Applying the Concept of Sustainable Design to a New Orleans Redevelopment Project - Essay Example

The concept of sustainability is no longer new. The concept of sustainable design is newer but also no longer new. However, the theoretical development of a concept and its application do not fall from anywhere. Apart from the concept of sustainability, sustainable designs need to be developed and implemented to witness sustainability in practice. At last, metrics have to be formed to decide the relative sustainability of comparative methods and the overall sustainability of a given technique or structure.

Integral Sustainability is “a consulting firm based in Perth, Western Australia that provides consultancy and training services to business and government in the areas of sustainability policy and sustainability decision-making” (About Us (2011) Integral Sustainability [Online].) According to this farm, the idea of sustainable design and their assessment's “foundations lie in well-established practices such as project environmental impact assessment (EIA) and the more recent experience with strategic environmental assessment (SEA) applied to policies, plans, and programs.

” (What is Sustainability Assessment (2010) Integral Sustainability [Online].) However, real sustainability looks for more than only consideration of the environment.The differentiation is that sustainable designs do not only consider the environmental characteristics of a project: Rather, they address the 'triple bottom line' of sustainability – environment, economy, and society. A comprehensive definition of sustainability that is globally acceptable is provided by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the USA:Sustainability is the contentment of basic economic, social, and security requisites now and in the future without undermining the natural resource base and environmental quality on which life depends and will depend in the future.

The objective of sustainability is to raise long-term shareholder and social value while reducing industry’s use of materials and reducing negative impacts on the environment.