Mitigating the Impact of Factories on the Landscape: An Assessment and Design Support Tool

Industrial sites significantly affect the quality of the landscape that host them, interfering with the sustainable development of territories. Factories impact both the tangible dimension of the landscape – the environment – and its more “intangible” characteristics, like visual order, attractiveness and territorial identity. Hence, consistent with the complexity of the notion, the paper refers to “landscape” as a broad and multifaceted concept made of natural, perceptual-aesthetic and cultural/social joint dimensions [8, 11].

First, factories affect the natural sphere of the landscape. Manufacturing processes, facility construction, operations and generated traffic flows are greatly responsible for harmful emissions and natural resource depletion that upset the ecosystem’s balance, both on global and local scales [12, 13]. According to the European Environmental Agency, industry generates air emissions like greenhouse gases (CO₂) and acidifying pollutants (SO_x), but also chemicals hazardous for human health like NO_x, PM₁₀ and heavy metals; water pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorous; soil contaminants; and waste production [14]: e.g. in 2015 energy use in industry and industrial processes was responsible for 19.6% of EU dioxin and furans; and for 42.84% of EU polychlorinated biphenyl emissions.

However, beyond the well-known physical detrimental effects [1, 3, 7, 15, 16], other kinds of disturbances are worth being considered. That is, the more qualitative and subjective impacts produced on communities by the spatial and social proximity of factories.

In the past century ineffective planning rules and short-term company perspectives contributed to shape the landscape of today, which is often characterized by conflicting relations between factories and the scenery. Perceptual-aesthetic impacts of industrial constructions particularly occur at the site level and mostly refer to: visual disorder; morphological and color disharmony; lack of spatial associations with the context; anonymous and ineffective design [10, 17-21]. The issue is clearly visible in several Mediterranean regions where production facilities are often banal and repetitive constructions, scattered in a disorderly fashion throughout the territory, roughly contrasting with the high-quality rural surroundings [20-23].

As a result, some psychophysical disturbances can be engendered on neighbors. To this regard, despite the paucity of literature on the topic applied to factories, it is plausible referring to similar studies on the visual impact of man-made objects in the landscape: in general terms, the kind of disturbance perceived by those living nearby is often associated with a disruption in the sense of place [24, 25]. Interestingly, the correlation between the proximity and degree of acceptance of a construction does not always exist: literature provides some evidences of “inverse NIMBY syndrome” when the human intervention has some positive environmental implications [26]. This means that badly designed and environmentally hazardous factories not only bother neighbors, but the companies themselves: beyond obvious costs and externalities, shoddy environmental practices affect social perception and company image [3]. In turn, company attractiveness influences territorial competitiveness, which emerges as a central theme for planners and decision makers [5].

Hence, when it comes to sustainable development, factories’ compatibility with the landscape merits great attention.

2.1 Perception of the issue in literature and in practice

In the last 40 years, the interest of researchers, policy-makers and practitioners in sustainable factories has increased, especially due to the harshening of global environmental problems [13, 27].

Literature and regulations have pushed the manufacturing sector towards more sustainable behaviors. Both research and public policies stressed eco-efficiency as a strategy to save up to 80% of manufacturing energy demand and reduce primary material use at building and process levels [1, 15, 28, 29]. Accordingly, penalties for lack of compliance, tax benefits and economic incentives have been implemented [13]. Gradually, tools for the assessment of companies’ environmental performance have spread, focusing both on processes (e.g. Dow Jones Sustainability Index, GRI Reporting Framework, IChemE Sustainability Metrics) and buildings themselves (BREEAM, CASBEE, LEED).

Besides, research on visual and social impacts of human interventions on the landscape have been undertaken, but mostly referring to Renewable Energy Source (RES) projects and rural buildings [10, 18, 30-33]. Though still limited, perceptual-aesthetic aspects related to industrial assets have taken on importance, and some early guidelines dealing with morphological and color harmonization have been developed [18, 34, 35].

In parallel, companies’ environmental awareness has also increased [36]. This has been driven on the one hand by economic factors, like increasing energy costs [27, 28], and on the other by stakeholders’ and consumers’ awareness of ethical and environmental issues. Sustainability has therefore become a long-term key for competitiveness [9, 13, 37]. Consequently, promoting good environmental performance has become equally important for business as the attitude itself: Corporate Social Responsibility has spread [9] and design quality – historically limited to company headquarters –has gradually also been applied to manufacturing sites [38, 39]. Examples of corporate identity projects (mostly automotive and textile industries) have been featured in architectural magazines [37], showing the increasing relevance of green marketing policies. However, an exaggerated attention to visual quality can transform into mere “beautification” [32], “greenwashing” or “Disneyfication” of the work space [9] if not effectively followed by the adoption of environmentally friendly practices.

Despite positive emerging trends, more efforts should be made to mitigate the impact of factories on the landscape, adopting a holistic approach that combines all the dimensions involved.

The first activity carried out is based on a review of scientific literature, regulations and trade publications in order to pinpoint recurrent impacts of industrial facilities on the landscape.

Table 1 shows an extract of the impacts found grouped by scale of occurrence (site, building, process) and associated with topical areas. Six out of seven assessment areas refer to U.S. GBC LEED – one of the leading systems for rating building sustainability – while the category perceptual-aesthetic aspect (PA) is based on specific literature [11, 43].

Additional data per impact have been collected in separate sheets: detailed description of possible causes and effects of the considered phenomena; examples of real-life cases; thresholds and parameters set by specific policies and regulations; indicators to measure the effects.

