The BEQUEST network: towards sustainable urban development

This paper by Steve Curwell, Andy Hamilton and Ian Cooper reports on the work of BEQUEST (Building Environmental Quality Assessment for Sustainability through Time), a network funded in October 1997 by the EU Environment and Climate Programme.1 The main objective of this group is to lay the foundations of a common understanding of sustainable urban development through a multi-disciplinary network of representatives of all actors involved in the provision, use and maintenance of the built environment. An integrated approach to built environment quality assessment is to be developed which will help to reduce the environmental uncertainty facing decision makers in the development and infrastructure industries.