Analysis of building environment assessment frameworks and their implications for sustainability indicators

Abstract

Green construction is gaining increasing attention in the global context. However, the construction of sustainable green buildings and environments involves different tools and systems and diverse perspectives. Therefore, the development of environmental assessment tools is an important task for managing green housing and green building projects. In this paper, we discuss the benefits, limitations, and future directions of the assessment framework. There are four characteristics of building environmental assessment, i.e., comprehensiveness, design guideline, signaling, and communication tools, which afford both benefits and limitations. We illustrate the role of the assessment framework as a hub promoting integration of diverse knowledge, as a design guideline encouraging better design and action, as signaling environmentally friendly design and action, and as a communication tool. On the other hand, there are limitations, such as the use of a mixture of quantitative and qualitative measures, ambiguity of weighing, lack of financial evaluation, and lack of involvement of diverse disciplines and stakeholders. To develop an effective assessment framework, the following three factors must be considered: knowledge, power, and implementation. We propose that knowledge innovation, a credible approach for a salient solution, and collective action represent the future challenges of the assessment framework.

Comparing the fit between BREEAM assessment and design processes

“…Cole (2005) Descriptions of building assessment methods in general and BREEAM in particular have been presented elsewhere (Cole, 1998;Cooper, 1999;Crawley & Aho, 1999;Kajikawa, Inoue, & Goh, 2011;Schweber, 2013) as have comparisons between tools (Forsberg & Von Malmborg, 2004;Haapio & Viitaniemi, 2008;Reed, Wilkinson, Bilos, & Schulte, 2011;Todd, Crawley, Geissler, & Lindsey, 2001;Ü rgeVorsatz, Koeppel, & Mirasgedis, 2007) and will not be repeated here. Instead, the discussion focuses explicitly on the relatively small number of studies that examine the project-level implementation of EAMs.…”

“…Writing in 1998, before clients had begun to ask for BREEAM in significant numbers, Cole (1998) noted that 'existing assessment methods are used as design tools, even though they were not specifically designed to do so' (see also Crawley & Aho, 1999;Kajikawa et al, 2011). Similarly, the BRE website openly refers to BREEAM as 'The world's leading design and assessment method for sustainable buildings' (BRE, n.d. (Holmes & Hudson, 2002;Schweber, 2013).…”

Transnational Comparison of Sustainability Assessment Programs for Viticulture and a Case-Study on Programs’ Engagement Processes

“…Criterion-based assessments are assessment methods focused on compliance with legislation or sets of rules from the sustainability assessment program employed [25]. The strength of the method seems to also be its weakness: the method clearly excludes non-compliant (with rules) participants and establishes a clear message of group exclusivity.…”

Requerimientos de usuarios de la edificación traducidos en una metodología de apoyo a la decisión

“…Este modelo nos permite transformar nuestros indicadores en funciones de optimización (minimizar [1], delimitar [2] o maximizar [3]), que transforman a través de una función de aceptabilidad nuestro indicador en un valor numérico adimensional.…”

“…Las siguientes ecuaciones serán utilizadas para normalizar los criterios en función del objetivo deseado, por ejemplo al buscar minimizar el consumo energético [1], delimitar la temperatura interior [2] o maximizar la satisfacción olfativa [3]. …”