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

Avoid biases [Chapter 7]
Traditionally, citizens can challenge facts and decisions, but not the underlying methodological biases.
Since planning tools have been derived from non-ecologically-based disciplines, they tend to create a 
bias against sustainability. Whether we measure more or less is not the issue: it is the double standards 
in what we measure. Examples of some of the biases we have discussed include the following:
•
Cumulative losses of rights and resources have usually been expressed in ‘per capita’, rather 
than ‘per capitalist’, terms. This conceals the distribution of the benefits and burdens of
resource transfers between the general public and special interests. 
• 
Standard building equipment is not required to payback its embodied energy, as it is viewed 
as the norm. The cost of fossil fuel systems is not seen as ‘extra’, yet mechanical equipment
requires regular maintenance, repair or replacement. 
• 
Currently, those who are attempting green buildings are penalized by extra costs. Similarly,
many ‘green energy’ programmes subsidize fossil fuels instead of encouraging conversion to
solar energy. The costs should be shifted to those engaged in harmful activities.
• 
Environmental assessments have traditionally downplayed the economic costs of
environmental damage. At the same time, the economic benefits of an undisturbed 
environment have generally not been assigned numbers.
Our tools need to be redesigned to balance the:
•
Relative reduction of negative impacts and risks 
with
positive ecological and social gains.
• 
Economic costs of green development 
with
the economic benefits of a healthy environment.
• 
Improvement of fossil fuel equipment 
with
the improvement of passive systems.
• 
Greening of new construction 
with
the greening of existing development or eco-retrofitting.
• 
Energy efficiency measures 
with
the expansion of ecosystems and resource conservation.
• 
Capacity building in reductionist analyses 
with
creative design processes.
• 
Costs of time in financial terms 
with
the costs of restoring ecosystems or ecological time.
• 
Equitable distribution of pollution 
with
the access to open space and the means of survival.