People’s Participation in Local Sustainable Development: Comparative Insights from India and Global Case Studies

Abstract

This study examines the opportunities arising from people’s participation in local sustainable development, comparing Indian urban neighborhoods and global examples. It question how the behaviors of participants bear on the success of Sustainable Development Indicators (SDIs) criteria in two Indian green rating systems, namely the, IGBC-Green Rating System (IGBC-GRS) and GRIHA-LD, using mixed-method analysis. This study employed primary data from virtual survey through website analysis and secondary data from 8 IGBC certified residential societies in the study area, studying participatory engagement within waste management, water use, energy use conservation, transportation and social sustainability. The results showed that people have a higher degree of public engagement within the dimensions that were mostly visible and executable (waste segregation and water conservation), as opposed to the dimension that required a degree of technical or institutional amendments (energy systems and transport planning). The research provides an international comparison, which found that engagement impacted outcomes in all cases, and that ownership and feedback of behaviors improved sustainability outcomes. The study proposes a Participatory Assessment Framework for Urban Neighborhoods in India (PA-SAFUNI), a scalable assessment tool to evaluate and potentially improve participatory integration into urban sustainability frameworks. The study concludes that participatory community-led activities are pivotal to sustainable urban development frameworks and are thus paramount to create sustainable, effective and inclusive frameworks that influence sustainable urban development.