Assessing the life cycle performance of green building projects: a building performance score (BPS) model approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT Construction industry is one of the major sectors contributing to the economic development of any country. Also, it acts as a major source of pollution towards the environment, and the impact of this is very severe. To overcome this, the concept of sustainability in the construction sector has emerged. In this regard, vital importance is given to the concept of sustainability along with various rating tools to measure green building performance. In the Indian context, existing assessment tools provide major importance to environmental impact rather than economic and social impacts. To address this issue, a Building Performance Score (BPS) model is developed based on the triple bottom priorities of sustainability which consists of environmental, economical, and social concepts. This model includes various indicators that play a major role in the sustainability assessment at various stages in life cycle of building. Different weights were ascertained for these indicators by experts and were further evaluated by Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to understand the importance of these indicators. Furthermore, the importance of BPS model is validated considering three certified green buildings. Additional indicators that form the major source of sustainability that are neglected in the existing assessment tools are also considered in the case studies. The BPS model developed is utilized in different case scenarios to evaluate the performance of buildings and the suggested BPS model is validated through the present study.