Setting the Standard for Green Infrastructure: The Need for, and Features of, a Benchmark in England

ABSTRACTGreen infrastructure is an essential component of health and sustainable places. The quality of green infrastructure often represents a missed opportunity to achieve this. This paper presents a review examining how built environment assessment systems evaluate the quality of green infrastructure. This was used to develop proposals for a new benchmark, which were examined by experts in terms of the demand, scope and operation. The findings suggest that current systems are not providing a robust assessment of green infrastructure and that a benchmark for green infrastructure would overcome some of the challenges associated with its planning, design and delivery.