance of the UK development industry and institutional property investors in driving the urban regeneration agenda, it is not surprising that many of these players are seeking to highlight their 鈥済reen鈥� credentials. This has manifested itself in an increasing emphasis on developing buildings which meet the highest BREEAM standards or the new Code for Sustainable Homes.

There is therefore an emphasis on energy efficiency at a building level. For example, BREEAM assesses building performance in terms of:

• Management: overall policy, commissioning site management and procedural issues
• Energy use: operational energy and carbon dioxide emissions
• Health and well-being: externally and internally
• Pollution: including air and water
• Transport: including carbon emissions and location-related factors
• Land use: greenfield or brownfield
• Ecology: including ecological value and enhancement of the site
• Materials: including the environmental impacts
• Water: including consumption and efficiency.

A range of tools have been developed to assist built environment professionals in measuring and assessing sustainability, which include a social dimension, and the number of such tools is significant. Recent research by BRE found some 600 tools that measured or evaluated the social, environmental and economic dimensions of sustainability.

Many of these tools assess or measure sustainability of property-based projects, and were developed to determine whether capacity exists for further development and whether a development is sustainable. 鈥淚ndicators鈥� are also an important part of the range of tools available and relate mainly to parameters that can be measured to show trends or sudden changes in a particular condition. It is also important to distinguish between tools used for 鈥渕easurement鈥� (identifying variables measuring sustainable development, and collecting relevant data such as BREEAM), and tools/procedures for 鈥渁ssessment鈥� (involving evaluation of performance against criteria such as environmental impact assessment), as well as those tools used to effect a move towards sustainable development by changing practice and procedures.

However, few of these tools are holistic and integrative, or address the multi-dimensional nature of sustainability. Even environmental impact and strategic environmental assessment procedures tend to 鈥渢rade off鈥� the three dimensions against one another. This view was supported by our recent research for RICS (The A Green Profession report) which highlighted key deficiencies in assessing social sustainability in many tools used in the built environment. The key tools used and the gap in the social sustainability dimension are shown in the table opposite.

In one sense, this gap is all the more surprising given the rise in importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and socially responsible investment (SRI) in boardroom agendas. CSR is really concerned with the way a company conducts itself in the community and the environment with which it connects and SRI is concerned with the way investors apply their capital. Given institutional investors鈥� relative weightings in property (about 5%) and the attractive returns from urban regeneration, it is not surprising that investing in urban regeneration has proved to be a significant way companies can prove their sustainability credentials and also satisfy CSR and SRI objectives, from the point of view of increased shareholder value. This momentum has also been driven by the increased emphasis on public private partnership vehicles which enable risk and cost sharing.

Shifting responsibility

鈥楽ocial sustainability blends traditional social objectives such as equity and health, with issues such as social capital and quality of life鈥�

Yet even at a boardroom level we have seen a subtle shift of emphasis away from the 鈥渟ocial鈥� dimension. Increasingly companies refer to corporate responsibility (CR) and responsible investment (RI) rather than CSR and SRI, perhaps partly reflecting discomfort with non-financial criteria. In fact, our research suggests that many companies in the property sector use simplistic measures for the social dimension in their CR reports. These include such descriptors as 鈥渃ommunity engagement鈥� and 鈥渟takeholder dialogue鈥�, or 鈥渧olunteering in the community鈥�. Elsewhere in the sector, some housebuilders have developed indicators based around affordability or section 106 agreements, and several financial institutions have wedded themselves to the concept of mainstreaming RI within their investment portfolios.

We have to turn to specially developed financial vehicles for investment to see more radical and robust ways of dealing with the social dimension of property-based regeneration projects. Examples include the Igloo and Blueprint partnerships and English Cities Fund.

Igloo is an urban regeneration fund established by what is now Aviva (formerly Norwich Union/Morley) to invest in the physical regeneration of the UK鈥檚 towns and cities. The fund is committed to a policy of SRI, which will deliver long-term social, economic and environmental benefits while achieving acceptable financial returns. Igloo develops mixed-use schemes in partnership with the public and community sectors. URBED assesses the performance of Igloo schemes against 16 policies under three SRI themes:

• Regeneration investing in the regeneration of the social, physical and economic fabric of urban neighbourhoods;
• Environmental sustainability investing in urban development and patterns of resource use that are more environmentally sustainable;
• Urban design investing in an urban renaissance through the design of buildings and public realm that are distinctive, vibrant and urban in character.

For example, the 鈥渞egeneration鈥� score, which partly maps onto the 鈥渟ocial鈥� dimension, is based on key metrics which assess the contribution of the project to social capital, the local economy and neighbourhood cohesion both for the scheme itself and in relation to RI policy.

So where does this leave us in terms of the 鈥淪鈥� word? The bottom line is that measuring social sustainability is difficult, but is vitally important if we are to produce sustainable communities with strong social cohesion founded on robust social capital. There have been very few attempts to define social sustainability as an independent dimension of sustainable development. Furthermore, no consensus seems to exist on what criteria and perspectives should be adopted in defining social sustainability. Each author or policymaker derives their own definition according to discipline-specific criteria or their study perspective, making a generalised definition difficult to achieve.

Nonetheless, it seems clear from our research through the European Investment Bank鈥檚 University Research Sponsoring (EIBURS) Programme, that social sustainability in its widest sense refers to the personal and societal assets, rules and processes that empower individuals and communities to participate in the long-term and fair achievement of economically achievable standards of life (based on self-expressed needs and aspirations within the physical boundaries of places and the planet as a whole).

At a more practical level, social sustainability stems from improvements in key thematic areas encompassing the social realm of individuals and societies, ranging from capacity building and skills development to environmental and spatial inequalities. In this sense, social sustainability blends traditional social objectives and policy areas such as equity and health, with issues concerning participation, needs, social capital, the economy, the environment, and more recently, with the notions of happiness, well being and quality of life.

Preliminary findings of our EIBURS research suggest there is still limited awareness and understanding of social sustainability in the built environment sector with greater emphasis given to climate change and the competitiveness agenda. The next stage in our research is to examine best practice methods in the UK and across Europe for measuring the concept of social sustainability in particular regeneration projects, and to develop guidance.