Thursday, 14 November 2013

Assessing the Social and Economic Impacts of Building Materials

A presentation on "Assessing the Social and Economic Impacts of Building Materials' was made by Jeremy Gibberd at the Sustainable Building 2013 conference in Cape Town in October 2013. This presentation and paper explore how social and economic impacts of building materials can be assessed. One of the recommendations of the study is that a Sustainable Building Material Index be developed. A draft version of this index has been developed by Gauge.


A copy of the conference presentation can be viewed below.


Assessing the sustainability of building materials from jgibberd

The full paper can also be viewed below.

Sunday, 3 November 2013

The Local Climate Solutions for Africa

Training on the Built Environment Sustainability Tool (BEST) was provided at a special Urban-LEDS pre-event training workshop of the Local Climate Solutions for Africa 2013 Congress. Professional staff and counselors from a range of municipalities were trained on the tool and used this to carry out assessments of areas within their municipalities and develop interventions to improve sustainability.

Participants welcomed the approach developed in the methodology and appreciated the simplicity of the tool. In particular, there was positive support for the way in which the methodology was able to address reductions in carbon emission reductions within a sustainable development framework. Participants indicated that this aligned well with sustainable development mandate of local government and the increasing pressure being experienced to accelerate service delivery.




Municipalities also indicated that the methodology and tool would be suitable to working with communities as it was simple and easy to use and provided a way of developing useful inputs for Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) and Spatial Development Frameworks (SDFs).

The Local Climate Solutions for Africa 2013 Congress was held in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania from 30 October to 1 November 2013. More information on the conference can be accessed here.