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Waste is a symbol of inefficiency in modern society and represents misallocated resources.This paper outlines an ongoing interdisciplinary research project entitled ‘Integrated ETWW demand forecasting and scenario planning for low-carbon precincts’ and reports on first findings and a literature review. This large multi-stakeholder research project has been designed to develop a shared platform for integrated ETWW (energy,transport, waste, and water) planning in a low-carbon urban future, focusing on synergies and alternative approaches to urban planning. The aim of the project is to develop a holistic integrated software tool for demand forecasting and scenario evaluation for residential precincts covering the four domains (ETWW), using identified commonalities in data requirements and model formulation. The authors of this paper are overseeing the waste domain, while other researchers in the team have expertise in the remaining domains.A major component of the project will be developing a method for including the impacts of household behaviour change in demand forecasting. In this way the overall carbon impacts of urban developments or redevelopments of existing precincts can be assessed effectively and efficiently. The resulting tool will allow urban planners,municipalities, and developers to assess the future total demands for energy, transport,waste, and water while in the planning phase. The tool will also help to assess waste management performance and materials flow in relation to energy and water consumption and travel behaviour, supporting the design and management of urbansystems in different city contexts. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

The purpose of this paper is to explore the rapid urbanization of Chinese cities with a focus on the plans for a new, ongoing urban sub-centre in the north-west of Shanghai: Zhenru Urban Sub-Centre. Information-rich urbanization is a defining feature of the 21st century, reshaping cities and communities in China and in developing countries around the world. The scale and pace of change requires a solid systems approach of urban development. In 2011, China announced that it has reached an urbanization rate of 50%. If we take rapid urbanization as a given and that it is already well underway, it is still widely unclear what research needs to be conducted and policy changes made to support municipalities of fast transforming cities and to avoid repeating the development mistakes that have occurred in industrialized nations, i.e. driving urban growth with high consumption patterns without fully considering the environmental and social needs and occupants' behaviour and aspirations. This paper compares two cases of urban development patterns for new sub-centres for polycentric city structures: It relates to new urban sub-centres in Berlin (Germany) and Shanghai (China), and the relationship of these sub-centres to ‘Network City’ theory. Network theory is useful in this context as the ‘network’ metaphor and concepts of decentralization seem to have replaced the ‘machine’ metaphor which was based on efficiency based on the availability of cheap fossil fuels. As cities aim to move towards more resilient urban ecosystems and polycentric systems, the case of Potsdamer Platz Berlin, compared to Zhenru Sub-Centre in Shanghai, is discussed. Both are transport-oriented developments promoting mixed-use density and less car-dependency. According to documentation of the Shanghai municipality, Zhenru urban centre, which is currently in its planning phase, is supposed to become a ‘new sustainable sub-centre for a growing metropolis’. Based on the Potsdamer Platz experience, a series of careful recommendations are formulated for the design and development of such centres, knowing that it is rather difficult to translate from one case to the other. The conclusion includes five lessons (recommendations) from Potsdamer Platz for the urban design of new sub-centres to ensure a delivery of economical, social and environmental sustainable outcomes. A core finding is that drawing lessons from the German case study for Chinese urbanization seemed a useful tactic and gave a sense that there are underlying urban design strategies. However, the conversion of such strategies to another cultural and social context requires further research. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

