OPEN HOUSE: An online platform for a transparent and open methodology to assess the sustainability of buildings

Abstract

Buildings play a major role in societies but they are also responsible for important impacts on the natural environment in terms of pollution and resources consumption. With the growing global population aspiring for high-level health and comfort, resources will have to be managed more efficiently if we want to ensure a sustainable development. In particular, a life-cycle-thinking approach has to be adopted in the building sector in order to encourage decisions with positive long-term impacts. Decision-making requires knowledge of building performance and many assessment methods have been developed world-wide to evaluate the sustainability of buildings. According to Cole [1], the development of all these different methods results from the ‘tension between the desire for objective, scientifically rigorous and stringent performance criteria with the desire for practical, transparent, simple to understand criteria that ask the industry to respond to manageable step changes in practice’. The project OPEN HOUS...