A Sustainable Future – Regenerative Development
The outcome of a sustainable built environment goes well beyond what eco-efficient practices can deliver. Success will be measured by improvements in the health and well-being of humans, other living beings and ecosystems as a whole.
Regenerative development can deliver these improvements. It aims for positive ecological and social outcomes where the built environment becomes a conduit for producing resources and energy, improving physical and psychological health, remedying past pollution, and transforming and filtering waste into new resources.
The challenge we face is that this requires an expanded notion of what constitutes the built environment, and of our goals for ecological performance. It also requires greater understanding of the relationships between the living and built environments.
A systems-based approach is crucial to regenerative development. Buildings are not considered as individual objects, but rather are designed to become parts of larger systems, allowing complex and mutually beneficial interactions to occur between the built environment, the living world and human inhabitants. This ensures a constantly dynamic, responsive and resilient built environment evolves over time, and is a key difference between regenerative and eco-efficient development.
Regenerative development leaves behind the idea that the best a building can be is neutral in relation to the living world. It acknowledges humans, our developments, social structures and cultural concerns are an inherent and indivisible part of ecosystems.
Case studies
The research document – Rethinking our built environments: Towards a sustainable future – contains a case on regenerative development as well as links to others regenerative projects. The case study on Dockside Green is used here to demonstrate that the move toward regenerative development will utilise elements of a business-as-usual, restorative as well as a regenerative approach.
Dockside Green, Canada
Dockside Green is an example of a residential development that uses business-as-usual, restorative, and regenerative development approaches.
Its vision is for ‘a socially vibrant, ecologically restorative, economically sound and just community … that will enhance the health and well-being of people and ecosystems, now and in the future’.
Situated in the heart of the City of Victoria, Canada, the Dockside Green community is being developed on 15 acres of former harbour front industrial land, with a planned total of approximately 120,800 square metres of mixed residential, office, retail and commercial space.
Its developers claim that ‘profitability does not have to be forfeited to achieve sustainability. Quite the opposite, they believe that environmentally and socially conscious developments, balanced with a triple bottom line approach, make long-term business sense’.
Dockside Green markets itself as a model for holistic, closed-loop design that will function as a total environmental system in which form, structure, materials, mechanical and electrical systems will be interrelated and interdependent – a largely self-sufficient, sustainable community where waste from one area will provide fuel for another.
Targeting the highest environmental rating available under the Canadian rating scheme (LEED® Platinum certification) Dockside Green will be greenhouse gas neutral, and will showcase a variety of sustainable innovations including:
Elements of regenerative approach
- Community – commitment to create a community that offers a sense of belonging and, with it, pride in accomplishing true environmental sustainability.
Elements of restorative approach
- Ecology – includes the restoration of the development’s shoreline.
- Using local products on-site for construction activities, site utilities and demonstration projects.
Elements of business-as-usual approach
- Biomass heat generation – where no smoke is produced in the process and just green energy and clean, odourless flue gases.
- Onsite stormwater and sewage treatment – 100 per cent of sewage will be treated on-site and reused primarily for toilets and irrigation, reducing the demand for drinkable water.
- Water conservation – reusing water will save approximately 265 million litres a year.
- A vehicle-sharing programme with one vehicle for every 90 residences – the fleet will include smart cars and neighborhood electric vehicles that run on green electricity, with recharging stations on-site.
- Buildings will include recycling rooms for organic waste, with collection being undertaken by a local organisation.
More information can be found at http://docksidegreen.com
Comparing business-as-usual to regenerative development
Shifting from a built environment that ultimately degenerates ecosystems, to one that regenerates ecosystems’ capacity to thrive requires fundamental rethinking of architectural and urban design. The shift is shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Business-as-usual compared to regenerative development
Read a description of this table
This table summarises aspects of conventional, green and sustainable development practices in the built environment and compares these with regenerative development concepts. Conventional design and green design (which can be thought of as the overlap between conventional and sustainable design) make up ‘business as usual’. ‘Eco-efficiency’ approaches encompass both ‘green design’ and ‘sustainable design’.
Conventional
- Little or no consideration is given to the environmental impact of the design.
- Designs generally aim to meet minimum legal requirements for the lowest first-cost price.
- A rapidly expanding segment of business-as-usual is ‘green’ and moving towards ‘sustainable’.
Eco-efficiency
Green design:
- Does not challenge current production methods or consumption patterns that have negative environmental impact.
- Minimises energy use, pollution and waste (termed ‘less bad’ design).
Sustainable design:
- Achieves neutral environmental impact and maximum efficiency.
The current focus of the New Zealand Green Star rating scheme is on conventional and eco-efficiency methods.
Regenerative development is separate from conventional, green and sustainable approaches. This gap represents the shift from degenerating or neutral systems to regenerating ones. It also represents the shift in thinking needed to move from business as usual to regenerative development.
Regenerative development
- Sees humans, human developments, social structures and cultural concerns as an inherent part of ecosystems.
- Questions how humans can participate in ecosystems using development to create optimum health.
- Seeks to create or restore capacity of ecosystems and bio-geological cycles to function without human management.
- Understands the diversity and uniqueness of each place (socially, culturally and environmentally) as crucial to the design.
- Sees the design process as ongoing, indefinite and participatory.
