Rectify the performance of Green Building Rating Tool (GBRT) in sustainability: Evidence from ISO 21929-1

Abstract

Different countries have developed and extensively studied green building rating tools (GBRTs) to promote the sustainable development of the construction industry. The most important part of GBRTs is their weighting systems. However, previous studies are considered to be inadequate, especially their neglect of the multi-attribute characteristics of green building criteria (GBC). This paper proposes a reliable approach to bridge this research gap. The proposed approach includes equal comparison conditions, a unified GBC framework, a transparent GBC classification process, and the separation of multiple attributes of GBC. The sustainability performance of five GBRT samples was analyzed and compared with the previous studies to verify the proposed approach. The results showed that the performance of the GBRT samples, based on the three pillars of sustainability wherein the weightage obtained for environmental, social, and economy for each GBRTs, were almost similar. This study provides the theoretical and practical contributions to future GBRT-related research, thus avoiding the limitation of subjective classification of GBC by proposing a modified analytic hierarchy process method to deal with multiple attributes of GBC quantitatively based on the qualitative information provided by ISO 21929-1. It also deepens the understanding of institutional GBC by clearly defining and identifying them for the first time.