Environmental System Certification Research Articles

The significance of architectural, technological and environmental aspects in building environmental certification systems

The criteria for environmental standards in construction include requirements for organizing a sustainable territory, reducing the consumption of water and energy resources, using environmentally friendly materials, rational waste management, and creating a favorable microclimate for users. The main goal is to study architectural, technological and environmental aspects in international (LEED, BREEAM) and Russian (GOST R 70346-2022, GOST R 54964-2012, KLEVER, GREEN ZOOM) systems that influence the formation of the architectural environment in Russian cities. The research methodology used is complex with mathematical analysis of requirements and their comparison. The distribution of criteria is not balanced. Engineering and technological activities predominate. It is necessary to increase the criteria for environmentally friendly architectural and planning solutions. The role of the architect in the certification of the object should be increased.

A Round Robin Test on the dynamic simulation and the LEED protocol evaluation of a green building

• RRT to evaluate LEED and dynamic simulation results applied by different operators. • Evaluating the influence of different energy simulation software on LEED results. • Assessing if subjectivity of operators affects the final LEED rating score. Green building concept plays a fundamental role in reducing the use of resources and the impacts on human health and environment, during the whole building life cycle. Therefore, a method to measure the building sustainability rate is crucial for comparing various alternatives in terms of use of different materials, energy resources, production processes to reduce energy consumption and environmental impacts. Many protocols have been proposed to perform buildings’ sustainability evaluation; however, different operators applying these certification tools might need to make hypotheses, even different from each other, to complete the whole procedure. Hence, this work aims to evaluate whether and how the hypotheses formulated by each operator can influence the final certification level. To this end, a Round Robin Test among international partners was performed using different versions of LEED sustainability protocol to the same building with the same boundary conditions, comparing and analyzing the results provided by the participants. The final aim was to identify which issues have more influence on the final performance rate, giving to the users a deeper knowledge of the aspects included in these procedures. The results showed the potential of these building environmental certification systems, capable of offering a transversal level of environmental sustainability.

ЕКОЛОГІЧНЕ ПОПЕРЕДЖЕННЯ У ТРЕВЕЛ-ШОУ «ОРЕЛ І РЕШКА. ЧУДО СВІТУ» ПЕРШОГО ПІВРІЧЧЯ 2021 РОКУ

The warnings of TV presenters about environmental problems and phenomena from the scene of events about environmental problems in their foreign travels, shown in the travel show “Eagle and Reshka. Wonder of the World ”of the first half of 2021 had been described and analyzed. The ecological problems were analyzed and differentiated. This analysis made it possible to identify the levels of their distribution in foreign countries, to summarize the collected data for the first half of 2021, and to reflect them in the table by countries, types of environmental problems and levels of their distribution. Environmental problems of foreign countries, shown in the travel show “Heads and Tails. Wonder of the World "on global, interstate and intrastate levels, had been differentiated. The number of issues in which specific environmental problems of foreign countries are disclosed has been determined, attention is paid to the environmental risks of foreign travel and the need for environmental certification of travel objects. It had been proposed to be shown on TV programs “Heads and Tails. Wonder of the World ”the implementation of environmental certification systems and programs in the field of tourism activities abroad, to study how they positively / negatively affect the formation of the image of tourist regions, increase their popularity.

