IHS got the Best Paper Award during the Annual International Conference on Urban Planning and Property Development (UPPD) that took place on the 22-23 October 2018 in Singapore. During this conference Dr. Ogenis Brilhante, Head of the Green City and Infrastructure thematic area presented a paper made in collaboration with Julia Skinner MSc. entitled: Green City: a Tool to Measure Environmental Performance Over Time and a Methodology to Implement a Green City Action Plan Applied to Ten Asian Cities.
Urban Planning and Property Development - an annual gathering
This yearly event serves as a platform and meeting point for academics, researchers, scientists, consultants and policy makers to initiate a dialogue on improving urban planning and property development, to increase the quality of life of urban communities. The conference shaped up as a great opportunity for the participants to exchange the latest ideas and research development information in the fields of urban planning, urban design, real estate and property development. Attendees were able to share their experiences and studies, and to explore new methods and tools.
Award-winning research in measuring environmental performance
The dispersed urbanization process dominant in the 20th century spurred the development of many theories, concepts, policies and tools trying to accommodate the growth of cities without impairing sustainability. The Green City Concept (GCC) is one of the latest. This paper introduces a Green City Conceptual Framework (GCCF) and two tools: one tool to measure city Environmental Performance (EP) over time (IHS-GCI), and the other is a Green City Action Planning methodology (GCAP) which contains innovative approaches to improve the city’s EP for a chosen timeline. The IHS-GCI tool can be used to measure EP, to explain possible factors influencing the calculated EPs over time, set targets, track achievements and help in the preparation of a city’s GCAP.
The GCCF and the tools are adaptable to individual city needs. By applying the tools to ten Asian cities at IHS during 2016 - 2018, the paper shows that Hong Kong and Singapore had the highest EP and Bangalore the biggest reduction in EP in the study period. A strong increase in population size is behind this reduction in EP. Implementation of water management and climate change strategies are factors explaining the improvement in Hong Kong’s EP. The sanitation and waste sectors have strong significant correlations with total EPs. Implementation of a GCAP largely depends on strong political will, institutional linkages and the integration of cultural and social acceptance. The views and initiatives of different stakeholders using a bottom-up approach and familiarity with the city and its environmental context are very important to develop a viable and realistic action planning. The paper addresses a range of gaps in the green city field and consolidates prior research into one actionable conceptual framework and tools.
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- More information
Find out more about the paper here or find the full publication here.
Have a look at all the selected papers of the UPPD conference.
Photo credit: Tran Phu