Limits and perspectives of Neighbourhood Sustainable Assessment Tools (NSATS) in sustainable urban design

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the role of sustainability protocols at the neighborhood scale (Neighborhood Sustainable Assessment Tools) as possible tools to support the measurement of sustainability to implement effective design strategies for the built environment. Despite that cities and the built environment are at the forefront of achieving the complex goal of sustainable development, there is still a gap regarding what are the most appropriate ways and tools to measure and monitor the performance of urban transformation projects in terms of sustainable development. This difficulty is particularly evident when considering the sustainability paradigm in its Triple Bottom Line acception, which includes social and economic aspects in addition to environmental ones. In fact, while there are many established methodologies to measure the environmental performance of projects, the same cannot be said for the measurement of social and economic aspects, especially from an integrated perspective. Based on these premises, the present research analyzes three of the main NSATs at the European level, comparing them in terms of evaluation model and responsiveness to the main spheres of sustainability in order to trace limitations and perspectives.