SUSTAINABILITY RESEARCH CENTRE (SRCe) – MEASURING COMMUNITY OUTCOMES, AN AUSTRALIAN EXAMPLE

In accordance with Sustainable Development Goals, achieving sustainable, regenerative development requires continuous measuring of outcomes on multiple bottom lines. The measurement of economic and environmental/ecological outcomes of sustainable development are reasonably well researched and implantation is in some cases well advanced. Measuring social outcomes, on the other hand, is lagging.

New technologies, like AI, blockchain, smart cities, Digital Twins, and new methodologies, as Circular Economy, are providing opportunities to address this gap in innovative ways. The question is: who evaluates outcomes? Who determines what the successful community is? How do we prevent misuse of these new technologies? Our research indicates that active participations of citizens would be necessary in defining and measuring outcomes of planning.

In this paper we have investigated the current system of public engagement and consultation as well as few alternative systems/tools explored in Australia. As a result, we have developed a proposal for an alternative model that could address some of identified problems of the existing system and anticipated difficulties in the future. The heart of that framework is the Sustainability Research Centre (SRCe), a hub and a place, physical and virtual, where community, industry and research collaborate.

Our plan is to implement this framework on our specific pilot project, in collaboration with specific community. The location of North Arm Cove in New South Wales (NSW), Australia is used as a case study for creation of an innovative, sustainable, regenerative development framework – North Arm Cove Initiative. This location has been selected 105 years ago by an American urbanist, architect and community builders couple Walter Burley and Marion Mahony Griffin, as a preferred location for their plans for the New York of Australia. Their Master Plan did not progress beyond the subdivision and sale of more than 3000 lots, to landowners who have been subsequently affected by prohibition of building homes on their land.