Matching a community assessment tool to the requirements of practice

Over the last two decades, performance-based metrics have been applied in master planning as a means to estimate the impacts of large-scale development on the local and global environment. Community sustainability assessment has developed to provide a practical method for assessing the performance of a spatial master plan against an array of sustainability indicators. This paper considers the adequacy of such a tool to provide reliable information when and as required for decision-making in the planning process. It reviews Breeam (building research establishment environmental assessment method) Communities 2012 specifically examining whether this tool provides an analysis which is strategic, comprehensive and integrated. Breeam 2012 is found to be adequately comprehensive in the current operational context of the British planning system. The sustainability assessment model can usefully inform decision-making at the strategic ‘stage gates’ of master planning. However, the analytical methodology of the assessment model is inherently fractional. This complicates how a ‘balanced’ evaluation of the relative importance of sustainability issues is reached and agreed. It is suggested that a project culture of trans-disciplinary dialogue and explorative learning is required to promote the understanding and use of sustainability assessment practice in master planning.