In 2011, China announced that it has reached an urbanisation rate of 50%. If we take rapid urbanisation as a given and that it is already well underway, it is still widely unclear what research needs to be conducted and policy changes made to support municipalities of fast transforming cities and to avoid repeating the development mistakes that have occurred in industrialised nations, i.e. driving urban growth with high consumption patterns without fully considering the environmental and social needs and occupants’ behaviour and aspirations. The scale and pace of change requires a solid systems approach of urban development. The purpose of this paper is to explore the rapid urbanisation of Chinese cities with a focus on the plans for a new, on-going urban sub-centre in the north-west of Shanghai: Zhenru urban sub-centre. Information-rich urbanisation is a defining feature of the 21st century, reshaping cities and communities in China and in developing countries around the world. The paper compares two cases of urban development patterns for new sub-centres for polycentric city structures: it relates to new urban sub-centres in Berlin (Germany) and Shanghai (China), and the relationship of these sub-centres to ‘Network City’ theory. Network theory is useful in this context as the ‘network’ metaphor and concepts of decentralisation seem to have replaced the ‘machine’ metaphor which was based on efficiency based on the availability of cheap fossil fuels. The question to be addressed is how Chinese cities can be better steered towards more sustainable models of development. As cities aim to move towards more resilient urban ecosystems and polycentric systems, the case of Potsdamer Platz Berlin, compared to Zhenru sub-centre in Shanghai, is discussed. Both are transport-oriented developments promoting mixed-use density and less car-dependency. According to documentation of the Shanghai municipality, Zhenru urban centre, which is currently in its planning phase, is supposed to become a ‘new sustainable sub-centre for a growing metropolis’. Based on the Potsdamer Platz experience, where an isolated ‘City within the City’ was developed, a series of careful recommendations are formulated for the design and development of such centres, knowing that it is rather difficult to translate from one case to the other. The conclusion includes five lessons (recommendations) from Potsdamer Platz for the urban design of new sub-centres to ensure a delivery of economical, social and environmental sustainable outcomes. A core finding is that drawing lessons from the German case study for Chinese urbanisation seemed a useful tactic and gave a sense that there are underlying urban design strategies. However, the conversion of such strategies to another cultural and social context requires further research. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Prefabricated engineered solid wood panel construction systems can sequester and store CO₂. Modular cross-laminated timber (CLT, also called cross-lam) panels form the basis of low-carbon, engineered construction systems using solid wood panels that can be used to build residential infill developments of 10 storeys or higher. Multi-apartment buildings of 4 to 10 storeys constructed entirely in timber, such as recently in Europe, are innovative, but their social and cultural acceptance in Australia and North America is at this stage still uncertain. Future commercial utilisation is only possible if there is a user acceptance. The author is part of a research team that aims to study two problems: first models of urban infill; then focus on how the use of the CLT systems can play an important role in facilitating a more livable city with better models of infill housing. Wood is an important contemporary building resource due to its low embodied energy and unique attributes. The potential of prefabricated engineered solid wood panel systems, such as CLT, as a sustainable building material and system is only just being realised around the globe. Since timber is one of the few materials that has the capacity to store carbon in large quantities over a long period of time, solid wood panel construction offers the opportunity of carbon engineering, to turn buildings into ‘carbon sinks’. Thus some of the historically negative environmental impact of urban development and construction can be turned around with CLT construction on brownfield sites. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Beyond energy efficiency, there are now urgent challenges around the supply of resources, materials, energy, food and water. After debating energy efficiency for the last decade, the focus has shifted to include further resources and material efficiency. In this context, urban farming has emerged as a valid urban design strategy, where food is produced and consumed locally within city boundaries, turning disused sites and underutilized public space into productive urban landscapes and community gardens. Furthermore, such agricultural activities allow for effective composting of organic waste, returning nutrients to the soil and improving biodiversity in the urban environment. Urban farming and resource recovery will help to feed the 9 billion by 2050 (predicted population growth, UN-Habitat forecast 2009). This paper reports on best practice of urban design principles in regard to materials flow, material recovery, adaptive re-use of entire building elements and components (‘design for disassembly’; prefabrication of modular building components), and other relevant strategies to implement zero waste by avoiding waste creation, reducing wasteful consumption and changing behaviour in the design and construction sectors. The paper touches on two important issues in regard to the rapid depletion of the world’s natural resources: the built environment and the education of architects and designers (both topics of further research). The construction and demolition (C&D) sector: Prefabricated multi-story buildings for inner-city living can set new benchmarks for minimizing construction wastage and for modular on-site assembly. Today, the C&D sector is one of the main producers of waste; it does not engage enough with waste minimization, waste avoidance and recycling. Education and research: It’s still unclear how best to introduce a holistic understanding of these challenges and to better teach practical and affordable solutions to architects, urban designers, industrial designers, and so on. How must urban development and construction change and evolve to automatically embed sustainability in the way we design, build, operate, maintain and renew/recycle cities? One of the findings of this paper is that embedding zero-waste requires strong industry leadership, new policies and effective education curricula, as well as raising awareness (through research and education) and refocusing research agendas to bring about attitudinal change and the reduction of wasteful consumption. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

Today, cities worldwide are engaged in urban projects and activities in a concerted drive towards sustainable development. However, the concept of “sustainable urban projects” is inherently normative, subjective and ambiguous. Furthermore, the popularity of sustainable urban initiatives does not guarantee that increased pressure on dominant unsustainable urban systems will occur. In this article, we argue that strong urban debates on these initiatives and on urban sustainability are required to facilitate and stimulate urban systems towards a more socially just and environmentally sustainable future. When we say “urban debates” we mean substantive talks and detailed discussions about the type of cities we want to live in and about a shared understanding of sustainable urban projects and how they affect urban systems. We aim to contribute to that objective by developing a discussion framework on sustainable urban projects that frames sustainable development as a challenge that concentrates on both ecological and social concerns and that avoids a sole reliance on technology fixes. But above all, we also incorporate insights and findings from transition thinking to focus on radical changes or transformations of urban systems and to acknowledge the importance of so-called “niches”. In this article we describe the fundamentals, the surplus value and the utility of the framework. The article contains empirical material from a pilot-study in Ghent, Belgium.

