The purpose of this research is to measure impacts on environmental constraint areas due to the presence of new suburban populations, to assess attitudes and behaviours of residents toward greenspaces incorporated into the design of the community and to attempt to project if the City of Waterloo’s vision for suburban development in the proximity of environmentally sensitive lands is being realized. Analysis includes the results of a mail survey for a sample of 600 households from three subdivision developments on the West Side of Waterloo, stratified according to the proximity to an environmentally significant forest in the study area. Similar questions posed to the sampled West Side residents were also included in the biennial K-W Area Study 2005 which included 2000 households in order to acquire a level of comparison between residents living on the West Side of Waterloo and the rest of the twin cities. Unstructured, open-ended interviews were conducted to gain insight into the normative practices, beliefs, and value structures of residents. Observational fieldwork data of the study area highlights encroachment and environmental stewardship in the environmentally sensitive area. Findings and conclusions suggest a very positive citizen response to the inclusion of an environmental amenity in the subdivision design but at the same time a continuation of adverse environmental impacts resulting from population growth, and minimal suburban lifestyle change in this community which aspired to incorporate the principles of new urbanism.

United States is a country of shoppers, leaving hundreds of malls scattered around the country surrounded by fields of parking, waiting for the 30-year lifecycle to run its course. When the economic crisis hit in 2008, it became clear that it wasn't just the economy that was dependent on retailer's success, "public spaces" were also dependent. As malls close, the gathering spaces that offered a privatized version of the so beloved "public sphere" close as well. This thesis argues that the decline and fall of these "public spaces" resides in the mall's monofunctional nature and isolation. This thesis proposes a methodology of mall reanimation that transforms the inherited concept of the mall as a space of consumption into the mall as a place of production. Finally, this thesis aims to offer a capitalistic view on sustainable and profitable development that questions the ultimate form of suburban sprawl and land subdivision.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a practice of companies on their way towards sustainability. It allows them to measure their impact on environment and society, and to create a balance between economic, social and environmental aspects. Becoming more and more sustainable means that companies need to find new ways of operating throughout the whole value chain that creates competitive advantage by providing an innovation opportunity. Innovation that concerns environmental as well as economic impact of the product/service on the society; that is called eco-innovation. Eco-innovation can be a guarantee of sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) to the companies that practice sustainability.      The purpose of this master thesis is to investigate the reasons companies practice sustainability and whether or not sustainability is a driver of innovation and competitive advantage. Since the global company IKEA is among top sustainability leaders in the Scandinavian region, we decided to study this company for our research. Qualitative research and case study design were chosen as appropriate research methods to conduct this study. The global company ”IKEA” was chosen as the case for the empirical studies of this thesis.

Humankind's ability to ensure sustainability of the biosphere depends upon the integrated and concerted efforts of all peoples in all places. This study examines the critical need to focus on the achievement of sustainability in urban centres, specifically in North America, and evaluates the potential for city core neighbourhoods to contribute to the accomplishment of this goal. Four criteria are presented as necessary for the realization of urban sustainability, two of which, livability and equity of access, (identified as the 'social' criteria) become the focus of this inquiry. Community involvement at the neighbourhood level is also identified as necessary to the process by which sustainability will be achieved. The synergy of livability and equity to create a 'sense of community' and attendant community involvement is explored. The St. Lawrence neighbourhood in Toronto serves as a case study to inform future efforts to ensure livability, equity, and the resulting community involvement necessary to achieve urban sustainability, and points to subtle but important lessons regarding the dynamism of various conditions within a neighbourhood that can contribute to this potential.

