There is a growing emphasis on reducing the amount of carbon that is embodied in buildings, a huge contributor of greenhouse gas emissions is the real estate sector. Despite this, a number of challenges, primary among them economical limitations, obstruct the advancement of meaningful carbon reduction. Interestingly, there is an absence of research that focuses on these financial issues from the perspective of developers, and what little study there is sometimes lacks thorough analysis and practical answers. Reevaluating developers' investment decision-making is crucial, especially in light of the industry's recognition of the need of reducing carbon emissions, especially with regard to embodied carbon. But incorporating these fresh viewpoints into useful models is still a challenging task. Therefore, "How can developers manage the paradox between profitability and embodied carbon reduction?" is the research question. By answering this question, knowledge of the ways in which developers' perspectives are influenced by financial factors when integrating embodied carbon reduction strategies into investment decision-making is improved. The goal of this study is to guide developers and the broader system surrounding this subject to profitable Paris Proof projects. This change is anticipated to enable the installation of new, ecologically friendly dwellings while considerably lowering the building and construction sector's carbon footprint.

There is significant potential for circular and sustainable development, however, many organisations are struggling to keep pace with this transition. Despite the Paris Agreements and ESG benchmarks setting clear sustainability standards, private developers are still lacking in adopting new transitions towards a future-proof strategy for their organisations due to growing risks, increasing costs, and the competitive nature of the market.
This research aims to examine how organisational change within developers’ management structures and processes can benefit early adaptors and frontrunners. Changing the industry goes step by step and starts with an individual approach to adapting the available knowledge. Implementing these changes within companies presents barriers and opportunities at various levels in the organisation. By investigating the implementation of strategic changes, it is crucial to consider the perspectives of different teams and individuals in the organisation to understand how the short-term projects will be affected by the long-term goals and new strategies to come. These factors are shaped both internally and externally, depending on the context. Within this single case study of a developer’s organisation interviews are conducted with individuals within the developer’s operations. The aim is to provide insights into how their beliefs and work align with the framework of the private developers’ proactive and reactive approaches to the company’s culture and values. Additionally, a case study is conducted to see the change strategies in the past years concerning management and their implications on further developments by using the guide plan, recommendations are given. Combining Strategies for change and aligning strategic and project levels shows the importance of the guide plan. Providing a guide plan to address and connect theory to practice shows implementation recommendations for private developer organisations towards change strategies. The research concludes with recommendations.

Placemaking is currently a popular concept to implement for the revitalisation of urban areas, often connected to achieving various social goals in neighbourhoods. However, while the concept of placemaking has been in use for some decades, still a lot of confusion exists concerning the specifications of placemaking. This thesis analyses how participatory placemaking in public spaces is defined according to scientific studies regarding developed economic regions, to find out if multiple diverging concepts of participatory placemaking co-exist, muddying the term, or if only slight deviations in terminology exist. The research method consists of a semi-systematic literature review to map all the different ways participatory placemaking occurs in recent scientific material. The concepts of placemaking distilled from this literature review are validated by a focus group. With their feedback then being used to reflect on the findings from the literature review and fine-tune them. This resulted in the identification of five placemaking concepts: ‘Humanistic placemaking’, ‘Organic, aggregate over time placemaking’, ‘Creative placemaking’, ‘Strategic placemaking’, and ‘Tourism, economic placemaking’, along with their specific characteristics, that will help clear up future conversations regarding participatory placemaking among professionals. With multiple distinct placemaking concepts having been identified throughout this research, which are quite evenly represented in the literature about placemaking, it is even more clear that actors discussing placemaking together have a high chance of misunderstanding each other.

To prevent global warming, CO2 emissions must be reduced by 95%. The
building and construction industries account for over 15% of all direct CO2
emissions. However, currently there are no regulations for carbon net-zero
developments. Investors adhere to current sustainability requirements because
there are many barriers develop carbon net-zero. To achieve carbon net-zero,
buildings have to be energy-neutral, and climate-friendly as possible all other
emissions must be minimized and compensated. What we now often see is that
a forest is planted somewhere else to compensate for the carbon emissions.
Instead, urban areas themselves could be a solution to compensate for carbon
emissions. Furthermore, the UN argues that plans against global warming are
still inadequate and also other parties have to take responsibility to reduce
carbon emissions. Yet, how they should act is unknown. The one thing that is
known is that private parties have a steering role in sustainable urban area
developments. Based on this problem statement, the following main research
question is formulated: What can developers do to influence carbon offsets in
the development areas in the Netherlands? To answer this question, a literature
review is conducted. Moreover, case studies with semi-structured interviews
and an expert panel have been used to validate. Developers could translate
indirect and direct influenceable barriers into opportunities and thereby
influence each phase with the necessary parties and the necessary tool. The
framework provides a structured approach to navigate complexities and
maximize impact, resulting in a greener future with less carbon.

