Integrating the Sustainable Development Goals in Building Projects

Sherif Goubran ,Carmela Cucuzzella

doi:10.20900/jsr20190010

Abstract

Building designers are struggling to deeply integrate the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in projects. The review of the literature revealed that the available research is focused on linking the current practices, including sustainable building practices, with the SDGs. This has, in turn, limited the development of novel approaches as well as new building design methodologies that specifically aim at attaining the agenda’s targets. To help building design teams achieve the meaningful integration of the agenda’s five Ps, this paper proposes two analytical mapping tools which can be used during the integrated design process to track the integration of SDGs in the building projects, and to analyze the building design approaches and visions in reference to the topics of the goals. The research uses a case study for an energy-positive building in Quebec to test the proposed tools. The analysis focuses on the integration of 8 of 17 SDGs, discusses the specific building features which were used to achieve this integration, and analyzes the team’s design visions regarding the goals. The results reveal that in the case studied, the integration of the 8 SDGs moves beyond the current standards by mostly applying design approaches which are future-driven and focused on products and technologies. This research provides important practical tools that can inform building practices in the private and the public sector and contributes to the theory and practice of sustainable building design. It also supports the current effort towards the implementation and localization of the SDGs.

Highlights

With more than 100 definitions for sustainability and 600 assessment methods available in the literature, design teams are facing uncertainties regarding the criteria and definition to adopt in sustainable building projects [1,2]
The results of the assessment were analyzed on two main levels: (1) compiled overall integration level assessment; where the average integration level across the 3 axes was calculated for each Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); (2) The axis-based integration level assessment, where the integration level for each axis was calculated for each SDG
The integrated design process, which has become common in sustainable building projects, was perceived as the most appropriate setting for addressing these gaps

Summary

Introduction

With more than 100 definitions for sustainability and 600 assessment methods available in the literature, design teams are facing uncertainties regarding the criteria and definition to adopt in sustainable building projects [1,2]. Journal of Sustainability Research the built environment have consistently concluded that existing standards and tools are largely focused on the environmental dimension of sustainability [3,4,5,6] They highlighted that the available standards are commonly lacking indicators regarding the contextual, social, cultural and economic aspects of buildings [1,2,7,8]. The 2030 Agenda offers a stable and global definition for sustainability over the 10 years which is accompanied by global, notation and local commitments [11,15,18,19] This stability could benefit the construction sector, especially building designers, in overcoming some of the current limitations and assist in the sector’s transition beyond its current ecological and energy performance focus [11,20,21]

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