This paper provides a theoretical and operational overview of a new integrated urban sustainability assessment framework named as Local area Envisioning and Sustainability Scoring system (LESS). LESS allows the monitoring, mapping and measurement of indicators from four fields of relevance to local government areas: environment, socio-economic, infrastructure and governance.

Describes baseline levels of active transport usage in Australian cities, and thus provides a platform from which future interventions in low carbon precinct planning and design can be assessed in terms of their capability to increase the levels of active transport.
Executive Summary

Trees are known for their positive impacts in cities including: the provision of shade, reducing heat island effects, improving amenity, reducing social vulnerability, processing carbon and improving health outcomes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, greening policies at the local and state level have proliferated. Despite these initiatives, tree cover remains stubbornly uneven.

Due to the unsustainable nature of urban sprawl, Australian metropolitan strategies have increasing been pushing for increased levels of infill: the redevelopment of existing urban (typically residential) land. However, the current infill models of Brownfield and lot-by-lot redevelopment are largely incapable of generating the volume or range of future housing needs.

This paper explores the redevelopment potential of ageing and underutilised public housing properties in the middle suburbs of major Australian cities. State governments lack strategies for the renewal of this housing in the current fiscally constrained environment.

Cities are comprised of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of small parcels of individually owned land. The fractured nature of these tenures, combined with the network of administrative and infrastructural bodies governing them, makes any form of significant and coordinated planning change incredibly complicated, if not untenable.

Australia’s cities face significant social, economic and environmental challenges, driven by population growth and rapid urbanisation. The pressure to increase the availability of housing, including a move to a more compact urban form, will lead to greater levels of high-density and medium-density stock.

The aim of this report is to provide an empirical inventory of policies in place in Australia to promote eco-innovation. Eco-innovation policies in OECD and non-OECD countries were reviewed and compared to form these eco-innovation policies. 

This paper reports on a project currently underway to investigate how an open exchange standard for modelling information at the scale of an urban precinct can be used to support integrated solutions to achieve low carbon targets in the built environment. The project is part of a major research initiative to deliver on low carbon targets in Australia.

For local governments working on a climate action plan, revising a green building ordinance, looking to incentivize transit-oriented development or tackle other similar problems this paper explores pursuing the LEED for Neighborhood Development certification as a catalyst for doing so.