A Qualitative Approach Towards the Implementation of Urban Sustainability in Tehran

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Faculty of Architecture, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

2 Faculty of Architecture, university of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

3 Department of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Sustainability as a predominant paradigm of 21st century, is adopted as the best approach to tackle the issues which threat the environment and people’s well-being. As cities in the world are places in which most of the population in the world settles, the best way of ensuring sustainability would be by observing a set of rules and regulations. There are various sets of urban regulations, rating systems, about sustainability in the globe with different names. In this article, six rating systems of ISCA, BREEAM, LEED-ND, CASBEE, Green star, DGNB were chosen to be evaluated. By this evaluation, one may determine their features as well as finding the most fitting rating system which can be employed to ameliorate present situation of Tehran which is a megalopolis and the capital of Iran. The rating systems were analyzed based on the ASTM E2432-17. The methodology selected for this research was qualitative since the research was exploratory, so structured interviewing applied to do so. Finally, the LEED-ND was recognized as the best rating system which is able to mitigate  unsustainable issues of Tehran. Consequently, related rules and regulations in Iranian legal system were investigated to find out if there is anything on which one can rely on implement urban sustainable development or prevent urban unsustainability. Although the comprehensive plan of Tehran can cover a lot of ground of LEED-ND, it is absolutely essential that parliament of Iran pass special acts supporting urban sustainable development, because the regulations passed by authorities other than parliament cannot give a full guarantee to implement urban sustainable development.

