A FRAMEWORK FOR ACHIEVING ECO-EFFICIENCY IN NEW HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS

The technologies for building environmentally sound homes are well known and have been demonstrated in numerous projects, but are yet to be adopted as standard in the UK. Local authority development plans now include "sustainability" within their principles, but this is applied mainly in the social context. One barrier to achieving sustainable new housing is the lack of a framework to combine the objectives and policies of the urban environment, environmental impacts, resource use, and the design and construction of the houses themselves. This paper describes a framework designed for use by decision-makers (i.e. housing developers and planning officers) to help them address one part of "sustainability", namely eco-efficiency. The theoretical framework is then applied to a case study. Both the development process and the application of the framework reveal interesting points to be considered in the progress towards sustainable housing.