Nature Positive: Interrogating Sustainable Design Frameworks for Their Potential to Deliver Eco-Positive Outcomes

Abstract

Built environment design is implicated in virtually all socio-ecological sustainability problems. Nonetheless, paradoxically, construction will be essential to creating sustainability by increasing social and natural life-support systems. Given the rates of land, resource, water, and biodiversity depletion, urban development must do more than restore nature. It must increase nature and environmental justice in real, not relative, terms. The necessary technologies and design concepts for nature-positive development already exist. However, most sustainable building regulations, design criteria, and performance standards only aim to regenerate landscapes and integrate more nature into cities. This cannot sustain nature or society. This paper canvasses contemporary sustainable design and development thinking and finds that a progression toward ‘nature positive’ is occurring. However, so-called ‘sustainable buildings’ still do not compensate for past inequities or nature degradation, let alone the material flows, pollution, or biodiversity losses they themselves cause. This is partly because current standards and measurements are based on existing conditions, not sustainability standards, and do not distinguish net-positive from regenerative outcomes. Positive Development (PD) theory provides a comprehensive alternative to conventional sustainability frameworks, planning analyses, decision-making structures, design paradigms, and assessment tools. This paper provides criteria for evaluating the potential of conventional and alternative methods for achieving nature-positive outcomes.