Managing knowledge of urban sustainability assessment

Urban sustainability assessment is increasingly being seen not just as a technical process to determine the likely sustainability performance of development projects but also as a valuable tool in mediation between many associated stakeholders with differing visions, numerous requirements and variations in expertise. This emerging role presents new and considerable challenges for the management of knowledge—during its generation, flow and capture—to ensure the meaningful engagement of stakeholders in the decision-making process. This paper explores the role of knowledge management in aiding the delivery of urban sustainability assessments within development projects with multiple stakeholders. The paper outlines the requirements identified by the sustainable urban environments—metrics, models and toolkits (SUEMOT) research consortium for developing a knowledge management system (KMS) designed to aid the management of knowledge generated during an assessment, through facilitation of its flow and transfer between those involved in an assessment and those involved in future assessments. The system is developed around integration of two knowledge management strategies—personalisation and codification. A methodology for the development of the system is presented, stressing the need to integrate strategies around a practical understanding of the role of a sustainability assessment within the development project lifecycle and the knowledge requirements associated with its context.