Agreements on sustainable building and development in the urban planning process

Two types of policies define sustainable building and development in the Netherlands: legislation for energy efficiency and the so-called convenants, which are voluntary agreements on sustainable building and development in general. The purpose of the paper is to present a comparison of the influence of different convenants in the urban planning process. The focus is on the outcomes of qualitative research, which provides insight in the convenant as an instrument. It shows that the main objective to draw up a convenant is to come to agreements on sustainable building and development for the built environment with different parties such as e.g. architects, policy makers and contractors. Since 1994 the Dutch government has established many convenants on sustainable building and development. The agreements are used to complement legislation, but have no legal status, as they are voluntary. A comparison of eight convenants shows that the content of these agreements varies from environmental related building issues to the quality of urban life. The successful implementation of the measures in the eight convenants depends on the willingness and enthusiasm of the different partners. By signing a convenant parties agree on taking sustainable building and development on a higher level of ambition, but a signed agreement does not guarantee any more action in practice. Therefore progress towards the objectives in those agreements must be monitored and documented. The results show however that a convenant can play an important role in promoting sustainable building and development in the urban planning process. A task for further research is to examine if this instrument can be of value in more countries.