C8 - Best practice in sustainable urban infrastructure

The Action’s main objective was to develop better solutions for sustainable urban infrastructure by exchanging experience, assessing different solutions, developing methods to assess various solutions and promoting the diffusion of best practices concerning sustainable urban infrastructure.

The secondary objective was to achieve a common understanding on sustainability and related criteria for decision-making in urban planning and design dealing with infrastructure.

The beneficiaries of the Action results were local authorities, urban planners and designers and other urban practitioners from all European countries, who were provided with new information, visions and insights concerning sustainable solutions in urban infrastructure.
The Action organised or participated at several major workshops (20-22 Sept. 1999, Stockholm; COST UCE Conference “The Future of the City, New Quality for Life”, Bled, Slovenia, 14-15 Sept. 2001; C8 Final Conference, 6-8 November 2003, Trento, Italy), which were also opened to experts from non-participating countries. The importance of the papers was recognised by their publication in a special issue of the international scientific journal The Environmental Impact Assessment Review (Elsevier). The Action was promoted at a worldwide level at the 20th Annual Meeting of the International Association for Impact Assessment (IAIA) in Hong Kong in June 2000.

The final scientific report as a handbook gives an overview of the theories, methods and tools used and includes a selection of some 50 case studies representing the best practices in sustainable urban infrastructure with recommendations emerging from these studies.