Sustainable Building Rating Systems Research Articles

Evaluating Building Sustainability Rating Systems: Standards and Methodologies for Energy-Water Based Assessment Criteria

Evaluating Building Sustainability Rating Systems: Standards and Methodologies for Energy-Water Based Assessment Criteria

Perceptions on the processes of sustainable rating systems and their combined application with Lean construction

Sustainable building rating systems are developed to reduce the environmental impact of construction and contribute to sustainable development. However, these prioritize the criteria associated with the operation phase, giving less relevance to the sustainability of the construction stage; even certified buildings are built using conventional methods under inefficient and unsustainable processes. Lean construction (LC) arises to improve the neglected aspects of efficiency, contributing to sustainability in the construction phase. LC and sustainable building rating systems are initiatives that are independently developed without an understanding of how their joint implementation can enhance the achievement of their objectives; experts agree that limited understanding of concepts and concern about cost foil their integration. This research aimed to review the contribution of LC to the scope of the qualification criteria of the rating systems and the perceptions of project developers regarding the certification processes and their synergistic application with LC by conducting qualitative descriptive research via literary review, interviews, and surveys to 206 participants from 38 countries. As a result, there is a general lack of conceptual knowledge and a lack of academic research that shows the benefits of LC for reducing environmental impacts during the construction phase and the scope of qualification criteria. Even in an environment of misinformation, developers perceive an opportunity and a positive feeling about it in their joint application (sentiment analysis in Orange3).

Determination of Ideal Criteria for Development of Sustainable Building rating system in Iran's Cold and Dry Climate (Dena).

Determination of Ideal Criteria for Development of Sustainable Building rating system in Iran's Cold and Dry Climate (Dena).

Integration of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and LEED for A Green Building Rating

Green building design and construction is a global demand to save this earth. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is the world's most widely implemented sustainable building rating system. Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology assist to keep multi-disciplinary information into a single model, and it provides an ability to perform this research. The aim is to assess the pre-certification of a proposed residential building project in integration with BIM and LEED and find out the impact of cost for a green building project. A Prototype 3D model was developed by BIM technology for the LEED certification process. A total of 704 simulations was conducted by using Green Building Studio (GBS) tools. All simulation results were calculated based on nine categories of the LEED rating system. The results of this study indicate that the lifecycle cost can be reduced significantly for a high-performance green building despite of having a high initial investment cost.
 Journal of Engineering Science 12(2), 2021, 47-57

The Relationship between Ethics and Aesthetics in Sustainable Architecture of the Baltic Sea Region

Architecture, as a mean of art and as a factor that physically shapes the environment, undoubtedly serves as a form of expression of ethical attitudes. It combines ethical values and responsibility for solving environmental problems with aesthetic qualities of the built environment. The holistic approach is gaining ground in the paradigm of sustainability, where architectural concepts such as biophilic, biomimetic, resilient, restorative, and others reinforce the idea of coexistence between humans and nature. In the 21st century, sustainability has become a global phenomenon; therefore, contemporary architecture is expected to reflect the idea of sustainability in its expression. This study explores the relationship between ethics and aesthetics in sustainable architecture in practice. Furthermore, this study attempts to illustrate how the architectural expression of certified sustainable buildings in the Baltic Sea region reflects the trends of sustainability within an ethical paradigm. The research question of this study is as follows: what are the prevailing aesthetic trends and are environmental ethical values expressed in the sustainable architecture of the Baltic Sea region? The study of examples of sustainable architecture was carried out by analyzing the three main databases of certified sustainable buildings—Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen (DGNB), Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM). The study found eight predominant groups of aesthetic expressions of sustainable buildings and the absence of a distinctive architectural expression that could be considered as sustainability aesthetics. It can be hypothesized that the lack of aesthetic distinctiveness of certified sustainable buildings could be related to the absence of cultural, aesthetically oriented criteria in building sustainability rating systems.

