Translating measures of sustainable development to urban districts of Copenhagen

Local authorities are seen as having a unique position to promote sustainable development because of their legal rights and obligations to steer society development at local level in connection with society level in general. However, to actually manage transition processes towards a (more) sustainable build environment, there are numerous decision makers whose decision has an impact on the bigger whole, and which can promote or hinder a transition on city as well as society level. In a management perspective it seems useful for a local authority to generate holistic or at least multi sector overviews on the current baselines as well as stages in a transition process.
The Dutch tool DPL (Dutch acronym for Duurzaamheid Prestatie voor een Locatie, ‘Sustainability-Profile for locations’) is a tool for mapping sustainability profiles of urban districts through a set of environmental, social and economical indicators. Because of its capability of benchmarking between districts and comparative analysis of the indicators, it was decided to adapt the tool for the Copenhagen local authority. This paper presents the tool and the Copenhagen context.
The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the understanding of practicing transition planning and we do this by sharing our observations as researchers engaged in this rather practical development project.