ВПЛИВ ЕКОЛОГІЧНОЇ СЕРТИФІКАЦІЇ НА РЕЙТИНГ ГОТЕЛІВ З БОКУ КЛІЄНТІВ

Economic growth in modern conditions is accompanied increasing anthropogenic load on the environment, depletion natural resources, which generally limits the prospects for further development of agricultural formations as business entities. Given this is important acquires "greening" of economic activity, competitive development of socio-economic systems based on "green" economy. Economic levers today are not able to fully ensure the quality parameters of enterprise development, and therefore, need to be strengthened by other components of economic growth, in particular environmental growth. Current trends in society consider strengthening the interaction with the environment, growth demand for ecological housing, clothing made of natural fabrics, food from organic products etc. Thanks to awareness and environmental responsibility, most of the population directs its activities to the "natural" sphere, to organize environmentally friendly business. A promising direction for Ukraine's economy has now become the development of the tourism business, in particular eco-hotel entrepreneurship. The hotel industry is an integral part of the tourism industry. The rapid growth in the number of hotels and the exacerbation of problems associated with the development of the hospitality industry in Ukraine make us talk about the need for change and the search for new vectors of their development. In this article we will analyze the impact on hotels of the environmental certification system by customers based on a comparison of customer ratings of hotels in Ukraine with or without a certificate. Eco-enterprises of the hospitality industry of Ukraine mostly adhere to partial eco-certification. In general, guests rate hotels with a certificate higher than those that do not have an eco-certificate. The paper substantiates the most effective ways to increase the competitiveness of eco-hotels, namely the ability to inform the public about the significant contribution that the hotel makes to the welfare of the country, region, specific area, will increase the competitiveness of the hotel.

Occupants’ satisfaction with LEED- and non-LEED-certified apartments using social media data

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified buildings aim to offer a sustainable and healthy building environment. Previous studies have shown mixed and inconsistent results on whether occupants in LEED-certified buildings are more satisfied than in non-LEED-certified counterparts. Those studies are usually based on surveys or questionnaires for commercial buildings and were limited by sample size and pre-defined question structures. Since most people would spend more time at home after experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic due to the flexibility to work remotely, assessing the satisfaction with residential buildings benefits future environmental design and certification system development. In this work, we propose a natural language processing-based approach for such assessment. The study collected 16,761 online reviews of 232 LEED-certified and 129 non-LEED-certified apartment buildings from social media, then applied topic modeling and sentiment analysis to evaluate occupants’ satisfaction. Based on topic modeling, we categorized online comments into three topics, 1) location and transportation, 2) running cost, and 3) health and wellbeing. The subsequent sentiment analysis has shown a statistically significant but small or negligible enhancement in the satisfaction occurring in LEED-certified apartments compared to non-LEED-certified ones concerning all three topics. The “significant but small or negligible uptick” has also been found in online star rating and indoor environmental satisfaction. The only exception with a large effect size is lighting which is found to be significantly more satisfying in LEED-certified apartments. Nevertheless, the statistical significance in online star rating disappears when normalized by rent price and property house value.

Development stages of ecological architectural and construction design in Russia

The history of environmental standards, the emergence of environmental architectural and construction design in Russia and the forerunners of environmental certification systems in construction are studied. Historical material is analysed and data is systematised chronologically. Development stages of ecological architectural and construction design in our country are highlighted, their main features are given: Stage 1 (late 17th – mid 20th centuries) — the history of the formation of environmental requirements for the conservation of natural resources and the creation of a comfortable environment for life in urban areas; Stage 2 (mid XXth – early XXIth centuries) — the formation of environmental legislation, the opening of the first Russian Green Building councils, the adaptation of international environmental standards in construction to Russian realities; Stage 3 (the beginning of the XXIth century – the present) — the creation of sustainable requirements in the Russian Federation, increasing the viability of the architectural and construction environment, the introduction of a number of Russian environmental standards in construction, the formation of a national Tech-nical Committee 366 to develop national standards to GOST R series on green construction and promoting green standardization at the national and international levels with the introduction of new green technologies, materials and products for a comfortable living environment.
 Today in Russia, a new architectural and construction environment is emerging, aimed at saving resources, preserving health, energy conservation, reducing waste, safety, comfort, preserving biodiversity and creating holistic conditions. To intensify the development of this area, it is necessary to introduce new environmental standards for the design of sustainable space in Russian cities, using best world practice.

Interstate green standards of formation sustainable built environment vital activity

Introduction. Due to the negative environmental situation on Earth, the necessity to use “green” standards in construction, regulated by environmental standards, to reduce the negative impact on nature and create favorable living environment for humans was determined. It was revealed that eleven of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals approved at the United Nations General Assembly are interrelated with construction. At the same time, “green” design standards are a mechanism for achieving Sustainable Development Goals as well as regulatory tool for creating an environmentally friendly environment for living and working.
 Materials and methods. The stages of the formation of environmental legislation in construction are studied. Specific features of the formation of regulatory documents in the field of environmental protection and environmental design (mid 20th – early 21st centuries), as well as the transition to the creation of National Russian “green” standards are reviewed. The mechanism of development of interstate standards on the basis of the Technical Committee is being studied.
 Results. National environmental legislation and Russian national “green” standards regulatory requirements are studied. The advantages and disadvantages of current environmental certification systems and core aspects of buildings environmental assessment are highlighted. The necessity for the use of interstate environmental standards in design and construction is determined along with the allocation of strategy for further development in the urban planning field. Specific features of the formation of “green” construction in Russia, as a driver for the Eurasian Customs Union are revealed.
 Conclusions. The priority of formating “green” living environment on the basis of the introduction of new regulatory framework on environmentally sustainable design to promote the National “green” standard in construction at the interstate level is outlined.

