Key Considerations When Designing Certification Systems for Urban Sustainability and Implications for The Swedish Post-Construction System Citylab

Addressing sustainability in urban planning has led to an increasing number of certification systems to support such processes. Nevertheless, there is no commonly recognised framework listing what is important to consider when developing such systems. Citylab is a certification system that is used in several Swedish urban development projects. Today, Citylab certifies the planning process of urban areas but it will be extended with a post-construction part. This paper presents a three steps analysis of the design of such a post-construction certification system. First, a literature review was performed, which allowed for identifying three principles and 11 sub-principles that make up a generic framework for the design of similar certification systems. Second, 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted in Sweden with key urban development stakeholders to better specify the scope of a post-construction extension of Citylab. As a result, four alternatives emerge for the role and function of this system. Third, crossing the results of both previous steps allowed for an understanding of important considerations and implications for the Citylab post-construction certification system design. The paper concludes on the relevance of such a reflexive procedure for the design of certification systems in general, in which the use of the framework is a key to ensure transparency and enable deliberate choices and priorities.