A Review of Sustainability Reporting Tools (SRTs) for Communities

Authors

  • Renard Yung Jhien Siew University of New South Wales

Keywords:

Sustainability reporting tools (SRTs), urban community, rating, urban sustainability, neighbourhood, assessment, triple bottom line

Abstract

Sustainability reporting tools (SRTs) for Communities is part of a new paradigm to aid local governments and councils in their decision making process.  These integrative tools have evolved from prior versions of SRTs that focus purely on a single building performance to consider the sustainability performance of communities.  This paper provides a review of mainstream SRTs for Communities, in particular: BREEAM for Communities; LEED for Neighbourhood Development; CASBEE for Urban Development; Green Star for Communities; Sustainability Tool for Assessing and Rating (STAR); EcoCity; and HQE2R.  A critique of these tools is provided to better understand some of the existing limitations including the lack of clarity in the size of development that these SRTs are capable of assessing; lack of published reasoning behind the allocated scores or weightings for the criteria selected; inadequate account of the different sources of uncertainty; the adoption of a static perspective; and the lack of acknowledgement of possible interaction or correlation between criteria.  This review will be of interest to practitioners, academics and developers who are concerned about ways to improve the sustainability of the built environment.

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Author Biography

  • Renard Yung Jhien Siew, University of New South Wales
    Renard is currently a postdoctoral teaching fellow and a researcher based at the Centre for Energy and Environmental Markets (CEEM), UNSW. His research interest lies in sustainability/ integrated reporting, ESG research, socially responsible investment (across different asset classes: equities, infrastructure and property/real estate), climate change, sustainability strategy and green construction for the building/infrastructure sector. Renard did his PhD at UNSW with the support of the Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) Scholarship. In 2013, he was selected as one of 15 international scholars to attend the PhD Academy at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). He has published in several international refereed journals. In 2014, he won a Highly Commended Paper award for his research and was a nominee for the Individual Leadership in Sustainability Infrastructure Award.

    He also received his Bachelor of Civil Engineering (First Class Honours) from UNSW under the sponsorship of the Sime Darby Foundation. He was the recipient of the Brookfield Multiplex Engineering Construction Management Prize, Australian Conferences Management Education for Engineers Award, UNSW Postgraduate Research Support Scheme and was on the Dean's List (every consecutive year of study). He was nominated for the MASA-Shell Excellence Award and the International Postgraduate Student of the Year Award by CISA for outstanding academic, extra-curricular achievements and commitment to society.

    Professionally, Renard is a Green Star Accredited Professional (Design & As-Built) and holds a Certificate in International Auditing (CertIA) as well as the Certificate in International Financial Reporting Systems (CertIFRS). He has also volunteered for various organisations such as the PAAJAF Foundation, GRI-Focal Point Australia and Engineers Without Borders.

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Published

13-11-2014

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Siew, R. Y. J. (2014). A Review of Sustainability Reporting Tools (SRTs) for Communities. International Journal of Sustainable Construction Engineering and Technology, 5(2), 39-52. https://penerbit.uthm.edu.my/ojs/index.php/IJSCET/article/view/950