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

So how could we describe the current stage in environmental thinking?
There have been significant additions to our approach to environmental management that shows 
progress towards systems design thinking.
24
Environmentalists have developed ever wider conceptual 
frameworks for addressing vicious circles, which could be summarized as:
•
Whole of pipe: ‘design for environment’
• 
Whole of product: ‘no pipe design’
• 
Whole of business: ‘cradle to cradle’
• 
Whole of industry: ‘industrial metabolism’
• 
Whole of city: ‘urban metabolism’
• 
Whole of region: ‘material flows’
• 
Whole of government: ‘eco-governance’
• 
Whole of economy: ‘solar economy’
However, we have not yet developed many ways of adding value to the ecology and society. By 
focusing on future negative impacts, we overlook existing urban sustainability problems that could be 
easily corrected. To achieve Positive Development, we need a comprehensive framework of analysis 
to support eco-logical design in both innovations and environments. SmartMode aims to integrate 
analysis with design. It would link resource stocks and flows to the ecological base (ET analysis), and 
examine how institutions have transferred wealth and resource control (ID analysis), and how this 
reduces equitable distribution and access to the means of survival (RT analysis). This would provide 
a basis to guide systems re-design to reverse existing negatives and create positive gains.
How could SmartMode assist in value-adding as well as in reducing flows?
SmartMode can help us examine space and spatial relationships (not just boundary conditions), and 
factor in time (not just energy). By drawing upon MFA and other analyses, it could help identify 
means to generate positive off-site impacts. So far, our LCA and MFA methods have visualized 
cities, rural and natural systems as separate sectors. Thus their inputs and outputs can only be 
reduced by closing loops between them [Box 39]. To design sustainable cities or regions, rurban and 
natural areas need to be seen as one complex system. Rurban systems must be not only relatively 
self-sufficient in the production of clean air, water and soil, but also supportive of the ecology and 
eco-productivity of natural areas. That is, to ensure resource security, we need to increase urban 
eco-services, biodiversity, wildlife corridors and habitats through cities to support the bioregions.
There is an evolving trend towards value adding, but it has left out nature [Chapter 14]. We can add 
environmental and social value to cities and regions simultaneously. For example, we could increase 
regional economic sustainability 
and
revitalize rural communities by sourcing building products from 

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Regional Sustainability Audits
agricultural ‘surpluses’ or bio-based materials.
25
At the end of their life, such lightweight materials 
could be composted to support urban agriculture and ecological landscaping. Conversely, urban 
green waste can be composted and sent to farms at less cost to city councils than sending it to landfill 
[Box 50].