Market Briefing: Communities Rating Tools and Frameworks

Where we live can have a tremendous impact on our health and emotional well-being. Whether creating a new neighbourhood or regenerating an existing one, a focus on creating sustainable, resilient communities can have a lasting impact on the lives of its occupants.

A market briefing on three rating tools and frameworks provided strategies and benchmarks to achieve excellent community outcomes:

• EcoDistricts Protocol: a framework for achieving people-centered, economically vibrant, planet-loving neighborhood sustainability. To foster a new model and era of urban regeneration, it puts a comprehensive lens on every urban regeneration decision, drives the delivery of meaningful performance outcomes, and sets the conditions for sustainable, collaborative impact.
  Presented by Adam Beck, Director, Centre for Urban Innovation. View presentation

• Green Star Communities: a tool that supports the planning, design and delivery of communities, precincts and neighbourhoods that prioritise environmental sustainability alongside broader issues such as economic prosperity, liveability and community health and wellbeing. We learned about the five sustainability categories, plus Innovation, for the planning, design and delivery of sustainable communities
  Presented by Andrea Davison, Senior Technical Coordinator, NZGBC. View presentation
  
• Beacon’s Neighbourhood Assessment Tools: provide a framework to improve the sustainability of neighbourhoods. Focussing on the environmental, social, behavioural and economic elements, the tools provide a basis on which to drive conversations on specific aspects of neighbourhood-level sustainability in order to inform practical decision making. Beacon’s tools were developed and have been extensively tested against both existing and new NZ neighbourhoods, including Auckland’s largest greenfield development Hobsonville Point and the brownfields regeneration of Tamaki.
  Presented by Verney Ryan, Programme Manager, Beacon Pathway. View presentation