Using secondary raw materials in construction of buildings with account taken of environmental standards

Introduction. The article addresses the problem of irrational treatment of solid municipal, production and consumption waste in Russia, as well as the prospects of using secondary raw materials in the construction of buildings. The research is focused on environmental standards, environmental certification systems in the construction industry, as well as recycled materials. The study encompasses the construction of buildings using recycled materials, taking into account the requirements set in environmental standards.
 Materials and methods. The article presents several types of secondary raw materials and an overview of sustainable approaches to the construction of buildings using recycled materials in Russia and abroad. Most widely spread construction technologies, used to build houses using secondary raw materials, are described. An environmentally friendly facility constructed in Russia using secondary raw materials is described as an illustration.
 Results. The state of the Russian legislative framework governing the treatment of solid municipal, construction, and consumption waste and the requirements of international and Russian environmental standards applicable to buildings are analyzed. The percent ratio of waste management actions is determined in relation to other requirements set by environmental certification systems applicable to real estate items.
 Conclusions. A new classification of construction products made of secondary raw materials is presented. Conclusions are made about the feasibility of reusing solid household, industrial and consumption waste in the construction industry. The need to revise environmental standards in Russia is identified. The Russian environmental standards should have a larger number of criteria determining the rational treatment of solid municipal, construction, and consumption waste as well as the use of products made of secondary raw materials.

Qualitative and Quantitative Assessment of Urban Sustainability in Social Housing Using the Casa Azul Label and SBTool Urban in Brazil

The sustainability potential of Brazilian social housing (SH) needs to be assessed, considering the impacts on the population’s quality of life and urban systems. One of the main weaknesses of Casa Azul Label refers to the absence of a procedure that quantifies the measures for assessing urban sustainability. Based on the post-occupation analysis of an SH project implemented in Araraquara, São Paulo state, Brazil, evaluation of urban sustainability was developed, using a multi-method approach combining the Casa Azul Label and Sustainable Building Tool (SBTool) Urban certification tools. It was proposed to apply the calculations established in SBTool Urban according to the Casa Azul Label certification requirements, as well as insert a national benchmark as a reference for the analysis and normalizing results. These procedures made it possible to base an improvement framework on a Brazilian environmental certification system, including a quantification system to evaluate the efficiency of the applied measures regarding urban sustainability. The multi-method approach, associated with the SBTool Urban procedures, could significantly help to improve the application of a sustainable assessment system in social housing in developing countries. The high number of residential units produced in recent years could be qualitatively evaluated, improving both the construction procedures and the criteria for the urban insertion of human settlements.

Differentiation Strategies in the Adoption of Environmental Standards: LEED from 2000 to 2014

We study the role of vertical differentiation in the adoption of LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design), a multitier environmental building certification system. Our identification strategy relies on the timing of adoption and shows that builders seek to differentiate from each other by choosing a different certification level from previously certified buildings. A common concern in this framework is that mean-reverting behavior could be mistaken for differentiation. We develop a new method for establishing the importance of strategic interactions based on simulating from a model with independent choice and unobserved heterogeneity, and showing that such a model cannot generate the level of interaction that we observe. Finally, we estimate a model that incorporates both differentiation incentives and correlated market-level unobservables and use our estimates from this model to simulate the impact of reducing the number of LEED tiers from four to two. The simulations indicate that environmental investments depend on the location of the threshold between tiers. This paper was accepted by Bruno Cassiman, business strategy.