Over the last decade, shared mobility has more often become a part of urban development. Studies are increasingly pointing at mobility hubs as a vehicle to deliver shared mobility, often from a viewpoint within the mobility sector. However, shared mobility hubs have to a lesser extent been studied in relation to urban development. As far as the integration of shared mobility hubs within urban development is concerned, roles are unclear, uncertainty is high, and a scientific knowledge gap exists. Therefore, this study examines the integration of shared mobility hubs within urban developments, and assesses how developers can steer on this integration. Firstly, a review of previous studies is carried out on the concepts shared mobility, mobility hubs, and management of urban development projects. Secondly, three case studies are examined to empirically assess key stakeholders’ perspectives on working and steering on shared mobility hubs. It is found that the way developers can steer on mobility hubs, depends on the needs of the urban development organization and the needs of users, the purpose that the mobility hub should serve, and the eventual type of mobility hub that is steered upon. To illustrate the considerations affecting the way of steering, recommendations for practice are provided. Based on these recommendations, the management of two theoretical hub typologies is discussed within an expert panel.

Real estate development faces numerous challenges due to the dynamic market, socio-economic developments, but also deep-rooted mentalities and practices in the sector. Real estate developers need to innovate at both a strategic and business level to overcome these challenges and remain marketable in the long term. This study explores this gap and offers a solution by answering the question: " How can the strategic and project levels of a developer be aligned to achieve a sustainable real estate development concept?". Using a design science research methodology that combines interviews, workshops and expert panels, the Sustainable Real Estate Development Canvas (SREDC) was developed and tested. The canvas harmonises the strategic view of the developer and the interests of the various stakeholders at project level to achieve a new and sustainable development concept. During the workshop, in which all stakeholders participated, a jointly developed development concept emerged as a result of the harmonisation of interests, which demonstrates the practicability and feasibility of the proposed canvas.

Context - Globally, there is climate change that affects life of people and nature on earth. The built environment is responsible for nearly 40% of global energy consumption and approximately onethird of global CO² emissions (JLL, 2020). Therefore, the built environment must become more sustainable. Public and private parties incorporate sustainability ambitions into urban redevelopment plans, in a complex context with high ambitions and quality for high costs materials, labour and energy. All these factors put pressure on the feasibility of urban redevelopment plans. In the collaboration of public-private partnerships, there are these two conflicting interests that make it hard to develop the high requirements for urban redevelopment plans. Objective – This research aims to provide new insights in the relationship between the negotiation in the partner selection methods and incorporating sustainability ambitions in urban redevelopment plans. The main research question in this research is: “How can negotiations in partner selection methods contribute to the incorporation of sustainability ambitions in urban redevelopment plans?” Methods – This research consist of two parts. First, document and literature review provide a framework of definitions and processes from which the empirical part is studies. This empirical, second, part consists of explorative interviews, case study analysis and an expert panel. Results – The defined concepts form literature are: sustainability ambitions, partner selection methods, and negotiations for urban redevelopment plans. The findings of the empirical part state that negotiations occur in the two partner selection methods (partner selection method and tender) about the incorporation of sustainability ambitions. Both methods differ in moments and types of negotiations. Conclusions – The main conclusion is that negotiations contribute by having moments in which key stakeholders discuss about how the sustainability ambitions are incorporated in the urban redevelopment plan. In these moments different types of negotiation occur in which stakeholders deal with the sustainability ambitions. This research gives insights about negotiations in the process of the two selection methods and which elements are important for improving both. With this improvement, key stakeholders should be better able to negotiate about how to incorporate sustainability ambitions for urban redevelopment plans.

Traditionally, municipalities in the Netherlands have been taking a dominant and leading role in the urban area development. Currently, the municipalities pursue more often a facilitating and passive role, and prefer to utilize market resources and capabilities. The lack of municipal resources, stacking complexity of the objectives and insufficient municipal capacity, makes the shift both preferable and necessary. Unsolicited proposals are emerging along this shift to more market and networked practices. These informal proposals are original, SMART, feasible, complete, value-adding plans for exclusively municipal lands that aim to get the land directly awarded. The creativeness and smaller reliance on municipal resources makes the proposals attractive for municipalities. However, the societal desirability and legal feasibility of this instrument are ambiguous as little about the phenomenon is documented and the Didam-judgement from late 2021 bars the direct award of land.

