This paper quantifies the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions co-benefits associated with water, waste and transportation usage in certified green commercial office buildings in California. The study compares the measured values of water, waste and transportation usage self-reported by office buildings certified under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system for Existing Building Operations and Maintenance (LEED EBOM) to baseline values of conventional California office buildings. The green buildings in the LEED EBOM dataset produced 50% less GHGs due to water consumption than baseline buildings, 48% less due to solid waste management, and 5% less due to transportation. If applied to the entire California office building stock, performance typical of the certified green buildings would save 730,038 MgCO₂e/yr (metric tonnes) from transportation, 87,601 MgCO₂e/yr from water, and 45,280 MgCO₂e/yr from waste, for a total potential savings of about 862,920 MgCO₂e/yr relative to conventional construction. In addition, buildings earning additional credits for specified performance thresholds for water and waste in the LEED EBOM code attained performance levels even higher than required by the code provisions, suggesting that such code provisions in other contexts may help incentivize larger GHG emissions reductions than anticipated. Specific recommendations are made for building standards and certification schemes.

This paper presents research to develop a quality-of service rating system for assessing the pedestrian-oriented characteristics and functions of streets that can be used easily and quickly by practitioners. Most existing methods of assessing pedestrian quality fail to take into account micro-scale landscape and urban design elements that significantly enhance the pedestrian experience, and those few that do are difficult and time-consuming to use. The proposed rating system is (a) context-sensitive, (b) capacity-sensitive, (c) takes into account micro-scale design factors, (d) is feasible to use in a professional planning practice setting, and (e) has built-in flexibility.

Public space and street networks form a significant and central determinant of urban quality. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic has focused their crucial importance in the reorganisation of places that are “safe” because they allow movement through cities with minimal risk of contagion. While addressing the need for social distancing, open air exercise, and mobility without use of public transport, these measures resulted in other environmental and social benefits. Living with the coronavirus pandemic has produced a series of adaptative actions, such as barring or limiting automobile traffic, thereby expanding street space for pedestrians and bicyclists, whose impact is, as yet, difficult to fathom because of their contingent, temporary nature. In this context, this case study proposes a sustainable bicycle network to inform the future, permanent street redesign. Based on topographic, morphologic, and climatic data, it evaluates a series of contiguous road sections, defining redesign capacities and critical conditions to implement sustainable interventions to manage urban runoff, mitigate of extreme heat events, expand pedestrian paths and provide a bicycle network. This holistic approach to sustainable urban design evaluation, supported by reproducible data and parameters, serves as a replicable model for the sustainable redesign of roads in other urban settings. The extent, integration, and complexity of the study engaged an interdisciplinary framework, facilitating detailed planning and design and quantified assessments of environmental outcomes.

Renewable energy communities (RECs) around photovoltaic systems on public buildings are optimal solutions to counter energy poverty, ensuring all stakeholders access to cheap, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy systems. As the neighborhood is the minimum suitable unit for the implementation of highly sustainable settlements, this article discusses the potential and criticality of RECs at this scale in southern Italy. Starting with the concept of RECs, this study presents a methodology to size sustainable urban communities around school buildings. It integrates practical energy indicators with those defining performance in vegetation and water management. The impact of these factors is analyzed to identify the ideal community size in terms of energy efficiency, economic value, and social cohesion. An interactive scorecard ranks high school sites suitable for transformation into community hubs, taking into consideration the scale of substation distribution. The findings provide empirically validated operational guidelines and best practices to support the transition to smart, efficient, and socially inclusive communities. At the urban scale, the analysis evaluates different urban morphologies, microclimates, characteristics and density of buildings, and population around each assumed community hub. The study provides valuable guidance to local designers, planners, and administrators for the implementation of sustainable technologies by preparing a map of potential RECs.

Public buildings and open spaces form key elements in an exchange system of both tangible resources (energy, water, physical spaces) and intangible assets (services, skills, time). This study presents an innovative protocol (AGAPE—Automatic GIS Assessment Protocol for Energy and environment) to regenerate metropolitan suburbs by managing common resources and support sustainable communities. It tackles energy poverty by integrating urban planning, environmental design, and economics into geographic information science. This expedites public well-being by redesigning public facilities to enhance community connections and improve bioclimatic resilience. The model test site is a peripheral suburban area, Melito di Napoli, within the Metropolitan City of Naples (Italy), characterized by high population density and ongoing suburban expansion. The protocol evaluates temporal scenarios for implementing multi-purpose solutions, supporting public agencies in strategic intervention assessments, optimizing funding allocation and community benefits. The modeling of redesigned community assets reveal key outcomes: renewed land-use opportunities, reduced spatial inequities, and increased climate change resilience. The transformation of public buildings and facilities into multi-benefit community cores catalyzes virtuous urban regeneration processes. The model AGAPE provides a replicable decision framework to transform existing settlements and to drive the transition towards more sustainable, equitable urban communities.