The City of Sydney is increasingly experiencing the UHI effect due to its numerous urban development projects and changes in climate. In the Sydney context, this ongoing research aims to explore the most heat resilient urban features at precinct scale. It covers five high density precincts in central Sydney and is based on a nocturnal remote-sensing thermal image of central Sydney taken on 6 February 2009. Comparing the surface temperature of streetscapes and buildings' rooftops (dominant urban horizontal surfaces), indicates that open public spaces and particularly streetscapes are the most sensitive urban elements to the sUHI effect. The correlations between street network intensity, open public space plot ratio, urban greenery plot ratio and sUHI effect is being analysed in Sydney's high density precincts. Results indicate that higher open space plot ratio and street network intensity correlate significantly to higher sUHI effect at precinct scale. However, higher urban greenery plot ratio can effectively mitigate the sUHI effect in high density precincts. The Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect can result in higher urban densities being significantly hotter (frequently more than 4 °C, even up to 10 °C) compared to their peri-urban surroundings. Such artificial heat stress increases the health risk of spending time outdoors and boosts the need for energy consumption, particularly for cooling during summer. Urban structure, land cover and metabolism are underlined as key contributors in city scale. Under question is which urban configurations can make urban precincts and their microclimates more resilient to the surface layer Urban Heat Island (sUHI) effect? Refereed/Peer-reviewed

China’s fast-track urbanisation doesn't have to be unsustainable. China is urbanising faster than any other country in history.

Waste is a symbol of inefficiency in modern society and represents misallocated resources. This paper outlines an on-going interdisciplinary research project entitled "Integrated ETWW demand forecasting and scenario planning for low-carbon precincts" and reports on first findings and a literature review. This large multi-stakeholder research project develops a shared platform for integrated ETWW (energy, transport, waste and water) planning in a low-carbon urban future, focusing on synergies and alternative approaches to urban planning. The aim of the project is to develop a holistic integrated software tool for demand forecasting and scenario evaluation for residential precincts, covering the four domains, ETWW, using identified commonalities in data requirements and model formulation. The authors of this paper are overseeing the waste domain. A major component of the project will be developing a method for including the impacts of household behavior change in demand forecasting, as well as assessing the overall carbon impacts of urban developments or redevelopments of existing precincts. The resulting tool will allow urban planners, municipalities and developers to assess the future total demands for energy, transport, waste and water whilst in the planning phase. The tool will also help to assess waste management performance and materials flow in relation to energy and water consumption and travel behavior, supporting the design and management of urban systems in different city contexts. Refereed/Peer-reviewed

In this chapter I explore the notion of the zero waste city, which extends the concept of the sustainable city to include optimising all urban material flows. The aim is 100 percent resource recovery and re-use of building components and materials. Cities need to be re-engineered with material flows in mind to become more sustainable and resilient. The construction sector, for example, uses a huge amount of raw materials and has high material and energy inefficiencies. What is also required is systemic, transformative change to promote sustainable consumption, shifting people from being merely consumers to responsible citizens. Therefore, I argue that influencing values and behaviour is an important but often neglected part of a low-carbon urban future. I discuss why we need zero waste cities and what needs to change at the level of cities, industries,individuals and households. This includes a transition phase of reduced, decoupled consumption, e.g. using products and buildings for longer, and producing more durable products that take advantage of prefabrication, modularity, adaptability and durability.

UNESCO, the UN nodal agency for education, science, culture and architecture, has made sustainability a key topic in its development oriented activities, and has launched a new initiative to address the increasing concern of non-sustainable urbanization which currently occurs in the Asia and Pacific region. It is a region of rapid change, cultural alienation and environmental crisis, with a threatening divide between city and countryside. This paper informs about the interdisciplinary research activities conducted by the newly established UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Urban Development for Asia and the Pacific. The Chair's roadmap for the next ten years to facilitate sustainable urban growth is explored and described in detail.

Publisher Summary Among the most significant environmental challenges are global climate change, excessive fossil fuel dependency, and the growing demand for energy–all likely to be major challenges of the twenty-first century and one of the greatest problems facing humanity. The increasingly widespread effects of climate change and continuous uncertainty of conventional energy supplies are causing an increasing demand for the transition of the cities through sustainable urban development. The quickest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is by being more efficient with the way energy is consumed, by reducing consumption, and by transferring to renewable energy sources. Energy savings require the development and use of more efficient appliances and the retro-fitting of the existing building stocks to make the most of natural daylight, rainwater, cooling breezes, and solar exposure, or reducing or eliminating the need for artificial lighting, cooling, and heating. A general lack of training, education, and research activity in sustainability has been identified across the professions involved. The design criteria for major infrastructure, such as bridges, ports, campuses, shopping centers, etc. will need to be urgently redefined to facilitate the transformation of cities towards renewable sources, and readjusted for extreme climatic events, like floods, storm surges, global temperature increases, sea-level rise, water shortages, and droughts. This again illustrates the need to implement climate-responsive “Green Urbanism” and to transform the existing fossil-based energy infrastructure of the cities.

In the essay entitled ‘Towards a Sustainable City Centre’ (published in JGB Summer 2006), the author reflected on principles how to best integrate ecologically sustainable development (ESD) into urban design. This second paper reports on his continuing research in the area of ‘Green Urbanism’.1 Among the most significant environmental challenges of our time are global climate change, excessive fossil fuel dependency and the growing demand for energy—all likely to be major challenges of the 21st century and one of the greatest problems facing humanity. In this context, urban design and the fundamental principles of how to shape our cities has barely featured in the greenhouse debate. Much of the debate in related areas has so far circled around ideas about active technology for ‘eco-buildings’. This is surprising, since almost half the energy consumed is used in cities and urban built-up areas, and given that avoiding mistakes in urban design at early stages could genuinely lead to more sustainabl...