The Lloyd Ecodistrict in Portland, OR was formed in 2009 with a goal of becoming one of North America’s most sustainable living-and-working districts. In the seven years since its formation, the ecodistrict is well on its way to becoming a case study in effective district-scale regeneration, thanks in large part to the emphasis project leaders have put on strategic partnerships and stakeholder engagement.

Formerly a brownfield site, the Stockholm Royal Seaport is designed to be a world-class waterfront urban district with a strong focus on sustainability. When completed in 2030, it will provide 10,000 apartments and 30,000 workspaces. The Stockholm Royal Seaport aims to be a diverse neighborhood combining offices and climate-adapted housing with a green inner-city character.

The Hammarby Sjöstad area was originally intended to be an olympic village for Stockholm’s application to the 2004 summer Olympics. Instead, Hammarby Sjöstad is now the result of a long process of converting a brownfield area into a sustainable waterfront residential neighborhood.

In 1998, the Augustenborg district in Malmö, Sweden, initiated a renovation process through an urban renewal program at the community and household scales. They focused at the household level to improve energy efficiency, create green roofs, and improve access to recycling facilities.

District wastewater management systems provide collection, treatment and dispersal or reuse of wastewater from individual buildings or clusters of buildings near the location where the waste is generated. Studies indicate that more distributed methods of wastewater collection, which rely mostly on gravity-fed pipes, will have fewer negative environmental impacts than systems that expend large amounts of energy for conveyance.

District energy systems provide an energy-efficient and cost-effective option for heating and cooling many buildings in a given locale, from a central plant. They use a network of underground pipes to pump steam, hot water, and/or chilled water to multiple buildings in an area such as a downtown district, college or hospital campus, airport or military base.

The two main forms of energy retrofits – conventional and deep energy retrofits – can be applied to commercial buildings, including offices, public buildings, schools and other institutions. Deep energy retrofits achieve much greater energy efficiency by taking a whole-building approach to address many systems at once.

A number of emerging community engagement programs use technology to empower local organizations with data, tools and fundraising resources to connect with communities, attract funders and inspire behavior change. Online forums, web services and social media are used to connect groups working on environmental and community enhancement projects to interested volunteers and donors.

In the U.S., residential energy retrofit programs support single-family homeowners through the process of retrofitting their homes to increase energy efficiency and/or to lower energy costs, and were initially developed in response to increased interest at all levels of government to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of buildings.