Sustainability has become a goal for many recreational tourism businesses. For ski resorts, the goal of sustainability has been driven by a growing understanding of the impacts ski resorts have on the biophysical environment and the host communities in which they reside. In addition, ski resort owners and operators have an inherent self-interest and ethical responsibility as corporate citizens to pursue sustainability. Has a sustainable ski resort, however, been adequately defined at a conceptual level? The current understanding of sustainable ski resorts is limiting because it encourages ski resort owners and operators to address sustainability challenges in a compartmentalized fashion and in isolation of one another. This thesis examines how ski resorts would benefit from taking an integrated systems approach to sustainability—an approach that when applied, can be used to assess the state of sustainability at an organization and can broaden the scope of decision-making at an organization. This approach is missing in an industry where sustainability has historically meant focusing on achieving outcomes in efficiency thus failing to acknowledge the broader socio-ecological footprint of a ski resort. Gibson et al. (2005) argue the journey toward sustainability ought to be guided by a set of requirements based on principles of sustainability. Such principles operate on an integrated systems approach. This thesis uses the Gibson principles as the criteria by which to assess literature that discusses desirable characteristics of businesses and recreation/tourism destinations in sustainability terms. The intention here is to incorporate context specific insights into the Gibson principles such that the Gibson principles are adapted for ski resorts. The sustainable ski resort principles emerge out of this adaptation process and are applied using an exploratory case study. Specifically, the principles are compared against the current conditions of sustainability at Blue Mountain Resort (BMR), located in the Town of Blue Mountains (Ontario), with the goal of assessing the state of sustainability at BMR. The analysis resulted in the identification of five areas where the sustainable ski resort principles advanced the understanding of what constitutes a sustainable ski resort. First, the sustainable ski resort principles clearly require that there be limits on quantitative growth and, as such, ski resorts must strive towards decoupling improvements in quality and service from further growth and consumption. Second, a sustainable ski resort contributes to narrowing the socio-economic gaps within the workplace and the host community while operating within a multigenerational timescale to ensure future generations are fairly represented. Third, a sustainable ski resort reduces its net consumption of materials and resources and invests these savings in areas that are deficient in natural and social capital. Fourth, the sustainable ski resort principles require decision making power to be shared amongst internal and external stakeholders. Fifth, stakeholders must pursue opportunities to arrive at decisions that strengthen the well-being of both human and ecological systems through the integrated application of the sustainable ski resort principles. The analysis of the case study findings reveals that five of the eight sustainable ski resort principles are partially realized as represented by BMR’s demonstrated leadership amongst ski resorts in Ontario in the areas of solid waste reduction, energy efficiency and staff/public education. As evidenced in the case study, the ski resort industry’s responses to its sustainability challenges have largely been handled in isolation using conventional approaches to decision-making that tend to address sustainability challenges as separate entities. This perpetuates the notion that sustainability challenges are detached and therefore detached solutions are proposed or pursued. These approaches fail to recognize the linkages and interdependencies between entities thereby failing to pursue integration—the essence of sustainability as articulated by the sustainable ski resort principles.

Civilization’s vantage point has shifted with advances in technology from an eye-level view of the horizon to a bird’s eye view from a plane, to a planet-wide view from space. This relatively new global view is now the cultural perspective and embraces the holistic view of the biosphere as a large, interconnected, complex habitat that is subject to ever increasing anthropogenic pressures. The newly realized global perspective and realizations of global scale man-made impacts has added the concept of sustainability to the architectural realm. Architectural design issues of sustainability are inherently multi-scale, interconnected, and complex; and can not be resolved with western reductionist science alone. The holistic perspective is a core component of the evolving analysis methodology for pursuing insights on the interactions and connectivity of sustainable design. This thesis will speculate on the future of sustainable urban housing as a nonlinear outcome resulting from the rebalance of culture, technology and economy interacting with choice in our society. Through time, the interactions of these changing major forces is converging on a new equilibrium point that, to some extent, can be moved by choice. The architecture of urban housing has a potential role to play in moving that rebalance point in the future towards sustainability. This thesis will attempt to put on stage a context for urban housing in Canadian society that is transitioning towards sustainability in 2020, the year of perfect vision.

The purpose of this research is to measure impacts on environmental constraint areas due to the presence of new suburban populations, to assess attitudes and behaviours of residents toward greenspaces incorporated into the design of the community and to attempt to project if the City of Waterloo’s vision for suburban development in the proximity of environmentally sensitive lands is being realized. Analysis includes the results of a mail survey for a sample of 600 households from three subdivision developments on the West Side of Waterloo, stratified according to the proximity to an environmentally significant forest in the study area. Similar questions posed to the sampled West Side residents were also included in the biennial K-W Area Study 2005 which included 2000 households in order to acquire a level of comparison between residents living on the West Side of Waterloo and the rest of the twin cities. Unstructured, open-ended interviews were conducted to gain insight into the normative practices, beliefs, and value structures of residents. Observational fieldwork data of the study area highlights encroachment and environmental stewardship in the environmentally sensitive area. Findings and conclusions suggest a very positive citizen response to the inclusion of an environmental amenity in the subdivision design but at the same time a continuation of adverse environmental impacts resulting from population growth, and minimal suburban lifestyle change in this community which aspired to incorporate the principles of new urbanism.

With the emerging trend of sustainability, sustainable infrastructure is highly regarded by the general public. Sustainable pavement is also a concept that has driven many research motivations today. These motivations are in the form of sustainable paving material utilization, innovative design and construction methods. One of the goals behind these research motivations is maximizing pavement performance using the given funding and resources available. Despite the significant research attention for innovation and actual sustainable pavement practices already commencing, there is no readily available system or score card to quantify sustainable pavement engineering practice. In 2008, the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) initiated a research project with the University of Waterloo Centre for Pavement and Transportation Technology (UW CPATT) regarding quantifying pavement sustainability. The ultimate goal of the research is to develop a framework for formally incorporating sustainability into pavement engineering for MTO. In order to achieve this goal, the research reviewed the state-of-practice sustainable pavement material and technologies. A sustainable pavement workshop is hosted by CPATT and MTO that invited key stakeholders in Ontario pavement industry for a discussion of sustainable pavement. The environment and economic benefits of different technologies are explored to understand their sustainable elements. Indicators to measure pavement sustainability are proposed based on the recent MTO GreenPave evaluation program and life cycle cost of pavements. Lastly, network level pavement management and ideas to improve sustainability at network level is examined.

