Implementing sustainability in neighborhood design in Iceland: How well does BREEAM Communities certification guide neighborhood development in Iceland toward sustainability

• Main Author: Katrín Hannesdóttir 1995-
• Other Authors: Háskóli Íslands
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: Umhverfisverkfræði; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1946/44494

Sustainable communities are becoming increasingly important in limiting climate change, social inequality, and economic instability. Green neighborhood assessment tools have been used as a guide to help communities implement sustainability. Assessing the sustainability of a neighborhood is a new way of dealing with the world’s problems. Therefore, studies have demonstrated the need for further research and the adaption of sustainable assessment systems. The green neighborhood assessment system used in Iceland is BREEAM Communities. However, it has not been studied how it functions in Iceland or whether it guides communities in Iceland to sustainability. This study aims to analyze the certification of the neighborhoods in Iceland that have received a BREEAM Communities certification to understand its function in Iceland. The scoring cards of the projects were analyzed along with semi-structured interviews with the main stakeholders. Analysis of the responses demonstrates that using the BREEAM Communities system is a good checklist to implement sustainable strategies into a local development plan. However, some system issues were hard to implement into the plan. The location of the project had a big impact on their ability to achieve points. The conditions in Iceland made some issues not worthwhile. Further research is recommended to evaluate the performance of BREEAM Communities in Iceland by assessing the sustainability of the certified neighborhoods when they have been built, to see whether the sustainability issues implemented in the local development plan resulted in a more sustainable neighborhood. Sjálfbær samfélög eru sífellt að verða mikilvægari þáttur í því að takmarka loftlagsbreytingar, félagslegan ójöfnuð og efnahagslegan óstöðugleika. Vistvottanir hafa verið notaðar sem leiðarvísir fyrir samfélög til þess að innleiða sjálfbærni. Að meta sjálfbærni hverfis er frekar ný leið til þess að takast á við vandamál heimsins. Því hafa rannsóknir sýnt fram á þörfina á frekari rannsóknum á aðferðum til að meta ...