Application of a Metabolic Thinking Driven Sustainability Framework in Early-Stage Planning of Eco-City

Abstract

The fast urbanization rate together with increasing global population and consumption is challenging the long-term sustainability of our social systems and supporting ecosystems on earth. The signs of instability can be seen in environmental degradation, e.g., climate change and loss of biodiversity. Also, the increasing use of materials and energy creates competition and international conflicts. The success of international agreements to handle the global problems has been limited. This is because deeply entrenched economic and political interests are involved. Political leaders are locked up to promises of economic growth and increasing welfare. Through globalization, resources and products are transported long distances and it is becoming hard to distinguish between local and global effects. This makes people feel that the overall situation is so complicated, so they cannot affect it. Bringing things closer to people will create more awareness and can create enormous opportunities for new ideas and business to solve the existing problems. The United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals are focused on reducing poverty in the world. China has succeeded in reducing poverty on a massive scale through fast economic growth but to the price of increased use of virgin resources and environmental degradation. It seems more and more urgent to develop support models for urban development on a local scale focusing on urban metabolism. As sustainable development involves many normative decisions, participatory planning and cross-sectoral planning will be needed to ensure that conflicts between goals can be resolved. The Swedish Green Building Council has, together with more than one thousand actors, developed a recent model for the support of sustainable urban planning called CITYLAB. This has been used in a case study in the city of Changzhou in China. The case study reveals several barriers in Chinese planning when it comes to implementing more of horizontal planning practices.