This research aims to investigate whether the instrument is still available for Dutch municipalities and how municipalities may improve their management of these proposals. A literature study, 2 case study projects and an expert panel have covered the topics of unsolicited proposals, urban area management, public values and the legislative context. These research methods and topics have been the main components for the delivery of a process model to improve the municipal management.

The process model entails a phased model of preparatory policy design stage by the municipality to steer the market and set out the legal basis for the Didam selection procedure. The latter is complied with through a first-come first-serve open selection procedure which meets the Didam-criteria of being measurable, objective and reasonable. The process continues with a parallel Ambitioning phase by the municipality and a Design iteration phase of the private party, during which communication and process management are important. Follow up by a feasibility and elaboration phase the collaboration and project management becomes more important. Concludingly, Unsolicited proposals are still feasible and through proper employment of all management tools and activities desirable outcomes can be achieved.

In a time of increasing awareness regarding environmental and social concerns, urban area developments have been framed within ambitious goals which require the collaboration of developers and other parties. The complexity behind pursuing sustainable goals brings several challenges to the feasibility and financing of projects since private actors are mostly profit-driven and therefore, their business rationale tends to collide when taking decisions that link private profit and public values. The existing criteria to assess sustainability, mostly at an urban level, and the difficult quantification of these criteria into potential benefits for developers have been traditionally determined as seeming incompatible. Therefore, a deeper understanding of how sustainability is impacting the decision-making of area developers is required to achieve the right balance between long-term sustainability and short-term profitability.

In that sense, there is an existing gap between sustainability assessment methods and decision-making processes that needs to be filled to ease the transition towards a broader definition of value into the business rationale of developers. In that line of reasoning, market-driven rating tools for sustainability assessment represent an opportunity to analyse how their use is impacting the urban redevelopment management, providing empirical examples of how the gap with decision-making processes can be minimized. These findings, aims to evaluate the implementation of BREEAM-NL Area in The Netherlands and add knowledge on how the use of it as a methodological framework can have an impact in the decision-making process. That could potentially stimulate developers to take a more holistic approach, enhance innovation within their decision logic and embed sustainability within their corporate strategies.

Rising city-life growth has resulted in a world population where the majority of
people live in cities. However, cities are not yet prepared and designed for this
increase and are confronted with a need for urban regeneration. The landscape
of urban regeneration is next to social, political and economic sustainability,
challenged by implementing a comprehensive vision and long-term growth.
Thereby, various methods are implemented to involve relevant stakeholders
early in urban regeneration projects, focusing on a highly collaborative
approach to establishing an integral vision. A robust relationship between
the involved stakeholders is desirable to cope with unexpected circumstances
along the process and deal with these projects’ complex and uncertain nature.
Collaboration factors within the informal domain that enhance the quality of
collaboration can be distinguished from literature. This research aims to create
awareness amongst the project team to engage with this soft side of collaboration
actively. Therefore, the Design Science Research approach is applied. A multiple case
study conducting semi-structured interviews resulted in practical (inter)
actions to be executed during urban regeneration processes. These findings are
translated into a roadmap for (inter)actions, which presents the (inter)actions to
be performed along the process of urban regeneration by the project team.

Due to climate change, the built environment will have to deal with rising surface
water levels in the future. We could cope with this situation by making our buildings adaptable to changing water levels and develop floating urbanisation. Although quite a few floating projects have been realised in the Netherlands they are mostly of the smaller scale (1-20 buildings). To serve as a robust solution the floating urbanisation projects need to scale up. The aim of this research is to understand the preconditions that are needed to do so. The method used is mixed and combines literature research, case studies and a validation panel. The results have been grouped in seven themes: knowledge & skills, regulation & legislation, exploitation & economy, infrastructure & planning, technology & scale, environment & ecology and public perception. Topics within these themes that play an important role in the success of a project are developing parties with the required knowledge and skills, the presence of suitable legislation, an appropriate location and a bank willing to provide mortgages. The preconditions as they are now make the development of floating urbanisation in the Netherlands possible. Improving these conditions will make it easier to develop more floating urbanisation projects. If these improvements are needed on the short term or the long term depends on the context of that time.

