Improving the sustainable retirement village framework: From theory to practice

Highlights

• The theoretical sustainable retirement village framework is less practical.

• The study improves the framework by incorporating industry practices into it.

• 109 sustainable practices were identified by using inductive content analysis.

• 15 new sustainability features were added to the framework.

• The improved framework offers practical implications for village stakeholders.

Abstract

The retirement village industry is currently facing a sustainability challenge. In response to this, developing sustainable retirement villages is becoming popular in practice, and a sustainable retirement village framework had been developed to facilitate the trend. However, this framework is more theoretical than practical, as its development lacks the input of industry practices. In response, this study aims to improve the theoretical framework by incorporating industry practices into it. Inductive content analysis is adopted to identify the sustainable practices of village development and operation in eight retirement villages in Queensland, Australia, from which the sustainability features and sustainability dimensions of retirement villages are identified. The theoretical framework is improved by adding the identified sustainable practices, sustainability features, sustainability dimensions, and their interactions. In total, 109 sustainable practices are identified, which leads to the determination of 26 sustainability features and 3 sustainability dimensions. Of these sustainability features, 15 are newly added to the theoretical framework. All the sustainable practices are linked to the sustainability features of each sustainability dimension to illustrate the industry’s best practices. The improved framework is an advancement on the existing theoretical framework and deepens the stakeholders’ understanding of sustainable retirement villages based on the lessons learnt from industry practices. It additionally offers practical implications for the future delivery of sustainable retirement villages, and the sustainability of village projects can be assessed and benchmarked against the framework.

Introduction

Retirement villages provide a viable living option for older Australians. They comprise a residential environment that is specifically designed to provide older people with accommodation, services, and facilities to meet their requirements (Hu et al., 2017a). Although living in retirement villages can benefit residents in many ways (e.g., enhanced independence and safety), their dissatisfaction with such problems as unaffordability and social isolation has also been reported (Gardner et al., 2005). Developing retirement villages with sustainability features is a promising approach to improve the situation (Zuo et al., 2014). A sustainable retirement village, which has its roots in the theories of Sustainable Development and Environmental Gerontology, can well accommodate the residents’ social, economic, and environmental needs in their later life (Xia et al., 2015). Consequently, there is increased interest in developing and operating sustainable retirement villages in Australia. This trend has been further driven by the cooperation between village developers and Green Building Council of Australia to develop a Green Star rating tool for the retirement living sector (Green Building Council of Australia, 2015).

In spite of the increased popularity of developing and operating sustainable retirement villages, the concept of “sustainable retirement villages” is still new and has yet to be comprehensively explored and comprehended. A theoretical framework for sustainable retirement villages has been proposed to contribute to a better understanding of the nature of sustainable retirement villages (Hu et al., 2015). This theoretical framework defines three interrelated sustainability dimensions of a sustainable retirement village living environment, namely an age-friendly social environment, financial sustainability, and environmental sustainability. It represents an advancement in the Environmental Gerontology literature by incorporating the sustainability philosophy into the development and operation of the institutional environment of retirement villages.

Nevertheless, the development of this existing framework mainly focuses the two theories of Triple Bottom Line of Sustainability and Environmental Gerontology, which makes it still less practical. Thus, the main drawback of this framework is that it lacks input from empirical data. This prevents village stakeholders from clearly grasping the crucial issue of how to achieve sustainability in practice. Although a few case studies of sustainable retirement villages reveal various industry practices and have helped village stakeholders in understanding this framework (Hu et al., 2018), they focus mainly on the identification of the best practices of village development and operation and do not link these to the theoretical framework in a systematic way. Consequently, there is a need to integrate more practical experiences into the theoretical framework for village stakeholders.

Therefore, this study aims to improve this theoretical framework by incorporating industry practices into it. The aim is achieved by using the inductive content analysis method based on identified sustainable practices in eight representative retirement villages in Queensland, Australia. The research findings of the study advance the theoretical framework to reflect industry practices better, which contributes to the stakeholders’ deeper understanding of sustainable retirement villages. In addition, the study’s findings offer practical implications for the future development and operation of sustainable retirement villages to facilitate the healthy ageing of their residents.