Public Participation and Community Empowerment

Greater Tzaneen has been selected as the greenest local municipality and Ekurhuleni as the greenest municipal municipality as part of the Greenest Municipality Competition run by the Department of Environment. Criteria used to select the greenest municipality include:

• Waste management
• Energy efficiency and conservation
• Water management
• Landscaping, tree planting and beautification
• Public participation and community empowerment
• Leadership and institutional arrangements

Participation in this annual competition is open to all South African municipalities and 111 municipalities entered.

It would be interesting to know more about the competition and the criteria. For instance, what might leadership and institutional arrangements refer to? Similarly, how might public participation and community empowerment be assessed? 

Public participation and community empowerment could be a highly effective way that municipalities support sustainability so it would be valuable to have more information. For instance, does this criterion include recognition and support for community- initiated projects by municipalities? If it does, sharing experience and examples of these types of projects could provide valuable learning that other communities and municipalities may wish to emulate. In particular, it could provide valuable models of how municipal resources can be used to respond to local need and create greater impact through community partnerships. In addition, encouraging and supporting active involvement by occupants in developing their neighborhoods may help alleviate the sense of frustration experienced by communities which is currently being exhibited in the increasing number of service delivery protests.

It may therefore be useful for DEA and their municipal partners to explore the potential of this idea further. A simple first step would be to provide communities with more detail on the competition such as the criteria and assessment methodology. This could be done through a dedicated website and could help stimulate valuable greening community-municipality partnerships.

The Building Environment Sustainability Tool (BEST) supports public participation and community empowerment by enabling local sustainability assessments to be carried out. Carrying a BEST assessment enables communities to understand the extent to which local infrastructure supports sustainability and helps identify interventions that can be undertaken to improve this. In this way the framework provides a structured process which can be used to develop local sustainability strategies and community-municipality partnerships.

More information on the green municipal competition can be found at:

https://www.environment.gov.za/mabudafhasi_announces_gmcwinners

Built Environment Capability for Sustainability

The World Wildlife (WWF) definition of sustainability as being the achievement of above 0.8 on the Human Development Index (HDI) and the achievement of an Ecological Footprint (EF) below 1.8 global hectares per person has a range of implications for the built environment (see Defining Sustainability). This definition is referred to as the EF-HDI definition.  These implications can be explored through the concept of built environment capability for sustainability.

Capability refers to the ability to do something, or the capacity to achieve a particular result. Built environment capability is therefore the capacity of the built environment to support the achievement of a particular result, such as the achievement of sustainability targets. This concept acknowledges that built environments, in themselves, are not sustainable or unsustainable. Even in areas where infrastructure has been carefully designed and managed for sustainability,overall sustainability performance can still be poor as result of users deliberately or unintentionally using this infrastructure incorrectly, or not using it all.

The concept of built environment capability is therefore not deterministic, and acknowledges human preference by affirming the importance of developing sustainable solutions that are preferable to prevailing or conventional solutions. This can be supported through high quality design and solutions which result in improved quality of life. 

Built environment capability confirms the pivotal role that the built environment plays in enabling, or precluding, human life and activity from becoming more sustainable. In particular, it asserts the ability of the built environment in enabling, supporting, and encouraging activities and lifestyles of occupants which are more sustainable.

Therefore in terms of the EF-HDI definition of sustainability, built environments can be described in terms of Ecological Footprint Capability and Human Development Capability.

Ecological footprint Capability

Ecological Footprint (EF) Capability describes the extent to which the built environment is configured and includes the characteristics required to support the achievement of ecological footprint targets as defined in the EF-HDI definition of sustainability. This capability therefore describes the extent to which the built environment supports required performance levels in areas such as ‘Food’,’Shelter’ and ‘Mobility’.

Human Development Capability

Human Development (HD) Capability describes the extent to which the built environment is configured and includes the characteristics required to support the achievement of human development targets as defined in the EF-HDI definition of sustainability. This capability therefore describes the extent to which the built environment supports required performance levels in areas such as ‘Education’, ’Health’ and ‘Quality of Life’.

Built Environment Sustainability Capability

Built Environment Sustainability Capability is a combination of EF and HD capability and provides an overall measure of the extent to which the built environment of an area supports sustainability.  Ecological Footprint Capability, Human Development Capability and Built Environment Sustainability Capability is measured in the Built Environment Sustainability Tool (BEST) and presented in figures and graphically in reports such as the one shown below.