To attain a transition such as to a circular economy and built environment, actions at all scales are necessary, which implies that interventions should positively contribute to the transition (Petersen& Heurkens, 2018). Governments see the problems that the linear built environment entails and are making steps in implementing circular focussed policies (Bouwma et. al, 2015). A transition, such as to a circular built environment, can only become reality when public planners work in a certain way. They should use their political power with the dynamics of real estate developments by shaping,
regulating and stimulating market parties (Petersen & Heurkens, 2015). One of the new planning instruments concerning circularity are circular land tender procedures (OECD, 2020). By setting circular award criteria for land tenders, public planners ensure that they have an influence on real estate developments. Since this is a new phenomenon, almost no research has been done into this planning instrument. It is unclear whether the introduction of circular criteria raises problems and what the parties involved think about it. Heurkens et. al (2015) identifies the importance of cooperation between public and private entities. Public planners are increasingly dependent on market parties to achieve their goals. Therefore, it is important to conduct research on this new planning tool.

Dutch real estate developers are being pressured to obtain a more sustainable corporate strategy to guarantee competitiveness and continuity of their firm. Even though this contextual pressure is being recognized by Dutch real estate developers, it is often not translated to practice. This is remarkable because studies over time have proven that sustainability has the potential lead to an enhanced competitiveness. This study aims to provide a deeper understanding of what is withholding Dutch real estate developers to implement a sustainable corporate strategy, and what the impact is of sustainable development activities is on the competitiveness of such a party. To test this, a literature study was performed to provide insight on the barriers that are present for real estate developers to become more sustainable, how the competitiveness of a Dutch real estate developer can be measured, and which alternatives Dutch real estate developers can implement to become more sustainable. A survey was distributed amongst Dutch real estate developers to determine to what extent certain barriers are withholding them from becoming more sustainable and determine the current position in regards to sustainability. The results show that Dutch real estate developers, amongst some individual barriers from other categories, are mostly being kept from becoming more sustainable due to financial barriers. This is causing Dutch real estate developers to find themselves in a reactive position towards the sustainability laws and regulations set by the government and not proactively operating to become more sustainable. By giving insight towards how sustainability can improve the competitiveness, this problem can be alleviated. Through semi-structured interviews the impact of sustainable development activities on the competitiveness of Dutch real estate developers was measured. The results in general show that sustainability does contribute to the competitiveness of Dutch real estate developers. The order of impact of the sustainable development activities that were found is (1) green product development, (2) green profiling and marketing strategy, (3) green supply chain management, (4) green human resource management, and (5) green facility management. The last phase of this research provides a preliminary design of a corporate decision tool to act as a stepping stone for further research to eventually allow Dutch real estate developers to effectively prioritize between sustainable alternatives.

Dutch cities are both expanding and densifying, corresponding to a global
trend in which people increasingly tend to live in cities. Urban densification
implicates the development of new buildings and redevelopment of part of the
existing building stock, to meet the aims of future cities and their populations.
These alterations to intensively used urban spaces will evoke resistance from
involved stakeholders. As such, this research aims to identify strategies to design buildings without resistance, by studying resistance throughout all phases of a building process and determining the power of architects in coping with these resistances. These strategies enable architects to design and develop buildings of non-resistance. Firstly, the most recurring definition of resistance is that it is an action that is executed against an opposition. The effect of resistance, in the degree of intention, visibility and recognition, varies. This study distinguishes between overt resistance, in which intention and recognition are clearly delineated, and everyday resistance, which cannot be clearly defined, which is often invisible, and not well articulated. The elaboration of resistance in the built environment is shaped by means of a focus group and several expert interviews. Outcomes are that resistance is inseparably linked to the built environment and shapes projects. The interviewee faced both overt resistance and everyday resistance. The strategy that interviewee applied, in response to resistance, can be divided into two categories. Intended strategy, where certain emerging resistances are solved from experience, protocols and premeditation and Emergent strategy, where mostly from an ad-hoc situation is responded to.
Intended strategies for an architect to deal with resistance is mainly focused
on existing, overt resistances. Where everyday resistance is often forgotten.
Where a solution is often sought reactively. This research makes a proposal
to deal with this everyday resistance. Whereby the strategy goes from mostly
emergent to intended. And thus can be anticipated in advance. The proposed
strategy looks for needs and values in the neighborhood. This is done by
making an inventory of specific values of individuals and turning them into
general values. These values are then a starting point to base design decisions
on. It is up to the designer to give his own interpretation. When these values
are adhered to, people may disagree about the elaboration of these values,
but (if all goes well) the result will be in line with the original value of the
environment.The goal with this strategy is to design a building that has as little resistance as possible. Also called a building of ‘non-resistance’. The proposed strategy is explored, further defined and used in a case study of Rotterdam.

