Sustainable return on investment : towards a method of valuing social and environmental change in the built environment

Bichard, E

Abstract

Predictive and evaluative approaches that define the economic impacts and benefits of developments have been used over many decades to value materials, construction methods, labour, maintenance, occupation etc. More recently, valuation approaches using non-market valuation techniques have been used in areas such as philanthropic giving, the performance of social enterprises, and the management of upland water catchment areas. This paper explores the potential to apply these approaches to urban renewal projects in order to understand the value of social and environmental change in these areas. To date the evaluation of social and environmental return on investment has often been reduced to qualitative predictions or ex-post narrative. The approach used to value social and environmental change in this paper has been called sustainable return on investment or SuROI and has, to date, been applied in a range of built environment contexts in UK, the USA and Brazil. The paper explains the approach and then concludes with a number of observations on how this non-market valuation technique has performed in the field.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 21, 2016
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Jun 14, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 21, 2016
• Journal: Proceedings of the 2nd Annual International Conference on Social Sciences
• Volume: 2
• Pages: 866-874
• Publisher URL: http://www.aicss2016.org/