Sustainability in Building Construction—International Standards in Progress

Energy and atmosphere standards for sustainable design and construction in different countries

“…Uniformity can be achieved if measurement methods are specified in internationally accepted universal standards. However, according to Trinius and Sjoström [9], one of the important problems of universal standards is the contradiction between stating too much detail that limits local applications in different countries, and setting little detail that forces users to look for additional guidelines. Adopting established standards that are developed for a specific country (e.g., for the U.S., or for the U.K.) will require extensive adaptation relative to climate, income level, building materials and techniques, building stocks, etc.…”

“…Standards play an important role in directing this effort. It should be noted however that standards do not function as solutions to problems, but as guidelines for practitioners to produce solutions to problems [9]. For successful application, standards need to be clear about goals, but comprehensive about scope, flexible for dealing with uncertainty, and supportive of continuous improvement [10].…”