Sustainability is vital to the success of our cities and settlements. While communities are becoming increasingly conversant with sustainability concepts, uncertainty remains over how to translate these into planning practice. This practicum explores the role of sustainability checklists as one tool for planning and designing more sustainable communities. The inquiry examines the design, implementation and effectiveness of these tools and seeks to understand the motivation and context in which they are developed, the varying approaches and components of checklist tools, and the impact that they are having on planning and development practices. A review of twenty-four sustainability checklists from a selection of BC municipalities, an online survey and key informant interviews were used to inform this study. Nine key findings are identified suggesting that while checklists are helping to communicate sustainability objectives and are encouraging better development, they are not resulting in the large scale shifts to development patterns and urban systems that are required to achieve sustainable outcomes; therefore, checklists need to be integrated with other policies, regulations and tools in order to assist in achieving sustainable settlements.

Sustainability is vital to the success of our cities and settlements. While communities are becoming increasingly conversant with sustainability concepts, uncertainty remains over how to translate these into planning practice. This practicum explores the role of sustainability checklists as one tool for planning and designing more sustainable communities. The inquiry examines the design, implementation and effectiveness of these tools and seeks to understand the motivation and context in which they are developed, the varying approaches and components of checklist tools, and the impact that they are having on planning and development practices. A review of twenty-four sustainability checklists from a selection of BC municipalities, an online survey and key informant interviews were used to inform this study. Nine key findings are identified suggesting that while checklists are helping to communicate sustainability objectives and are encouraging better development, they are not resulting in the large scale shifts to development patterns and urban systems that are required to achieve sustainable outcomes; therefore, checklists need to be integrated with other policies, regulations and tools in order to assist in achieving sustainable settlements.

The Metro Vancouver region is experiencing high levels of population and employment growth within a strictly limited land base. With increasing competition for land, industrial land in particular is under considerable pressure to be converted to other uses, such as residential and commercial, with the current supply of industrial land is expected to be exhausted within 15 years. Without the ability to expand the industrial land base to meet the region’s future industrial needs, more efficient use of existing industrial lands must be achieved. In recognition of this, the region is investigating intensification policies to encourage better utilization and intensification of industrial lands for industrial activities. The early work on industrial land intensification highlighted a gap in planning literature and practice with respect to how the intensity of industrial land use is defined and measured. A better understanding of intensification in the industrial land context is required for the region to develop industrial land intensification policies. This research practicum explores expanded definitions and measures of intensification. The inquiry develops a prototype analytical tool designed to communicate these definitions and measures and to facilitate the evaluation of industrial land intensification. The prototype tool is based on sustainability assessment tools used in sustainable development planning. Through semi-structured interviews with industrial land stakeholders, expanded definitions and measures of industrial intensification were considered and the prototype tool was refined. The project concludes with a discussion of future directions for the prototype tool, including the development of multiple versions of the tool at different scales and for different industrial sectors; the creation of an intensification rating system; and the adaptation of the tool into a checklist to be integrated into municipal development application processes. These evolutions of the prototype tool anticipate how it could be integrated into planning and development practices and inform industrial land intensification policies in areas such as the Metro Vancouver region. / October 2015

Many higher education institutions (HEIs) have started to incorporate sustainable development (SD) into their system. A variety of sustainability assessment tools (SATs) have been developed to support HEIs to systematically measure, audit, benchmark, and communicate SD efforts. In recent years, stakeholders have increasingly asked HEIs to demonstrate their impacts on SD. These impacts are the direct and indirect effects an HEI has outside of its organizational boundaries on society, the natural environment, and the economy. This study analyzes to what extent SATs are capable of measuring the impacts that HEIs have on SD. A mixed-method approach, using descriptive statistics and an inductive content analysis, was used to examine 1134 indicators for sustainability assessment derived from 19 SATs explicitly designed for application by HEIs. The findings reveal that SATs largely neglect the impacts HEIs have outside their organizational boundaries. SATs primarily use proxy indicators based on internally available data to assess impacts and thus tend to focus on themes concerning the natural environment and the contribution to the local economy. Updating existing SATs and developing new ones may enable HEIs to fully realize their potential to contribute to SD.