O impacto da certificação de edificações no planejamento urbano

As edificações são significativas em termos de desenvolvimento social e econômico das cidades assim como seus impactos ao meio ambiente. Minimizar o consumo de recursos naturais nas edificações tem se tornado um importante objetivo para arquitetos e planejadores urbanos. A busca pelo desenvolvimento urbano sustentável revelou a necessidade de implantação de mecanismos que incentivem o uso racional dos recursos e a ocupação dos espaços disponíveis com mínimo impacto ao meio ambiente. Nesse contexto, os sistemas de certificação ambiental de edificações aparecem como mecanismo potencial para inserção de práticas sustentáveis no cotidiano das cidades, visando a sustentabilidade dos recursos naturais disponíveis. Esse artigo apresenta os impactos causados pelo rápido crescimento das cidades e suas populações assim como os benefícios proporcionados pela implementação da certificação ambiental de edificações no país. Acredita-se que a corrida pelo desenvolvimento de edificações certificadas possa auxiliar na redução de necessidade de infraestrutura pública urbana, pela mitigação de impactos e produção de insumos na fonte (energia e água, por exemplo), com consequências diretas e benéficas para o poder público, abrindo caminho para futura incorporação de critérios na legislação municipal.

Development of a system dynamics computer model to simulate the operational effects of the new environmental technology certification system

Development of a system dynamics computer model to simulate the operational effects of the new environmental technology certification system

A Study on the Improvement of the Evaluation Scale of Discomfort Glare in Educational Facilities

The lighting environment is a factor that significantly affects the physical and psychological aspects of occupants of a building. In particular, educational facilities should be designed to provide adequate natural lighting because it has a profound impact on students’ health and learning performance. Although environmental certification systems include evaluation items for improving the indoor light environment, there is a lack of evaluation criteria regarding the corresponding issue of glare. Therefore, this study aims to help visualize areas where indoor glare problems occur, and to improve the evaluation scale of discomfort glare in environmental certification systems. A standard high school classroom in Seoul was analyzed to study glare issues in the educational space. DIVA for Rhino—Grasshopper, a light environment simulation program based on Radiance and DAYSIM program, was used to obtain reliable light analysis simulation results, and the daylight glare probability (DGP) measure was used to calculate discomfort glare. The results of the simulation and analysis suggest this is a method for improving glare evaluation measures that are lacking in indoor environmental certification standards. The visualized frequency of discomfort glare data is useful for planning the layout of the indoor space, opening, and shading design of a building to prevent glare problems.

A Holistic Approach to the Environmental Certification of Green Airports

Airports around the world are more and more environmentally concerned, increasing their efforts in reducing aviation impacts by applying environmental management, certification systems, or other types of ecological rating systems to their infrastructures and operation. Especially relevant are the airports’ efforts to manage and reduce their CO2 emissions through Airport Carbon Accreditation, the efforts made by Eurocontrol to encourage collaborative environmental management, or the increasing numbers of airports worldwide that get their terminals certified according to several world-recognized Green Building Rating Standards (GBRS). However, although these standards are state-of-the-art sustainability valuation programs, none of them fully cover all the environmental impacts of aeronautical activity at an airport. This paper presents the results of an exploratory research where the use of a GBRS into a more holistic certification scheme for airports is discussed and areas of challenge are highlighted. The paper seeks to shed some light on the value of holistic approaches from the perspective of maximizing environmental management efficiency and effectiveness, the integration of actions of individual airport partners to potentially encourage greater coordination of efforts, the challenges of dealing with both construction and operational impacts within one scheme, and the accountability difficulties.

Determinants of the Energy Saving Construction Quality in the Green Design

Abstract Crucial element of the contemporary construction development trend is compatibility of the building design with client and architecture trends and sustainability strategy. The environmental certification systems for buildings such as LEED, BREEAM and WELL apply a lot of attention to providing users with a healthy housing environment. The criteria of these systems include many practical recommendations that buildings should meet on design, construction and use stage. These requirements can be a signpost, even for buildings and offices that do not aspire to obtain a certificate. The aim of the paper is to analyze and identify determinants of the energy-saving construction quality in the context of the green design.

