‘This is a wonderful book that should be on the desk of every architect and planner. It shows how

Ecologically sustainable development reporting
, which should report on positive actions 
taken, but usually just charts trends against broad indicators [Box 35 and Chapter 9].
• 
Regional sustainability audits
, which look at ecological impacts and inefficiencies of
existing development patterns, such as material flows analysis (MFA) and ecological footprint
(EF) analysis [Chapter 8].

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Positive Development
Future (predicted) impacts
Methods for 
predicting
the performance of a design concept or plan for a proposed policy, programme 
or development include:
•
Risk assessment
, which aims to predict and avoid financial and/or ecological threats that
might arise from policies, actions or developments
• 
Building energy rating tools
, which predict the future resource consumption
of proposed developments (especially energy and water) compared to ’typical’
buildings [Chapter 5]
• 
Sustainability assessment
, which predicts the future impacts of plans, decisions,
actions or development proposals against triple-bottom-line criteria [Chapter 7]
The distinction between predicted and actual performance is not always exclusive, of course. It 
is important to distinguish between them. This is because there is sometimes a tendency to find 
problems that suit our preferred tools. Prediction is often used where auditing would be more 
appropriate, as we saw in the case of building rating tools that award stars for predicted performance 
that may not materialize. Processes are needed that precede and support design in order not only to 
front-load design, but to re-set design priorities. This chapter focuses on how we plan, while chapter 
12 looks at how we should plan.