Sustainable Futures Co-research

In the Sustainable Futures co-research project VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT) and University of Turku (Finland Futures Research Centre. FFRC) together with participating companies and cities, develop a data-driven impact model for assessing social sustainability and making visible the long-term value of solutions that promote sustainability. The project investigates and validates ways of utilizing the model in the context of urban living and the built environment. The project is linked to the KONE Veturi programme and funded by Business Finland and the participating organisations.

OBJECTIVES.
The Sustainable Futures project develops a practical framework for assessing social sustainability in a built environment context and by research answers the questions:
1) What kind of new sustainable business opportunities can be created based on the analysis of social sustainability in the context of urban living
2) What are the most important social sustainability impacts to be taken into account in the evaluation framework for sustainable living in blocks and smart buildings
3) What kind of model is needed for data-driven assessment of sustainability and making the long-term value of sustainability-promoting solutions visible?

CONTEXT
Both smart cities and smart buildings serve the people in the buildings and the city, making their lives easier in terms of economic, environmental, social, and cultural respects. We need innovative, future-proof solutions that integrate novel technologies and services to solve the problems of urban centres to prevent negative impacts on the quality of life. The regulation is getting tighter and sustainability requirements are now trickling down to smaller companies as well. In the future, sustainability is basically a part of business development. In the cases, we find out what kind of information and data is needed to evaluate the social sustainability of products and services and thus to develop an overall sustainable business. The starting point is a strong future orientation and participatory co-development approaches, which are grounded in the change of urban lifestyle.

Understanding social sustainability as part of the built environment and business and the various stakeholder groups linked to it is still in its early phase. Generating impacts is a long-term and systemic process which requires effort from many different stakeholders. This project particularly focuses on understanding social sustainability as a key element of needed behavioral change and reaching systemic sustainability transformation.

BENEFITS
The concrete framework for evaluating social sustainability in built environment context helps stakeholders involved to detect decision points related to and assess the social sustainability impact of the choices made during planning, construction, usage and demolition of urban sites. The impact model makes visible the long-term value of solutions that promote sustainability, and hence provides capabilities for Finnish companies to make sustainability an international competitive advantage.

For more information, please contact:

Project Manager, Senior Principal Scientist, PhD Maaria Nuutinen
BA4602 Corporate foresight and strategy, VTT
[email protected]