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Putting a price on sustainable communities

By intouch * posted 25-08-2016 13:05

  

It’s a fact: green spaces are far more pleasant than those dominated by concrete. Despite this, asset managers can struggle to justify directing funds toward what is often thought of as non-essential infrastructure.



Knowing how to value the role green infrastructure (GI) plays in creating sustainable communities is essential for the success of these increasingly important projects, researchers from the Victorian Institute of Strategic Economic Studies say.

Celeste Young and Roger Jones are authors of the Green Infrastructure Economic Framework Summary Report, which provides tools to help local government value the benefits of green infrastructure (GI), particularly for the purpose of adapting to climate change.

Speaking to attendees at IPWEA’s Sustainability in Public Works 2016 conference, the pair explained that by understanding the costs and benefits of GI, local governments can make better-informed decisions that are both fiscally and environmentally responsible, and avoid sacrificing long-term goals because of short-term financial contingencies.

Young says that because it can be hard to put a dollar value on the benefits GI brings a community, local governments often struggle to justify the expense.

“Green infrastructure is a new type of infrastructure, and we don't really have the systems and the kind of valuation methods needed for it,” she explains.

“People have understood that it's important but they haven't been able to prove it, because they haven't had the support to do so.”

Jones says it is much easier to do a cost-benefit analysis for conventional infrastructure.

“For green infrastructure, the numbers are much more difficult because there are lots of different benefits, and some of them can be quite small. We don't have a lot of data for them,” he says.

“This is an area where we need to build data, knowledge, skills and things like that.

“The idea of the framework was to build a structure that could be added to over time.”

What is GI?


The report defines GI as:

“The green spaces and water systems which intersperse, connect and provide vital life support for humans and other species within our urban environments. GI exists across a range of scales – from residential gardens to local parks and housing estates, streetscapes and highway verges, services and communications corridors, waterways and regional recreation areas. GI includes features that are multi-functional, networked and natural, and they have multiple benefits for society and the environment.”

The benefits of GI are myriad: strategically positioned green areas can reduce heat in surrounding areas, increase property value and improve community health.

The benefits can also be intangible, and difficult to quantify – but no less important for that.

Valuing the economic impact GI makes



The key is considering the full gamut of economic benefits a GI project will bring, Jones says.

“You can't run a green economy just based on environmental benefits, but once you start to put the social benefits in, the numbers become substantial, particularly if you think about the number of people in the city who are using green infrastructure and open space,” he explains.

“It builds into things like productivity too. People who are healthy of mind are more productive, and GI helps with that.

“Then there's the straight financial benefits – if you're improving the nature of the city, property prices adjacent tend to go up. People recognise that value of GI to them and that builds into the cultural economy as well.”

Young says an investment in GI will benefit the entire community in the long run, by reducing risk and increasing resilience, which can provide sustained social returns.

“The main thing we were aiming to do with the green infrastructure framework is just get an equal seat at the table with all the other infrastructure,” she says.

“Things are changing. We need to change the way we think and that means we've got to learn new things.”

Young says it’s important to understand that GI has different requirements to traditional infrastructure, and needs careful life-cycle analysis.

“You have to be able to afford what you put – it’s not something you put in there and it degrades in a way that hard infrastructure does. It has a cycle where it will peak and then it will decline and you have to manage that.

“Monitoring and evaluation are really important, because some things are not going to behave the way you expect them to and other things are going to behave in surprising and wonderful ways that we can all learn from.

“I think this is an area of new learning for councils.”

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