작업장 소음의 발생원대책 강화를 위한 저소음기계 인증제도 개선방안

In advanced countries, various policies are being enforced to reduce equipment noise level at it’s source. This paper analyses the problems of domestic noise policies related to noisy equipment, and presents a plan for improving the implementation of expansion policy of low noise equipment based on this analysis. This paper proposes that the equipment satisfying the compulsory rule be able to use the environmental certification mark, the standards of which are defined in recommended rules, to improve the linkage between the two policy measures. This paper also suggests expanding the range of equipment to be supervised and using new noise label that has grades and shows detailed noise level of the equipment to improve environmental certification system. In addition, supplementing the construction permission system and supporting international certification system are offered to expand the use of low noise equipment.

Innovation and certification as the basis for the development of energy-efficient construction

Within the framework of the concept of sustainable development, issues of energy efficiency, environmental safety, minimization of anthropogenic impact on the environment are of particular relevance. In construction, these theses are projected onto the segment of energy-efficient, “green” construction. Nowadays, the development of energy-efficient construction in Russia is progressing at a slow pace, and this is primarily due to the lack of an integrated energy management system, environmental certification of construction products, and institutional features of the real estate market. The authors systematized the methods of improving energy efficiency and greening of construction regarding the types of real estate, analyzed the main global and Russian environmental certification systems in construction, identified the features, advantages and disadvantages of each system, substantiated the need to ensure the generally accepted Russian certification system. The problem of enhancing energy-efficient construction is also interconnected with the need to increase the level of innovation in construction, which is substantiated by the authors in the paper. The authors substantiated the need to change the criteria for monitoring investment projects, taking into account the optimization of energy efficiency and environmental performance of real estate.

Environmentally friendly construction as a tool for ensuring the quality of construction products

In order for construction works in Russia to be carried out in the construction of objects and objects already built to be competitive on the world market, when implementing projects, it is necessary to take into account the requirements of not only the regulatory and technical documents governing construction and installation works in Russia, but also take into account the requirements of environmental standards imposed by certification systems such as LEED and BREEAM. At this stage of development of the domestic construction industry, there is no regulatory and technical framework governing the implementation of environmental standards on a mandatory basis. The construction market in Russia is highly competitive. When choosing a contractor, customers are guided by the shortest possible turnaround time and minimum cost. Often these two conditions are achieved by minimizing the costs of contractor’s resources for work that are not provided for by the regulatory and technical base of the Russian Federation as mandatory. In order for the domestic construction industry to reach the World level, it is necessary to introduce foreign environmental certification systems that allow increasing the level of comfort for citizens.

Rating estimation of sustainability in the construction of high-rise building

The paper presents an assessment of a unique high-rise building according to the environmental certification system STO NOSTROY 2.35.4-2011 (Russia). Certification system of sustainable environment is described with the estimated criteria. An assessment of the existing European high-rise building adapted to the regional conditions of Rostov-on-Don in accordance with the specified standard was made. Result of preliminary assessment of building is shown. And the building parameters, work with which could increase the overall rating of certification, are emphasized.

Assessing green supply chain practices in Bangladesh using fuzzy importance and performance approach

The contribution of this study is to apply a hybrid method to identify critical green supply chain practices (GSCP) based on importance and performance level under linguistic preferences. The leather industry in Bangladesh is facing acute pressure to minimize environmental pollution. Proper assessment of GSCP ensure effective implementation and thereby helping the industry face environmental challenges. However, there is lack of methods available for the assessment of GSCP concerning their importance and performance attributes under linguistic preferences. This study uses fuzzy set theory to handle fuzziness of human perceptions since the GSCP attributes usually expressed in linguistic preferences. Then, fuzzy importance and performance analysis (FIPA) approach was applied to identify GSCP importance and performance levels. Moreover, FIPA matrix was plotted to determine the critical GSCP as enablers of environmental performance enhancement. Additionally, a comprehensive measurement structure is also absent that requires the inclusion of supply chain partners as aspects. The objective is to assess GSCP based on importance and performance level. The study reveals that supplier and manufacturer viewpoints are the most critical aspects. Furthermore, designing for recycling water and minimizing waste during manufacturing, participation in an ISO 14001 environmental certification system, selection of suitable suppliers based on environmental criteria are the critical GSCP attributes. The managerial implications also are presented. The study presents certain limitations and thus proposes future studies.