Aims: This review was developed to introduce the essential components and variants of structural equation modeling (SEM), synthesize the common issues in SEM applications, and share our views on SEM's future in ecological research. Methods: We searched the Web of Science on SEM applications in ecological studies from 1999 through 2016 and summarized the potential of SEMs, with a special focus on unexplored uses in ecology. We also analyzed and discussed the common issues with SEM applications in previous publications and presented our view for its future applications.Results: We searched and found 146 relevant publications on SEM applications in ecological studies. We found that five SEM variants had not commenly been applied in ecology, including the latent growth curve model, Bayesian SEM, partial least square SEM, hierarchical SEM, and variable/model selection. We identified ten common issues in SEM applications including strength of causal assumption, specification of feedback loops, selection of models and variables, identification of models, methods of estimation, explanation of latent variables, selection of fit indices, report of results, estimation of sample size, and the fit of model. Conclusions:In previous ecological studies, measurements of latent variables, explanations of model parameters, and reports of key statistics were commonly overlooked, while several advanced uses of SEM had been ignored overall. With the increasing availability of data, the use of SEM holds immense potential for ecologists in the future.

Integrating culture into sustainable development (SD) has been an ongoing research topic, but has not yet been of interest to the green building community. Existing green building programs, including standards, certification and auditing schemes, focus on technical assessment. By assuming that a building is a cultural resource, which reflects the past and shapes the future of a society, we added cultural sustainability for green buildings by recognizing the three roles of cultural SD proposed by COST Action Cultural Sustainability: (1) ‘culture in SD’ – a fourth dimension to be safeguarded; (2) ‘culture for SD’– a mediating and balancing factor for other dimensions; and (3) ‘culture as SD’ – an essential foundation to achieve SD. We proposed cultural sustainability criteria and indicators as a framework to be adopted by green building communities through an in‐depth review of the relevant indicator systems, ecosystem services, sustainable regional/urban planning and existing green building programs. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

SummaryCurrent aggregate and top-down approaches in life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) generally fail to account for spatial, temporal, and emergent behavioral dynamics simultaneously during the inventory stage. We discuss the key characteristics captured by complex system approaches (agent-based modeling [ABM] in particular) in the context of LCSA. It is understood that by integrating ABM, temporal, spatial, and behavioral dynamics can be addressed during the life cycle inventory stage. We propose a general concept to integrate ABM into current building life cycle assessment standards. We then use a hypothetical example of green building development to compare the ABM approach with a predefined static policy model. Simulation results from the agent-based model confirm that there are temporal and spatial variations caused by behavioral dynamics. The results are integrated into the calculation of temporally dynamic LCSA indicators on an annual basis. Spatially distributed simulation results can also be used in spatially dynamic LCSA. Keywords:agent-based modeling complexity life cycle sustainability assessment life cycle inventory (LCI) green buildings industrial ecology Supporting information is linked to this article on the JIE website

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