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Inspiration Card
Governance Actions |
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Municipal Strategy & Planning
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G6 Use of Blue-Green Factors
| Knowledge & Awarness | Political Commitment | Organisation | Perceived Costs & Benefits | Social & Environmental Justice |
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The Blue Green Factor (BGF) is a factor-based policy instrument to ensure and maintain desired levels of green and blue in new development projects. As a non-economic valuation method, it scores the relative importance of different green or blue elements at a given site through assessing the ratio of the ecologically effective surface area as a factor of the total land area. This instrument allows developers and designers the freedom to decide how green or blue elements should be incorporated in the respective plans and, at the same time, can be used as evaluation criteria in public procurement or in the distribution of land.
- Assessment targeting solely storm water retention performance
- Additional inclusion of climate impact, landscape ecology, diversity, social values of lots, etc.
- Basic excel spreadsheet or a digital app
- Development of a BGF map for the whole city for monitoring purposes
UNaLab Stories: Stavanger BGF
Stavanger has already established a blue-green factor to account for green spaces in urban planning. The city aims to upgrade and adapt this to improve its effectiveness. The following ideas have been discussed:
- As green spaces and NBS provide multiple benefits, a green factor should also involve more than just a quantitative and/or qualitative assessment of green and blue spaces on a plot of land. It could also target multiple goals and, for example, involve criteria around biodiversity, the use of native or pollinator-friendly species, the introduction of edible plants, etc.
- As each site has specific local preconditions and requirements, a green factor tool should be made dynamic and site-specific. This could be achieved, for example, through the creation of a green factor map where site-specific information is combined to determine the value and composition of the desired BGF.
- As requirements and sites change, the BGF should also be adaptive to future changes, e.g. through the establishment of regular and location specific criteria updates.