Sustainable Construction, LEED as a Green Rating System and the Importance of Moving to NZEB

In this study, in order to evaluate the possibility of achieving the Net Zero Energy Building (NZEB) goal, the history of sustainable construction, and available green-rating systems with specific focus on Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) rating system were explained. LEED rating system was selected as the most prevalent rating system in the industry to evaluate and analyze its efficiencies/drawbacks specifically in regards to the energy efficiency. The goal of this study is to answer an important question of the reasons to focus on NZEB concept when LEED rating has come up with a detailed certification process, which is somehow beneficial in regards to energy reduction. NZEB concept is defined as an evolution of very energy-efficient approach and it requires that the buildings have zero energy balance on an annual basis. This paper explains this questions in detail and it consists of three parts: in the first part sustainable building rating system including LEED certification is explained. The second part explains the deficiencies of LEED rating system in regards to the energy performance of buildings and the last part explains the NZEB concept and the movement towards the NZEB target.

Feasibility of a Sustainable Infrastructure Rating System Framework in a Developing Country

Sustainable building rating systems have been implemented in several countries over the last few decades to manage resources, preserve the environment and promote well-being. Sustainable infrastructure rating systems are still new and not as widely used as sustainable building rating systems, especially in developing countries. This study reviewed existing infrastructure rating systems and identified the major criteria used by these systems to explore the feasibility of developing a sustainable infrastructure rating system framework for East Timor. Interviews with professionals working in the construction industry in East Timor were conducted to understand the enablers and barriers to sustainable infrastructure rating systems in East Timor and highlight the potential of using these systems to satisfy the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Whereas economic benefit is a major criterion in implementing a sustainable infrastructure rating systems framework, the results indicated a lack of exposure to sustainable rating systems and inadequate enforcement of the existing environmental laws as barriers to the development of the framework.

How do companies certified to ISO 50001 and ISO 14001 perform in LEED and BREEAM assessments?

Energy and environmental standards, like ISO 50001 and ISO 14001, have a significant influence on the sustainable performance of companies worldwide, while international sustainable building rating systems are often the chosen method to quantify and benchmark performance. This research aims to comprehensively evaluate and assess the performance of these standards in relation to both the LEED and BREEAM assessments. Based on a clearly defined methodology, each standard topic and assessment criteria are comprehensively evaluated and discussed in detail. The main outcome of this research is that through a combination of these standards, a minimum of a LEED Gold or a very good, four-star BREEAM certification is achievable. Furthermore, the highest potential areas for improvement in companies with mature standards are highlighted as well as recommendations for companies with less mature standards and projects in the design and planning phase.

Sustainable building rating systems: A critical review for achieving a common consensus

Rising detrimental global environmental statistics and measurable effects have caused the sustainable building concept to gain momentum. As a result, many sustainable building rating systems and assessment tools have been conceived and are being put into practice around the world. However, with different regions producing their own different interpretations on how to measure sustainability in buildings, a fragmented market has been produced. This study carries out a quantitative and qualitative literature review to systematically analyze 10 leading rating systems, exploring their rating categories, subsets of sustainability, innovation considerations, and rating mechanisms, in order to derive key common themes for a common global consensus. The results of this study were used to propose a framework and rating mechanism to reduce the heterogeneity within the market.

Health and wellness in commercial buildings: Systematic review of sustainable building rating systems and alignment with contemporary research

While sustainability rating systems for buildings have been established for nearly 20 years, systems to specifically recognize healthy buildings are much more recent arrivals to the global scene. Building upon the health-related credits in sustainability rating systems, these new systems leverage academic research to prescribe interventions designed to create workspaces that enable wellness and productivity of their occupants. This paper presents a systematic review of these requirements in the global systems currently available in today's market– WELL, FITWEL, Living Building Challenge – and leading green building rating tools (BEAM Plus, BREEAM, DGNB, Green Globes, Green Mark, Green Star, HQE, and LEED) and aligns them with eight key topics related to health and productivity and recurrent in the academic literature: indoor air quality, thermal comfort, visual comfort, acoustic comfort, ergonomics & movement, diet & clean water, social well-being, and psychological well-being. In the discussion, this research presents regional trends, points of commonality, and discrepancies, both within this set of standards as well as with the broader academic literature and industry guidance on developing healthy workplaces. The purpose and contribution of this paper is to situate the system approaches within the context of contemporaneous academic literature, thus providing new system developers and their users with insight from current research and to identify and address gaps in existing systems from a health and wellness perspective.

