Indicators of decoupling housing-related environmental impacts from economic growth

Decoupling economic growth from its negative environmental impacts is emphasized as a key strategy for achieving environmental sustainability. Indicators to measure this decoupling are of importance to policy-making, social debates and academic research. Growth in the housing sector has been linked to a number of negative environmental impacts. Based on theoretical analyses of decoupling strategies for that sector, this article proposes a comprehensive and systematic set of indicators for decoupling of housing-related environmental impacts from economic growth. These indicators measure three aspects of the decoupling strategies: substituting for growth in the housing sector; increasing the economic value of the residential building stock via qualitative improvement; and improving eco-efficiency in relation to residential buildings. The indicator set covers the environmental consequences from the housing sector in terms of material consumption, energy consumption and land-related impacts. Applications of some of the indicators are then illustrated with an example from a case study in the Hangzhou Metropolitan Area in China. Finally, the fruitfulness and limitations of the decoupling indicators are discussed.