The increase in economic, social, and environmental challenges leads to rethinking the long-term spatial vulnerabilities of small island developing states (SIDS). In addition, the lack of resources and low capacity available accentuates the necessity of considering urban resilience. By exploring the possible relationship between adaptive reuse and collaborative strategies to stimulate the redevelopment of urban environments. In many cases, urban renewal is achieved through current market trends and outdated planning policies. Thus, either neglecting or underusing the existing urban fabric and old building stock. The research focuses on complex urban redevelopment, investigating the adequate long-term policy instrument to revitalize historical port cities.

The research utilizes as a case study the historical port-city of Willemstad, Curaçao, located in the Dutch Caribbean. This case study helps to emphasize the importance of preserving the cultural-historical identity using adaptive reuse of existing buildings and monuments. These heritage buildings offer the experience value of cultural heritage, which can prosper to create an identity or new brand image to the surrounding area. Yet, the implementation of adaptive reuse requires extensive criteria of financial, social and environmental aspects. This research outlines a policy instrument to address these challenges, presenting a co-creation process among stakeholders, by investigating the process of shifting from preserving the heritage buildings through legal protection towards conserving through stimulating redevelopment. Thus, stimulating to serve diverse functions contributes towards urban resilience by adapting to future environmental and socio-economic challenges in the long term. Also, using collaborative strategies between stakeholders as a driving vehicle towards redeveloping into a city that respects the past and represents the needs of today's and future generations. Historical port-cities such as Willemstad showcased the need to be redeveloped sustainably by mitigating economic, environmental, and social tradeoffs. To mitigate future tradeoffs it is vital to enhance the identity of the city by aligning stakeholder goals. Policymakers must provide the basis for a comprehensive and action-oriented approach to stimulate market parties to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which could be linked to positive incentives such as subsidies or tax reductions. By linking the findings from the empirical research to specific SDGs, helped to propose a policy instrument that manages urban resilience and stimulates it throughout diverse built environment scales and projects within Willemstad, Curaçao.

A more inclusive perspective on heritage management regarding sustainable development becomes an important aspect in understanding and reflecting on heritage buildings or sites. The cultural significance they convey, such as attributes and values attached to them, are not only represented by physical assets, but are also reflected in people’s meanings, experiences, and perceptions that derive from the interaction between an individual or collective and an (urban) artifact. The interest in the notion of sense of place in assessing cultural significance of heritage buildings grows, and participates in the identification of these inherited values and attributes, and gives direction to the reasons underlying heritage conservation. This paper aims to investigate the role of collective memory as a design tool for sense of place in the adaptive reuse of vacant heritage, using the vacant heritage building of the V&D Leiden as a case study. Furthermore, it introduces a method to explore a new type of repository, the social media platform Instagram, in which people’s individual memories are shared and reflect similarities between them. The theory of Montgomery (1998) is used to connect these collective memories to the components of sense of place, defined by form, activity and meaning, in order to acknowledge and show that collective memory can be of great importance in sustaining and creating a sense of place.

The world is experiencing climate change. Environmental problems are substantial and it's known that economic growth contributes to them. In addition, social inequality in society has grown. As a response, the concept of sustainable development has come up, but to date businesses find this hard to implement in their ways of working. As societal pressure is increasing, a growing trend can be seen by pioneering businesses, social entrepreneurs and impact investors working towards an impact economy. In the built environment, however, the concepts of ‘impact thinking’ or ‘social entrepreneurship’ are still very much unknown. Although some institutional investors have adopted an ESG-approach for their investments and a number of developers have started to brand themselves as sustainable, to date there is barely no evidence suggesting that this actually leads to positive societal impact. Very few parties in the built environment place impact first in their corporate strategy or measure the impacts they make. As the built environment is responsible for many environmental and social problems, this is something that needs to change. This thesis therefore researches in what ways impact thinking can be implemented into (urban) development, from the perspective of the social entrepreneurial developer. The first part of the research was conducted through a literature study, the second part through a combination of qualitative and design research. A total of 16 interviews have been conducted with impact developers, impact investors and urban development experts. Based on findings, a first definition for impact development is given, its barriers an drivers are formulated and six principles for impact development are proposed. Through a collaborative research through design approach, also an example impact development was designed: a social-impact based plan for the gentrifying neighborhood Wielewaal. The research outcomes aim to inspire private parties in urban or real estate development to place impact first in their ways of working. In doing so, this thesis aims to open the dialogue about the responsibility of businesses to society and our cities and help developers and municipalities work towards more long-term sustainable and fair urban developments. For impact thinking to really take a flight in (urban) development, taxing or incentivizing impact by the government is necessary.