A Methodology for Selecting and Prioritizing Suitable Criteria for Sustainability Assessment of the Buildings and Development of Iran’s Sustainable Building Rating System (ISBRS)

A Methodology for Selecting and Prioritizing Suitable Criteria for Sustainability Assessment of the Buildings and Development of Iran’s Sustainable Building Rating System (ISBRS)

Water Efficiency and Management in Sustainable Building Rating Systems: Examining Variation in Criteria Usage

The building sector, due to the significant energy and environmental footprints it creates, needs to adopt sustainable approaches to help prevent global warming and climate change. Sustainable Building (SB) rating systems have been developed around the world as a method to promote sustainability in this sector. Water is one of the most vital natural resources, and is extensively consumed in the building sector. This article examines the coverage of water-related aspects in 11 prominent SB rating systems under the three key sustainability dimensions: environmental, economic, and social, using a comprehensive coverage analysis approach. Findings highlight a wide range of variation between the examined SB rating systems in terms of water attributes being assessed, water assessment criteria used, the optimal number of these criteria, and the weight assigned to them. Results also show that in general, most of the examined systems exhibit low representativeness and comprehensive coverage of major water subcategories and themes related to sustainable buildings. However, some moderate to high comprehensive coverage was found in water attributes that focus on the environmental and social aspects. The results indicate that representative and comprehensive coverage of social-related water attributes are less than that of environment-related water attributes. The results also highlighted the effectiveness of using coverage analysis techniques as a systematic and efficient way to assess comprehensive coverage of water criteria in SB rating systems.

Effects of Indoor Environmental Quality on Occupant's Satisfaction, Health and Productivity

Occupant satisfaction with indoor environmental quality (IEQ) in office buildings has been completely related to self-estimated job performance and, probably, to overall company productivity. Poor indoor environmental circumstances can negatively affect occupants’ physical health through poor air quality, extreme temperatures, excess humidity, or insufficient ventilation and psychological health through inadequate lighting, acoustics, and ergonomic design. Sustainable or green building rating systems is attempting to address IEQ and occupant health concerns by providing healthier building environments. Although many qualitative studies claimed that improved IEQ also improves health and productivity and has provided substantial motivation to build green, quantitative studies are needed to prove these relationships. This research shows an outline of the results from a post occupancy evaluation (POE) study on indoor environment, occupant health, and wellbeing in two office buildings in greater Cairo: conventional building and green building certified using the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Rating System; which is owned and occupied by the same origination. Evaluation of IEQ is based on ‘Building Use Studies’ (BUS) occupant questionnaire which applied in both buildings. This research highlighted that occupants productivity in office buildings can be enhanced through good building design, and provision of a high quality, healthy, and functional interior environment, that takes consideration of basic occupant needs

Sustainable social housing: The comparison of the Mexican funding program for housing solutions and building sustainability rating systems

In the last decade, Mexico has been prominent among the Upper-middle-income countries (UMC) due to the application of its Funding Program for Housing Solutions (FPHS) in dealing with social housing.This paper shows the results of the evaluations carried out, through the internationally recognized Building Sustainability Rating Systems (BSRS), on different housing units built under this program. It was necessary to carry out a normalization criteria process (NCP) due to the particular characteristics of each BSRS and the complexity they presented in carrying out a comparative analysis.Case studies indicate that housing developed by the FPHS obtained low qualifications according to internationally focused BSRS, with significant deficiencies concerning materials, energy efficiency, indoor environmental quality, and management. However, this study provides indicators of its possible integration in the social housing of countries with characteristics analogous to those of Mexico. Among all indicators, that those referring to the urban environment are capable of being integrated into the social housing.Among the findings, some aspects of the FPHS evaluation process impede the integration of sustainable characteristics in Mexican social housing. On the other hand, the FPHS evaluation model, which gives priority to urban environment aspects above all else, may represent a new paradigm towards the achievement of the sustainable social housing (SSH).

