Benchmarking critical criteria for assessing sustainability of residential buildings in tropical climate

Abstract

The efforts made in the building industry for accomplishing sustainability are well recognized as Green Building Rating Systems involving multiple sustainability criteria with predetermined benchmarks and scores. Even though numerous Green Building Rating Systems have been developed, most systems are criticized for non-scientific benchmarks and not addressing the regional requirements effectively. Therefore, the current research attempts to determine the maximum and minimum benchmarks corresponding to critical sustainability criteria focusing on residential buildings in the tropical climatic region of India. An extensive review of published literature and existing Green Building Rating Systems establishes the sustainability indicators and the corresponding scoring system. Subsequently, the consensus of experts from the building industry is sought through a questionnaire survey to establish the maximum and minimum benchmarks using the Delphi technique involving multiple rounds. The established minimum and maximum benchmarks represent the best and worst performance possible corresponding to each critical sustainability criteria specific to residential buildings in the tropical climatic region of India. The minimum and maximum benchmarks derived are different from the existing Green Building Rating Systems and indicate the importance of establishing region-specific benchmarks in sustainability assessment. The outcome of current research is beneficial while enhancing and developing a building sustainability assessment system for residential buildings. The current research is the first of its kind, which establishes benchmark values for sustainability assessment of residential buildings in the tropical climatic region of India that could be replicated in other regions as well.