Determining the Most Consensus-Based Assessment Method for Social Sustainability—Case Study of a Suburb of Karlstad, Sweden

An assessment method for sustainability was developed by the authors in a previous article. Many social sustainability assessment methods rely on assessors’ subjective judgments, which can be problematic. This study aims to examine the level of consensus different assessors can achieve using various assessment methods and to compare their results with an assessment made by one of the authors, to reduce subjectivity. A selective sample of engineering students from Karlstad University were surveyed to test and compare three as-assessment methods against the initial assessment. The three methods are: Woxnerud’s (the authors’) method, Jan Gehl’s twelve quality criteria, and a structured survey. Seven student groups conducted the first assessment, followed by 12 individual students who performed the second and third assessments. The objectives were to determine whether multiple assessors could reach a consensus using each method, identify which method yielded the most consensus and was most effectively implemented, and measure each method’s consonance rate in relation to Woxnerud’s initial assessment. The first method achieved a 75.0% assessor consensus and 98.4% consonance. The second method achieved a 67.0% assessor consensus and 75.0% consonance. The third method achieved a 50% assessor consensus and 91.0% consonance. This limited study suggests that a subjective method, such as an assessment method for social sustainability, can yield somewhat similar results, and in addition, Woxnerud’s method is more objectively applicable than the two other methods tested in this article.

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