The housing affordability crisis is a real pressing issue not only in New York City but in many other highly developed cities from big economies. This crisis can also lead to further social and economic problems in if any actions are not taken to counter it. As such, many decisive actions and measures relies on designers and urban developers alike. As a starting point, the current patterns of dwelling and housing typologies will be carefully studied and considered in order to predict and possibly reconsider the future patterns of living and housing that may lead to better functioning societies. In this manner, this thesis will explore how to effectively work with affordable housing in Midtown Manhattan within the current model of the New York financial housing market, going through the exploration of design guidelines, urban considerations and regulations that could facilitate the provision of affordable housing.

As Dutch Urban Development (UDM) and Partnering research seem to somewhat disconnectedly explore each other’s fields, this thesis attempts to join both domains by gaining insights into factors that promote the emergence of partnering relations between individuals working in Dutch Urban Development Projects (UDPs). Applying a practice-based approach, data from ten semi-structured interviews was translated into case narratives that provide insights into the lived experience of Dutch UDPs which, after the understanding of this thesis, can be considered partnering projects. By analysing the case narratives, it was revealed that the construction and negotiation of partnering was predominantly led by the public managers whereas the choice of means depended on the underlying project circumstances, expected benefits and the individuals understanding of partnering. Analysing the interpersonal learning process, the individual learning processes prior to the project and learnings about the partners behaviour during the first meetings and challenging situations were determined as crucial to the emergence of partnering relations. Moreover, most formal partnering components seemed to have an overall positive but also paradoxical effects depending on the project and the individual. To overcome paradoxes, joint problem solving seemed the most commonly applied and favoured management practice during partnering. Applying sensemaking to collected case data, it is concluded that named factors and their effect differed depending on the individual’s perception. Based on a conceptual model, it is explained that factors promoted the emergence of partnering when they were perceived as in harmony to the individuals understanding of partnering. Ultimately, picking up on the suggestion of Kadefors (2004) to apply trust theory to study partnering, it is suggested that the individuals starting level of trust, the individual’s choice and ability to trust, the human preference for reciprocity as well as the individuals abilities, benevolence and integrity should be considered as factors when researching the emergence of partnering.

Capitalism is under siege. As the famous economist and business strategist Michael Porter note. Business practice is overflown with an increasing number of societal and environmental concerns, trumping economic activity and trapping businesses in a vicious cycle in which taking responsibility is repaid with taking even more responsibility. On the other hand, these societal concerns cannot be ignored and need to be addressed. As shelter, water, food, and welfare must be provided to a growing population in a durable and future proof manner.
Urban development practice is burdened with this same complex problem. Businesses are confronted by an increasing number of public sustainability regulations and with neo-liberal influences shifting more responsibilities towards the market. Scholars raised their concerns if the public social value can be safeguarded by the market. However, business practice proofed to be capable of taking their social responsibility and even found a way to contribute to both society and their business performance, linking their social behavior towards their corporate reputation. This phenomenon is called CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) benchmarking, in which social reporting and labeling are used to enhance their client base. The danger, however, is that these activities are often better displayed in these reports than performed. Besides, these reports primarily enhance the environmental concerns and leave the ‘softer’ aspects of sustainability ill addressed. These limits of the CSR-benchmarking concept are mainly caused by the intrinsic perception of businesses towards these social activities. Social activities are seen as a costly practice and with the ‘enterprise culture’ still present many businesses today. These activities are not likely to be performed. This problem became the starting point of this research. Can this intrinsic perception of businesses towards social activities be changed?
The Shared Value Creation (SVC) concept fitted this question with its aim to turn corporate social activities from a costly practice into a value-creating activity. By exploring the concept of SVC this study aims to change this business perception towards social activities and eventually contribute to creating sustainable urban areas.