Editorial

Abstract

In this issue there are three briefings and three full papers, covering topics from the specification of concrete to delivering the transport scheme for the London 2012 Olympics site. Nevertheless, there seem to be some broad issues that emerge which, in fact, link back to the March themed issue on futureproofing urban regeneration and point at the value and context of future planned themed issues on participatory planning and engineering education.The paper presented by Pearce et al. (2012) provides a nice framework within which to set the remaining contributions. The authors describe the development of a systems-based framework to support and enable decision-making, assessment and management of sustainable development issues. The approach breaks down the complexity of sustainability-driven options appraisal and develops sustainability criteria in collaboration with a range of stakeholders. As is increasingly recognised by practitioners and researchers in this field, it aims to ensure that sustainability, rather than being an add-on to the development process, becomes a source of added value. Leaders of practice in this area are realising that any tool that aims to support sustainable development can never be a 'one size fits all' and must capture, in a fundamental way, the unique features of any particular project. This tool (named Halstar) aims to build sustainability into projects and programmes by guiding decision-making and appraisal within the unique context of a project, working with its various stakeholders around their needs, priorities and aspirations. The authors stress that, whilst Halstar provides a common framework, it is sufficiently flexible to be tailored to the specific needs of any one project, no matter the scale of the project or its position in the development process.The paper also describes how Halstar is continuously updated and revised as it is applied to different projects and the learning from those projects is integrated. Furthermore, the authors aim to build in futures thinking, enabling solutions to be tested against multiple future scenarios in the manner described by Rogers et al. (2012).The other papers and briefings within this issue can be divided into those which deal with the sustainability issues of particular materials used in construction, and those which deal with 'whole development' aspects of sustainability. Nonetheless, in each of these papers, the necessity to approach sustainability on a site-specific scale is evident, whether this is explicitly discussed in the paper or not. Indeed, Pearce et al. (2012) show how their sustainability framework can incorporate tools such as Breeam and Ceequal. Perhaps the true value in the application of the ideas presented in the remaining briefings and papers would emerge if they could be incorporated into a sustainability framework such as this, which integrates all the various and often competing complex issues around delivering sustainability.Ciancio and Boulter (2012) present a complex interdisciplinary and context-based argum...