Building sustainability rating systems in the Middle East

Countries share common concerns, namely global warming, pollution, limited resources and greenhouse gas emissions, which are major elements affecting the future of people on this planet. Buildings play a considerable role in these environmental problems and the challenge of maintaining their well-being could be resolved through a unique solution called ‘sustainability’, which could be considered a method of life. Sustainability is a way of planning and managing the lives of the present and future generations. This study explores the definition of this widely used term and highlights the most used rating systems and practices that could be adopted to achieve sustainable developments. Green building rating systems became a mandatory requirement for each city in order to provide guidelines for green design and practice to reduce negative environmental impact on the one hand, and to evaluate buildings’ sustainability on the other. This study conducts a comparison between international and Middle Eastern green building rating systems and concludes that the implementation of a regulatory framework and mandatory regulations for sustainable design will serve most effectively in developing performance towards sustainability. Furthermore, locally designed systems would serve much better for achieving targets than employing internationally leading systems.

Multicriteria Decision-Making Methodology for Credit Selection in Building Sustainability Rating Systems

Multicriteria Decision-Making Methodology for Credit Selection in Building Sustainability Rating Systems

Strengthening Sustainability Rating Credit for Off-Site Construction

Off-site construction has inherent advantages over conventional construction in terms of sustainability that extend well beyond lower construction site waste, yet the common building sustainability rating systems in the U.S. and Canada provide little or no credits to reflect prefabricationäó»s sustainability-promoting characteristics. As project owners in the U.S. and Canada increasingly demand that their projects receive certification by one of the common building sustainability rating systems, off-site constructionäó»s inherent advantages over conventional construction in terms of cost and time may be reduced by off-site constructionäó»s lack of advantages in terms of sustainability rating credits. After identifying sustainability rating credits that favor off-site production and other credits that disfavor off-site production, the paper concludes by identifying actions off-site construction producers should consider to increase sustainability rating credits for their products.

Evaluation of existing sustainable infrastructure rating systems for their application in developing countries

Several sustainable building rating systems were created worldwide during the last decades due to economic growth and the significance of environmental impact associated with the building industry. Similar infrastructure rating tools have started to be developed and implemented, being highly necessary to promote its development. Even though the existing sustainable infrastructure rating systems are focused on advanced economies, growing environmental concerns are increasing the need for new systems in the Developing World. This research analyses some of the mainstream infrastructure rating frameworks such as Envision (USA), Civil Engineering Environmental Quality (CEEQUAL) assessment (UK) and Infrastructure Sustainability (IS) Rating Tool (Australia) from the perspective of the Triple Bottom Line (economy, environment and society), in order to determine the effectiveness of their application in the context of the least developed countries. The analysis revealed that the three tools are biased towards the environmental dimension and are mainly oriented to developed countries. Consequently, the foundations on which these systems are based need to be further developed and enhanced to be of real relevance in poorer nations by balancing the weight of sustainable pillars, incorporating effective management guidelines and development goals set by United Nations declarations, and considering impacts beyond the single project framework.

Comparison of Four Global Sustainable Building Rating Systems Carried out With Focus on Hot and Dry Climate

<p>Several assessment programmes has been developed worldwide on the environmental and energy effect of buildings. The aim of this study is to identify the main and sub categories of sustainable design. The researcher has investigated and compared four global building rating systems, namely leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) in USA, Emirates Green Building Rating System (ESTIDAMA) in Abu Dhabi city, Qatar Sustainability assessment System (QSAS) in the State of Qatar and Australian green Star rating system (AGBC rating system), in Australia. This paper focuses mainly on their processes, contents, similarities and differences, processes, evaluation, their development and wither these systems are applicable to all environments?</p><p>The paper outlined six main categories developed by these global rating systems being: Sustainable site, indoor environmental quality, materials, water efficiency, power supply system and innovations. Sub categories were added according to their social, cultural, economical and legislations conditions.</p>The paper recommended adding four main categories suitable to hot and dry climate.

An Exploration of Green Building Costs and Benefits: Searching for the Higher Ed Context

Green building certification on college campuses is relatively new. When determining the financial feasibility of a certified green building at an institution of higher education, the full building lifecycle perspective is important to consider. In this paper, I first provide a background on campus sustainable development and green building rating systems. I then review the studies that have addressed the upfront green premium and down-the-line green building operating costs. Lastly, deficiencies in the studies are highlighted as well as future research recommendations in order to cure these deficiencies.