ABSTRACT
This chapter raises questions about how temporalities play into the achievements of sustainability objectives by focusing on the work of evaluating urban development projects. A couple of years into several major construction projects in Bordeaux, France, a group of officials identified a need to follow up and capitalize on the lessons learned from these pioneering projects in terms of their sustainability objectives. Based on participation in two evaluation workshops and discussions with officials over the course of more than a year, I show how the entangled processes of ‘evaluation’ and ‘valuation’ mean that any claims to ‘achieved’ sustainability objectives rest on contingent ground. Considering the management of vegetation specifically, the experiences from Bordeaux suggest that what at one point may be considered an achievement, runs the risk of being reversed further along during the course of a development project. Based on the experiences shared by the officials who struggle to ensure that the actions taken in favor of biodiversity stabilize over time, I discuss how ‘achieving sustainability’ can only be considered in temporal terms.
