Towards the Sustainability Assessment: A Case Study of International Indicators and the Trial Assessments of Kashiwa-no-ha Plans in Japan

Abstract

Sustainability indicators and their assessment are increasingly recognized as a useful tool for planning and communication of progress in fields such as environment, economy and society in the world. However in Japan, sustainability assessment is neither applied nor mandatory in the planning process. In order to easily evaluate sustainability of the various types of plans, effective indicators must be established. After the comparison of international indicators of ‘Sustainable development’, ‘Eco City’ and ‘Smart City’ in the global context, the integrated indicators are proposed in this paper. The proposed indicators are applied to the trial of the sustainability assessment for the recent urban development of Kashiwa-no-ha, which is a well-known Smart City Project in Japan. Even though the lack of some viewpoints is evident from the sustainability indicators, the sustainability assessment is a useful tool to check and develop plans for Kashiwa-no-ha in the future.