Today, the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) is education, research, and to contribute to society. The requirement of contributing to society especially requires that the institutions contribute to sustainable development. It is therefore relevant to analyse how HEIs can address and contribute to sustainability and sustainable development. The purpose of this thesis is twofold. Firstly, it aims to analyse the impact that HEIs have on sustainable development by identifying and mapping indicators of impact. Secondly, it aims to illustrate with the empirical case of a technological university in Sweden - the studied technological university is KTH Royal Institute of Technology. The study was conducted as an exploratory single-case study. The study's data consists of qualitative interview data as well as quantitative secondary data. The secondary data was collected from a variety of sources at KTH, including its development plan, objective plans, vision, business plans, annual reports, progress reports on objectives, and follow-up reports. The qualitative data was collected through 11 semi-structured, open-ended interviews with faculty and employees at KTH. The study finds that HEIs - through various sustainability actions in their activities education, research, and collaboration and outreach - can achieve impacts such as pro-environmental behaviour and sustainable development. These measures related to all three pillars of sustainability. The HEIs' impact can be identified through indicators such as number of courses on sustainability and sustainable development and share (%) of the total external funding for research that supports research in the sustainability field. As for KTH specifically, the study shows that KTH is able to impact the areas of environmental, social, and economic sustainability and that the impact can be direct, indirect, short-term, long-term, intended, and positive. / Idag innefattar uppdraget för lärosäten för högre utbildning forskning, utbildning och att bidra till samhället. Uppdraget att bidra till samhället kräver specifikt att lärosätena bidrar till hållbar utveckling. Det är därför relevant att analysera hur lärosäten för högre utbildning kan hantera och bidra till hållbarhet och hållbar utveckling. Denna avhandling har två syften. För det första syftar avhandlingen analysera lärosätenas påverkan på hållbar utveckling genom att identifiera och kartlägga indikatorer på effekt. För det andra syftar avhandlingen exemplifiera och illustrera det första syftet med ett empiriskt fall av ett tekniskt universitet - det studerade universitetet är Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan. Studien genomfördes som en utforskande fallstudie där ett fall studerades. Studiens data består av både kvalitativ intervjudata och av kvalitativ och kvantitativ sekundärdata. Datat samlades in från två olika beviskällor - dokumentation och intervjuer. När det gäller dokumentationen samlades data och information in från en mängd olika dokument från KTH, inklusive dess utvecklingsplan, målplaner, vision, affärsplaner, årsrapporter, lägesrapporter och uppföljningsrapporter. Gällande intervjuerna genomfördes 11 halvstrukturerade intervjuer med öppna frågor. Intervjupersonerna bestod av lärare och anställda från olika kontor och avdelningar vid KTH. Studien visar att lärosäten för högre utbildning, genom olika hållbarhetsåtgärder i sin verksamhet kring utbildning, forskning och samarbete, kan uppnå effekter såsom miljövänligt beteende och hållbara livsstilar, minskning av koldioxidpåverkan, ekonomisk tillväxt, jobbskapande, kunskapsutbyte och ekonomiska och sociala fördelar. Tillsammans täcker dessa effekter alla tre typer av hållbarhet, vilket i sin tur innebär att lärosäten kan bidra till en hållbar utveckling i samhället. Lärosätenas påverkan kan identifieras genom indikatorer såsom antal kurser om hållbarhet och hållbar utveckling och andelen (%) av den totala externa forskningsfinansieringen som stödjer forskning inom hållbarhetsområdet. När det gäller KTH specifikt visar studien att KTH kan påverka områdena miljömässig, social och ekonomisk hållbarhet samt att effekterna kan vara direkta, indirekta, kortsiktiga, långsiktiga, avsedda och positiva.