Keywords

References

AGIC (2012). "Australian Green Infrastructure Council – IS Rating Scheme", Australian Green Infrastructure Council (AGIC), Sydney :<www.agic.net.au/ISratingscheme1.htm> (January 7, 2013).
Avilés, Luis A. “Sustainable Development and Environmental Legal Protection in the European Union: A Model for Mexican Courts to Follow?” Mexican Law Review 6, no. 2 (January 2014): 251–272. doi: 10.1016/s1870-0578(16)30014-2.
Bauwer, K. "ISCA and the IS rating scheme, Infra structure sustainability council of Australia." <https://www.eianz.org/document/item/3422> (Sep 30, 2017).
"BREEAM Communities technical manual." (2016). technical manual: version: SD202, http://www.breeam.com/communitiesmanual/ (Oct. 14, 2017)
CASBEE. (2014). "CASBEE for cities." <http://www.ibec.or.jp/CASBEE/english/downloadE.htm> (Mar. 14, 2017)
Caparros-Midwood, D.; Dawson, R.; Barr, S (2019). "Low Carbon, Low Risk, Low Density: Resolving choices about sustainable development in cities", Cities, 89, June 2019, 252-267 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.02.018
DGNB. (2017). "The DGNB sustainability concept. The new quality of building. The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB)." <http://www.dgnb-system.de/en/system/dgnb-sustainability_concept/> (Sep. 20, 2017).
European Environment Agency (2015). Urban sustainability issues — what is a resourceefficient city? Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union https://doi.org/10.2800/389017.
Fernández-Sánchez, G., Rodríguez-López, F. (2010). "A methodology to identify sustainability indicators in construction project management—Application to infrastructure projects in Spain", Ecological Indicators J. 10(6), 1193-1201.
"Communities Guide for Local Government." (2012). <http://www.gbca.org.au/uploads/189/2749/Green_Star_Communities_Guide_for_Local_Government_For_Web.pdf.> (June 9, 2017).
 Hargroves, K. (2014). "ISCA ‘Infrastructure Sustainability’ Rating Tool and Low Carbon Tendering: A Report to the Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre and the CRC for Low Carbon Living", Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute, Curtin University.
Haruna, M.; Mohd, Y. and Ahmad, A. (2019) "Delphi exploration of subjective well-being indicators for strategic urban planning towards sustainable development in Malaysia" Journal of urban management, 8, 24-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jum.2018.08.001
ISCA. (2007). "IS Rating Scheme Categories and Credits." Infrastructure sustainability council of Australia, <https://isca.org.au/is-rating-scheme/about-is/item/68-is-rating-tool> (Aug. 1, 2017).
ISO. (2008). "Sustainability in building construction — General principles." ISO 15392.
ISO. (2011). "Sustainability in building construction —Sustainability indicators, Part 1: Framework for the development of indicators and a core set of indicators for buildings", ISO 21929-1.
ISO. (2014). "Sustainable development of communities — Indicators for city services and quality of life", ISO 37120.
Kalantari, Z.; Ferreira, C. ; Page, J.; Goldenberg, R.; Olson, J.; Destouni, G. (2019) "Meeting sustainable development challenges in growing cities: Coupled social-ecological systems modeling of land use and water changes", Journal of Environmental Management, 245, 471-480 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.05.086
Keivani, R. (2010). "A review of the main challenges to urban sustainability." Int. J. Urban Sustainable Dev., 1(1–2), 5–16.
LEED. (2009). "Checklist: LEED v2009 Neighborhood Development." <https://www.usgbc.org/resources/neighborhooddevelopment-v2009-checklist-xls> (September 3, 2017).
LEED. "LEED for Cities Pilot | Performance Score to LEED Certification." <https://www.usgbc.org/cityperformance> (September 3, 2017).
LEED ND. (2014). "LEED 2009 for Neighborhood Development Rating System. Congress for the New Urbanism." Natural Resources, Defense Council, and the U.S. Green Building Council.
Lemaitre C. (2014) Measuring Sustainability in the Construction and Real Estate Sector: A Case Study of the DGNB Certification System. In: Schmitz-Hoffmann C., Schmidt M., Hansmann B., Palekhov D. (eds) Voluntary Standard Systems. Natural Resource Management in Transition, vol. 1. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-35716-9_23
Mitchell, L.M. (2010), Green Star and NABERS: learning from the Australian experience with green building rating tools. in Bose, R.K. (Ed.), Energy Efficient Cities: Assessment Tools and Benchmarking Practices, The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, Washington, DC, 93-124.
Moroke, T., and Schoeman, I.,Developing a neighbourhood sustainability assessment model: An approach to sustainable urban development, Sustainable Cities and Society (2019), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2019.101433
Morris, A., Zuo, J., Wang, Y., Wang, J. (2017). "Readiness for sustainable community: A case study of Green Star Communities" J. of Cleaner Production, 10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.03.190
Nguyen, B.K. and Altan, H. (2011). "Comparative review of five sustainable rating systems." Procedia Engineering, 21, 376-386.
Noblit G. W., Hare RD. (1988). Meta-ethnography: synthesizing qualitative studies. Newbury Park (CA): Sage.
Price, L., De la Rue du Can, S., Sinton, J., Worrell, E. (2006). Sectoral Trends in Global Energy Use and GHG Emissions. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA.
Siew, R. Y. J., Balatbat, M. C. A., Carmichael, D. G. (2013). "A review of building/infrastructure sustainability reporting tools (SRTs)." Smart and Sustainable Built Environment, 2(2), 106-139. https://doi.org/10.1108/SASBE-03-2013-0010
Riley, J. (2001a). "Indicator quality for assessment of impact of multidisciplinary systems." Agr. Ecosyst. Environ. 87, 121–128.
Riley, J. (2001b). "The indicator explosion: local needs and international challenges." Agr. Ecosyst. Environ. 87, 119-120.
Roderick, Y., McEwan, D., Wheatley, C. and Alonso, C. (2009). "Comparison of energy performance assessment between LEED, BREEAM and Green Star." 11th International IBPSA Conference, Glasgow, 27-30.
RPC (Tehran Urban research and planning center) http://rpc.tehran.ir/Default.aspx?tabid=218 (December 26, 2018)
Schreiber, R., Crooks, D., Stern, PN. (1997). Qualitative meta-analysis. In: Morse JM, editor. Completing a qualitative project. Thousand Oaks (CA): Sage Publications; 311–26.
Spangenberg, J.H., Pfahl, S., Deller, K. (2002). "Towards indicators for institutional sustainability: lessons from an analysis of Agenda 21." Ecol. Indic. 2, 61–77.
 (United Nations Environmental Programme). (2007). "Buildings and Climate Change: Status, Challenges, and Opportunities." UNEP.
UN-Habitat (2016). Urbanization and development: Emerging futures – World cities report 2016Kenya, Nairobi: United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).
Zhao, P. (2010). "Sustainable urban expansion and transportation in a growing megacity: Consequences of urban sprawl for mobility on the urban fringe of Beijing." Habitat Int., 34(2), 236–243
Wang, R.S., Li, F., Hu, D., Li, B.L. (2011). "Understanding eco-complexity: Social-Economic-Natural Complex Ecosystem approach." Ecol. Complex, 8(1), 15-29.
Weller, S. C. & Romney, A. K. (1988). Qualitative Research Methods: Systematic data collection Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: 10.4135/9781412986069
Whittemore R., Chase SK., Mandle CL. (2001). Validity in qualitative research. Qual. Health Res. 11(4), 522–37.

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics