Using systems thinking to learn to deliver sustainable built environments

Abstract

Sustainability of the built environment may be seen as an emergent property of the complex systems involved. It is the interaction of the components that determines the outcome. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. Since human behaviour dominates performance, we need a wide collaboration of disciplines and research methods to address this holistically. Fortunately, systems thinking is an approach that is shared by many researchers and practitioners, across a great diversity of disciplines including biological, social and physical sciences, and engineering. This paper provides a brief introduction to systems thinking and reflects on its use as a means of integrating processes through the use of systems modelling, frameworks and measurement systems.

Keywords:

• sustainable
• systems
• measurement
• integration
• process

Acknowledgements

This paper was originally presented as a key note paper at The international conference in sustainable development in building and environment, Chongqing, China, 29 October 2009. Although the views expressed are the authors, this paper has drawn upon ideas and approaches that are emerging from the Systems Centre at University of Bristol which includes the Industrial Doctorate Centre in Systems, a collaboration of the Universities of Bristol, Bath and Industry and the EcoCit Systems Group: University of Bristol – Dr Mike Yearworth, Dr John Davis, Dr Dawei Han; Newcastle University – Prof. Jim Hall; Reading University – Dr Runming Yao; Imperial College London – Prof. Nilay Shah, Dr Nouri J Samsatli, Dr Judith Cherni; UWE, Bristol – Prof. Jim Longhurst, Dr Ian Smith, Dr Tim Chatterton; Arup – Prof. Peter Head. I also wish to thank Dr John Davis, Dr Mike Yearworth, Prof. David Blockley, Prof. Priyan Dias and Ollie Pearce for their advice and support in producing the paper.