Maintaining a functioning road network is a challenge in today’s society due to the financial restrictions faced by all levels of government. A means of determining how to efficiently spend their limited funding must be found. In addition, the concept of sustainable development is rapidly growing in today’s world pressuring municipalities towards operating in a more socially and environmentally friendly manner. Sustainability is broken down into three aspects which are economical, social and environmental. A truly sustainable pavement satisfies its functional requirements while aiding social and economic development and minimizing negative environmental impacts In response to the growing sustainability trend, the City of Markham is committed to incorporating sustainability into their daily operations. This thesis is the result of a research project with the City of Markham which is directed at incorporating sustainable practices into pavement engineering. The objective of this project is to provide a practical framework for incorporating pavement sustainability best practices into the pavement engineering operations at the City of Markham. This practical framework is developed through the completion of four primary objectives. The first main objective involves the completion of a comprehensive literature review that identifies and reviews the state-of-the-art sustainable pavement best practices. This literature review is divided into five pavement related categories which examine: materials, design and construction techniques, maintenance and rehabilitation techniques, sustainability evaluation systems and carbon footprinting. The second objective involves the quantification of the environmental, economic and carbon footprint impacts of the reviewed pavement best practices; this evaluation is conducted using PaLATE. PaLATE is an excel based software developed at the University of California for evaluating the economical and environmental impacts of various pavement technologies. The third objective involves the utilization of GreenPave for evaluating the environmental friendliness of the analysed pavement best practices. The green discounted life cycle cost (GDLCC) is calculated to include the economic aspect of sustainability. The final objective involves the development of project and network level frameworks. These two frameworks are connected which forms the final framework for incorporating sustainability into City of Markham’s pavement engineering operations. Guidelines for the proper utilization of the developed framework are provided. Through the completion of the literature review it is concluded that there is a wide variety of sustainable pavement technologies that range from project design to pavement decommission. PaLATE analysis results indicate that warm mix asphalt and full depth reclamation are the most environmentally friendly construction and rehabilitation techniques, respectively. Including recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) within pavement mix designs reduces both costs and environmental impacts. Excluding microsurfacing, full depth reclamation was the least expensive rehabilitation technique while hot mix asphalt with RAP was the cheapest construction technique. The same initial construction and rehabilitation techniques are evaluated using the GreenPave rating system. Pervious concrete scored the highest rating under the initial construction category with warm mix asphalt a close second. Cold in place recycling, cold in place with expanded asphalt and full depth reclamation all scored the highest under the rehabilitation category. In the future, the City of Markham may wish to alter the GreenPave rating system to be more reflective of municipal practices as the current version of GreenPave is weighted more heavily on high volume roads. To include the economical aspect, the green discounted life cycle cost (GDLCC) is calculated for all techniques. Hot mix asphalt with RAP and full depth reclamation resulted with the lowest GDLCC in the construction and rehabilitation categories, respectively. Finally, the recommended project and network level frameworks for incorporating sustainability into the pavement engineering practices at the City of Markham are proposed. On the project level, GreenPave evaluation and project level GDLCC aid decision makers in determining the most sustainable project alternative. On the network level, a pavement management system (PMS) serves as the platform. The role of a PMS is to provide recommendations on when and where rehabilitation is required and which rehabilitation technique is the most sustainable. The cost effectiveness and network level GDLCC indicators also aid pavement engineers in making network level decisions. The project and network level frameworks are connected to provide a complete pavement management framework for incorporating sustainability. The framework provides economic benefits by increasing the effectiveness of budget allocation; this is accomplished by maximizing the overall condition index gained to dollar spent ratio. The environmental benefits of this framework include the minimization of harmful gas emissions, project carbon footprints and energy and water consumption. The social issues of pavement projects are unique to each case and therefore must be addressed case by case. A common starting point when addressing these issues is provided.

This study examines the relationship between the developing landscape and the water flowing through it. The study area was an 86 sq. mi. watershed located in the coastal plains in Harris County, Texas. Daily streamflow data for 52 years was obtained from USGS and coincident precipitation data was obtained from NOAA. Georeferenced parcel-level data was obtained from the Harris County Appraisal District with sufficient detail to determine year of development, parcel area, and impervious cover. Watershed boundaries were obtained from the Harris County Flood Control District. After controlling for daily precipitation, streamflow exhibited significant increases at all levels over time. Increasing streamflow was not associated with climate change. FRAGSTATS was used to quantify spatial patterns in the developed landscape on an annual basis. Regression analysis was used to determine the relationship between spatial and non-spatial measures of development and streamflow. It was found that models based on the spatial configuration of the developed landscape predict streamflow better than non-spatial measures such as total impervious cover. Several metrics were identified for their potential use as guidelines for urban planning.