This in-depth analysis found that the environmental impacts and their indicators are quantifiable, shareable and internationally accepted. However, the perceptual-aesthetic indicators are more difficult to determine due to the qualitative nature of human perception, which makes it difficult to be measured by a quick, objective and shared methodology [30]. In fact, it often requires field surveys and involves both the critical judgment of experts and communities’ preferences [11, 44-46]. Currently only few methods and metrics are made available for “quantifying” subjective interferences of construction on the landscape, even in procedures that requires it like the Environmental Impact Assessment [30, 47]. Furthermore, the different nature of impacts and their indicators lead to one of the oldest controversies of indicator theory: “should we aggregate apples and oranges?” [48]. Therefore, the study needs to find a proper tool to manage this complexity.

Table 1. Extract from the list of impacts

For this purpose, an investigation of the existing building performance assessment tools was carried out. The study shows that several frameworks, tools, building codes and voluntary standards have been developed to foster green design both in building new factories and retrofitting old facilities [3, 49, 50]. Among these, Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) and especially Green Building Rating Systems (GBRSs) can be useful to design, construct and operate green buildings, since different sustainability categories are taken into account with a comprehensive approach [12, 51]. GBRSs provide a structured multi-criteria methodology through which different needs and mutual relations can be mapped and weighed for the whole project. In other words, they can help to prioritize intervention strategies in complex systems. Thus, the idea is to resort to GBRSs as frameworks within which impacts of different nature and their synergies can be managed.

However, a review carried out by the authors of available GBRSs points out that only few of them fit the comprehensive assessment of industrial assets. The most common systems in the world [51] were scanned looking for appropriate schemes. Table 2 shows the ones that have been selected because specifically designed to assess impacts of factories (S) or those that are multipurpose and adaptable which have already been used to certify industrial facilities (A). In addition, for each selected scheme the share of credits referable to perceptual-aesthetic interferences (PA) has been estimated: the rate is based on the recurrence of the keywords “amenity,” “open space,” and “external view” in the credit list of each GBRS.

The result of the analysis supports the literature’s findings, that these protocols are mainly oriented towards new constructions and focused on environmental aspects. They consider the ecological dimension of the landscape, but tend to omit the cultural, visual and socio-economic implications [52].

Table 2. GBRSs relevant to industry

The checklist of each GBRS presented in Table 2 was then matched to the list of impacts (Table 1) in order to find the most suitable protocol for the study. LEED v4 for BD+C: Warehouses and Distribution Centers was chosen due to the highest number of credits corresponding to the impacts and one of the higher ratio of PA credits. It was also preferred for its global spread and ease of use [53]. Additionally, LEED schemes are designed to be easily modified and updated, so even new assessment areas can be created [54].

Therefore, since some impacts weren’t linked to an existing LEED credit, a new evaluation area addressing the perceptual-aesthetic interferences was developed. Given the paucity of factory-targeted tools for analyzing PA aspects, an assumption of similarity was made and the many studies referred to RES projects and rural buildings (§2.1) were compared in order to extract a comprehensive set of credits. The eight new credits are:

• PA0. Site assessment
• PA1. Morphological Harmonization
• PA2. Color and Material Harmonization
• PA3. Noise Pollution
• PA4. Site Accessibility and Receptiveness
• PA5. Work Space and Leisure Area Design
• PA6. Consideration of Symbolic Character
• PA7. Corporate Image

Then, each new credit was associated with at least one indicator suitable to measure it. This can be quantitative, qualitative or semi-quantitative, depending on the nature of the specific impact. As some authors suggest that the subjective perception of aesthetic characteristics largely depends on cultural codes [55, 56], less strict limit between quantitative and non-quantitative gauges were surmised. Last, each new credit was described in an ad hoc card, similar to those of LEED.

The system dedicated to new construction consists of 62 credits: Integrated Process (1 credit); Location and Transportation (8); Sustainable site (7); Water efficiency (7); Energy and Atmosphere (11); Materials and resources (7); Indoor environmental quality (10); Innovation (2); Regional Priorities (2); Perceptual-aesthetic aspects (8). The version of the System dedicated to redevelopment projects counts 42 credits. In both, some credits are mandatory strategies, “Prerequisites,” which are expected to be fulfilled by any project undertaking the assessment.

The third study activity is briefly presented in order to give a practical example of the application of the research.

The System of credits developed and catalog of best practices are combined into a protocol that serves both as an assessment and a design support tool. The tool is based on an iterative process of application and progressive refinement of the results: before, the company – or practitioners on its behalf – applies the System in order to detect the major interferences of the industrial facility on the landscape. Then, on this basis, the firm consults the catalog in order to select proper tactics or even specific practices useful for the mitigation of impacts (Figure 5).

5.jpg

Figure 5. Scenario 3 for the Orogel case study. The colored circles contain the code of the tactics applied

A newly built industrial plants of Orogel, one of Italy’s leading companies in the sector of frozen vegetables, was selected to test the tool. The protocol was thus applied three times to the new facility, located in Cesena (I). Consequently, three scenarios of mitigation for the project were developed, characterized by an increasing level of compatibility with the landscape: the first scenario achieved 42/127 points in the assessment by the System and consist of a mere cosmetic intervention on the building’s façade. The second earned 57/127 and the main design element is a set of visual screens which also accomplish environmental functions (e.g. shading, ventilation cavity, solar energy production). The third scored 79/127 and proposed a volumetric extension of the project, helping to visually mitigate it and achieve further environmental performance (e.g. thermal mass and green roof for micro-climate regulation) and host new social activities even for the neighbors (e.g. spaces for cultural events and a public park).