(Impact) evaluation and assessment framework

This cluster includes six different approaches:

• Environmental Conflict Assessment Framework (CAF), SECOA project (2009-2013)

• Food-Chain Analysis with a focus on SMEs, FOODMETERS project (2012-2015)

• Initiative-based learning (IBL), PATHWAYS project (2013-2016)

• Predictive system of public health focused on risk and resilience, PULSE project (2016-Oct 2019)

• Fair Urban Greening (FUG) Index, GREENLULUS project (2016-2021)

• The Common Good Matrix, The Economy for the Common Good (n.d.)

General introduction to approach

Research on sustainable and just urban areas has involved a variety of evaluation and assessment methods. This cluster summarizes a sample of these methods, which have been employed in the study of the following topics: environmental conflict in coastal urban areas, food supply chains, transitions to sustainable and low-carbon societies, environmental public health risks, distribution of green amenities, and common good contributions by companies and other organizations. What unites these approaches is not their substantive content, but rather the innovative, fruitful, and transferable methods that can be employed in many contexts.

While each evaluation/assessment method is highly unique, they share several commonalities. Each one includes an in-depth research on their issue and its context. This could include research on governance arrangements and the impacts of certain events, system change, development patterns etc. The assessments are carried out using case studies, pilot projects, and in one case, big-data. Each assessment framework is mainly aimed at helping policymakers by: producing policy recommendations, decision-support tools, public-use data repositories, scenarios, enhancing policy learning, predicting and mitigating risks, and even changing norms in policy making. Each assessment method has a strong focus on environmental sustainability, and a varying degree of justice considerations.

Note: Two approaches, Socio-technical strategy assessment (DESAFIO, 2013-2015) and Impacts quantification of globalization (GLOBAL-IQ, 2011-2014), are worth noting in this cluster but do not sufficiently cover UrbanA concepts of sustainability and justice in urban settings to be further elaborated upon here. See references for more information about the projects.

Shapes, sizes and applications

Environmental Conflict Assessment Framework (CAF):

The CAF was developed and tested through the SECOA project on 17 coastal areas in Europe and Asia. It starts with elaborating on resources and resource users, including influence and power relations between users. CAF then identifies specific conflicts that are triggered by competing resource use, and typifies, ranks, and analyses all stakeholders involved in the conflicts. This assessment contributes towards conflict mediation and resolution, along with building scenarios and producing a policy recommendation toolbox. Conflict assessment frameworks, in general, are a well-established tool, and the breadth of SECOA’s test areas and conflict types indicates that the approach is transferable to many coastal urban contexts. However, as a broad, region-based framework tool, it must be contextualized for each urban area in order to be useful.

Food-Chain Analysis with a focus on SMEs:

Food-chain analysis involves the use of various assessment tools targeted at understanding urban food systems, with a focus on small and medium enterprises. Analysis includes the Metropolitan Footprint Tool, developed by FOODMETERS to measure environmental impact of urban food consumption and estimate self-sufficiency. Analysis also includes assessing the impact of different food chain types, e.g. short food supply chains, on sustainability and resilience of urban regions. Regarding the maturity, successes, limitations and transferability of this approach, please see the Sustainable Food Supply Chains cluster.

Initiative-based learning (IBL):

IBL is a qualitative assessment tool that looks at the evolution, governance (including actor constellations in various institutional settings), and scaling of sustainability transitions through the lens of specific cases (initiatives). It considers technological, economic, social and ecological dimensions. IBL provides a framework to understand how specific initiatives influence broader contexts, as well as reveal the complexity and uncertainty of sustainability transitions. IBL was successfully used in PATHWAYS to provide an analytical framework of sustainability transitions in specific cases within different sectors.

Predictive system of public health focused on risk and resilience:

This approach uses geolocated, population-based data, including data gathered by citizens through smart technologies, data from city governments, and from health systems to undertake spatio-temporal health impact assessments of environmental risks. This includes identifying health inequities across cities. The assessment aims to predict and intervene against health risks such as asthma and type two diabetes related to issues like air quality and mobility within cities. The PULSE project is championing this approach, so it is relatively new and its successes and limitations are unknown.

Fair Urban Greening (FUG) Index:

The Fair Urban Greening index measures the (in)equity of distribution of green amenities resulting from the greening of locally unwanted land uses both in and across cities, in order to assess the social and racial impact of new green amenities in distressed neighborhoods (e.g. gentrification) to counterbalance pure environmental assessments. This approach is novel, since, according to the GREENLULUS project, no large scale study of the relationship between green cities and racial/social equity has been conducted. GREENLULUS is currently applying the FUG index to 40 cities in North America and Europe.

Common Good Matrix:

The Common Good Matrix, a value-oriented benchmark system developed for the institutional sector (companies, municipalities or other organisations) allows the assessment of their impact on the common good. This assessment tool positions increasing the common good (e.g. quality of life, social justice, environmental sustainability) as a main goal of organizations, rather than purely financial gain. This Matrix has been developed by The Economy for the Common Good, which has been endorsed by the European Economic and Social Committee. While the Matrix appears to be supported by important actors, a foreseeable limitation is that its success hinges on uptake among organizations which are not required to use it.