Summary and outlook
Sustainable development is one the main challenges for humankind, which is very evident in urban areas. Urban factories as part of cities can contribute to the goals of sustainable development set by the United Nations. To identify the potential contribution of urban factories to the sustainable development and growth of cities, their characteristics and potential influence were matched to all targets of each sustainable development goal. The findings indicate that the potential contribution of urban factories varies across the specific goals. Naturally, a high contribution potential can be identified for the goals addressing the economic dimension. Urban factories are a key player in cities for reaching productive employment, decent work, and economic growth, build resilient infrastructure and foster innovation. High contribution potential also exits for promoting responsible consumption and production patterns. This could be used to positively influence urban development. The assessment methodology based on examining each target proved to be functional for the identification of the potential contribution of urban factories. Challenges and limitations were encountered in transferring the SDG to the system boundaries of urban space. Some of the targets address global relationships that are out of scope for urban factories. Others are focused on matters that are out of the functional scope of industrial value creation, such as providing healthcare. In these cases no or very low contribution potential was found by single urban factories, as for example for achieving zero hunger or establishing peace. There are high uncertainties on how actual implementations of urban factories will influence urban systems. Eventually the identification of areas with high contribution potential enables the next steps of evaluating these areas regarding (i) the comparative evaluation with consideration of alternative utilizations of urban space and (ii) the investigation on negative impacts connected to other goals of sustainable development and how these interact, counteract or neutralize the overall potential.
