Cleaner Technology Projects in Denmark 1997
Environmental Impact Assessment of Urban Renewal in Vesterbro
Miljøvurdering i Byfornyelsen
Miljørapport nr. 347, 1997, Miljøstyrelsen
The main purpose of the project was to analyse and develop the opportunities for the city’s administrative unit to adopt an environmental management strategy for urban renewal where environmental targets are identified and where environmental initiatives are demonstrated with a view to effective follow-up measures. In addition, the project’s goal was to collect and systemise all accessible knowledge on environmental measures.
The City of Copenhagen in co-operation with the Copenhagen Agency of Environmental Protection and the local-government bodies carried out the project from January 1994 to April 1995.
The project is underpinned by the wish to contribute to the attainment of the national and local-authority targets for minimising resource consumption and environmental impacts within the building and construction sector.
Against the background of earlier initiatives, this project has dealt with the local authority’s opportunities to adopt an environmental management strategy for urban renewal where more attention is focused on the identification of overall targets for environmental initiatives rather than on the identification of individual environmental initiatives.
The project has been rooted in the assumption that the local authority is responsible for setting targets for environmental initiatives in urban renewal programmes, based on overall environmental targets and priorities in the city.
The project deals with environmental initiatives in urban renewal in Copenhagen, but it will also be possible to use its primary results for urban renewal in a more general context in Denmark’s other local authorities and for Copenhagen’s environmental initiatives in relation to new construction work.
In connection with the initial design of buildings, the developers choose a range of environmental measures, which are of major significance to the consumption of electricity, heat-and water in the operating stage.
The project has therefore emphasised an attempt to affect the choice of environmental measures in the design stage. The first step in the environmental effort must be to ensure that the building is designed in an environmentally optimum manner.
The occupants subsequently have a significant influence on actual energy consumption. Against the background of the project, figures for the consumption the building should have after renovation can now be reported to the occupants.
The primary results of the project can be formulated in the following proposal for environmental initiatives in urban renewal:
 | A permanent working committee for environmental impact assessment should be set up to revise targets and recommendations and, in addition, take an innovative approach to measures aimed at achieving more effective environmental initiatives in construction work (renovation and new building projects). |
| The local authority should identify overall environmental initiative targets for the consumption of electricity, heat and water -as well as targets for waste -management and natural areas. |
| The local authority should formulate recommendations with regards to the environmental initiatives that should represent an environmental standard in urban renewal programmes. |
Set against the background of a specification of the potential (possibilities) of environmental improvements, these targets express an estimate of that part of the potentate, which is actually attainable.
This estimate has been made on the basis of rough financial calculations of the profitability of the individual environmental measures, specified as intervals for payback periods.
The potential of environmental improvements has been determined as a total optimum urban-renewal strategy when using the most environmentally compatible technology seen in relation to an average conventional urban renewal strategy in Copenhagen.
In conjunction with the design of the building, it is the client and the project designers who are responsible for assessing and choosing the environmental measures that are best suitable for the building project concerned.
To affect the environmental initiatives in the design stage, it is proposed with reference to the local authority’s targets and recommendations that the client be required to provide proof of the environmental initiatives in the design stage by describing the expected consumption of electricity, water and heat and the environmental measures taken during the building project. This requirement is a precondition for obtaining the local authority’s commitment of its support for the building project.
The aim is to encourage the client and the designers to make the optimum choice of environmental initiatives in the individual building project. Furthermore, the proof may offer the local authority more in-depth knowledge of the type of environmental measures chosen in the urban renewal programme.
In addition to the proof of environmental initiatives in the design stage, it is proposed to recommend that the client, in the statutory operation and maintenance scheme, incorporate a special plan for the environmental initiatives in the operating stage, including user instructions for the occupants.
Author/ institution
Finn Terp, Københavns Kommune. Miljøkontrollen.
Helene Hjort Knudsen
This report is subsidised by the National Council for Recycling and Cleaner Technology
ISSN no. 0105-3094
ISBN no. 87-7810-720-2