‘How to’ guides

PG01 Harnessing Values-and-Frames

Sustainability benefits everyone, but not everyone values sustainability equally, or at all.  Decisions about project sustainability that are linked to an individuals’ human values are typically more individually meaningful and therefore valued more highly. 

In this first Practical Guide, the foundational research concerning the first two core components of enhancing the individual meaningfulness of sustainability to decision-makers: first, the human values of project stakeholders and end-users, and second, characterising – or framing – a decision-problem and the associated choice-options to be more directly compatible with individual decision-maker’s values in context. 

This guide provides the background, tools, and applications to help communicate and make better, more meaningful choices about sustainability—choices that are individually, socially, and ecologically beneficial, thus setting the stage to protect and enhance project sustainability, value, and thereby stakeholder satisfaction.

Download this guide by clicking the link below. 

PG02 How to Create Value-via-Values

This second Practical Guide focuses on the practical applications of foundational research concerning the main, core component of enhancing the individual meaningfulness of sustainability to decision-makers: values. You’ll learn how to identify and work with: first, the human values of project stakeholders and end-users, and second, any ideas about a project’s value.  This guide explains the close interrelationship of values and value, and how to tap into people’s human values to improve project value within and beyond the traditional financial understanding.  Knowing stakeholders’ values thus sets the stage to begin considering sustainability in values terms.

Download this guide by clicking the link below. 

PG03 How to Values-Frame: Seven core actions

Building on the value-via-values actions from above, this Practical Guide translates key, underpinning research into core actions that explain how to create and communicate better, more individually meaningful goals, reasons, and options for pursuing sustainability via Values-Framing towards values-based decision-making — the most meaningful way to make the most satisfying project decisions, as explained in the next Guide.

Download this guide by clicking the link below. 

PG04 How to Make more Meaningful Choices

In this Guide, you will learn how to work with stakeholders’ values and their interrelated Values-Frames (see above) to make values-based decisions.  This involves using the key techniques found to be most effective for translating values via Values-Frames into choices that are most individually meaningful because their meaning is directly linked to stakeholders’ human values — the deepest, most stable and accessible drivers of human motivation, behaviour, and thereby values-based decision-making.

Download this guide by clicking the link below. 

PG05 How to Manage Sustainability through Decision Processes

Because AEC projects develop over the procurement lifespan and are typically subject to variation, this last of four key Practical Guides helps you to learn established approaches for managing sustainability over time. The guide explains how to spot any shifts, challenges, and changes to the stakeholders’ values that motivate their decision-making — using an established technique called reflection-in-action.

This guide then explains how to manage those variations in ways that respond to and respect shifts in values’ quality and/or priority — a critical aspect of protecting sustainability credentials from eroding as projects progress — using further established techniques.  Importantly, the most effective approaches to managing sustainability involve heeding and harnessing Values-and-Frames throughout project decision processes. 

Download this guide by clicking the link below.