Evaluating the Resilience of Sustainable Neighborhoods by Exposing LEED Neighborhoods to Future Risks

Abstract

This paper examines Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development (LEED-ND), a sustainability rating system for neighborhoods, to determine the extent to which its supported actions also contribute to a neighborhood’s specified resilience. A wide range of future shocks and stresses are considered; some of which relate to climate change. A matrix is created in order to test the resilience potential of 68 sustainability actions extracted from LEED-ND against 24 possible future shocks/stresses. Many actions encouraged by LEED-ND contribute to resilience to a number of future shocks and stresses, especially energy shortage, heatwaves, aging population, population increase, and extreme precipitation. However, to some future shocks and stresses, LEED-ND contributes minimal or no resilience (e.g., sewage infrastructure failure). The LEED-ND action that contributes resilience to the greatest number of future shocks/stresses is good connectivity. There are a few conflicts between LEED-ND and resilience goals (e.g., compact development), but they are minimal. It is concluded that LEED-ND does contribute to a neighborhood’s specified resilience, but not comprehensively so or in the most optimal way.