Environmental Performance Of Buildings Research Articles

Buildings environmental impacts' sensitivity related to LCA modelling choices of construction materials

The assessment of the environmental performance of buildings is now commonly using a life cycle approach, based on a growing number of databases and methods in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Recent studies have, however, highlighted the problems related to uncertainties in the LCA results. The aim of this study is to assess the sensitivity of construction materials to the different modelling choices in order to highlight their consequences at the building scale. In particular, we focused on the different modelling options in terms of database choices, system boundary definitions and replacement scenarios of building materials during the whole service life of the buildings. The assessment of uncertainties was conducted at two levels: the material or element level and the building level. The results clearly show the importance of these modelling choices. Variations on the overall assessment of buildings are significant, but the details at the material scale show that not all materials are similarly sensitive to these choices. We identified those materials that have a large contribution to the environmental impact of the buildings and which are also sensitive to different modelling choices. This can help for a better understanding of these modelling choices and can be used in upcoming regulations or public policies.

The absolute environmental performance of buildings

Our paper presents a novel approach for absolute sustainability assessment of a building's environmental performance. It is demonstrated how the absolute sustainable share of the earth carrying capacity of a specific building type can be estimated using carrying capacity based normalization factors. A building is considered absolute sustainable if its annual environmental burden is less than its share of the earth environmental carrying capacity. Two case buildings – a standard house and an upcycled single-family house located in Denmark – were assessed according to this approach and both were found to exceed the target values of three (almost four) of the eleven impact categories included in the study. The worst-case excess was for the case building, representing prevalent Danish building practices, which utilized 1563% of the Climate Change carrying capacity. Four paths to reach absolute sustainability for the standard house were proposed focusing on three measures: minimizing environmental impacts from building construction, minimizing impacts from energy consumption during use phase, and reducing the living area per person. In an intermediate path, absolute sustainability can be obtained by reducing the impacts from construction by 89%, use phase energy consumption by 80%, and the living area by 60%.

Towards guidance values for the environmental performance of buildings: application to the statistical analysis of 40 low-energy single family houses’ LCA in France

Purpose In this study, life cycle assessment (LCA) is applied to a sample of 40 low-energy individual houses for the French context in order to identify guidance values for different environmental priorities (energy and water consumption, greenhouse gases emissions, waste generation etc.).

The Effectiveness of Thermal Insulation in Lightweight Steel-Framed Walls with Respect to Its Position

Lightweight steel-framed (LSF) construction, given its advantages, has the potential to reach high standards in energy and environmental performance of buildings, such as nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB). When compared with traditional construction, LSF system offers distinct benefits in such fields as sustainability, cost-effectiveness, constructive process, and safety at work. Despite the benefits of this constructive system, the effect of thermal bridges in LSF elements, caused by the high thermal conductivity of the steel structure, can be a disadvantage. The excessive heat losses or gains through these thermal bridges are more relevant in buildings’ exterior envelope, such as facade walls. These building components’ thermal performance is crucial in the buildings’ overall energetic behaviour, with a direct impact on energy consumption and resulting monetary costs during their operational stage. In this work the influence of the thermal insulation position on its effectiveness is evaluated in LSF facade walls. For this purpose, several LSF wall types are assessed, namely cold, warm, and hybrid construction. The influence of thermal bridges instigated by the steel studs in the LSF walls’ overall thermal performance is evaluated as well. The computations are performed using specialized finite element software (THERM).

Management and assessment of performance risks for bioclimatic buildings

Given high energy demands of buildings, developing countries need to be sensitive to the critical role of building energy efficiency in the fight against climate change. Especially in tropical countries where the thermal flow is strong and the lack of electricity distribution networks is a sad reality. The consolidation of this energy efficiency requires the preservation of nature through a harmony between the building and its environment on one hand and an effective evaluation of energy performance on the other hand. Faced with these challenges, the bioclimatic concept is one of the best alternatives to weave this harmony between the building and its environment. Furthermore a meaningful energy performance assessment of buildings based on the knowledge of capitalization with the experience feedback processes can be used to structure the different phases of implementation of the buildings. Firstly, this article presents the general concept of bioclimatic buildings with emphasis on thermal notions that influence thermal comfort inside a building. Secondly, the effort focuses on identifying non-qualities and factors of discomfort whose resolution helps to improve the energy and environmental performance of buildings. This approach supported by land surveys to interview the building actors and users to collect data favourable or not favourable to energy-performance. These data are then processed for the generation of graphical representations used by methods developed on the basis of knowledge and strategies of bioclimatic concepts. After the capitalized knowledge from experience feedback processes allows us to offer corrective solutions and share best practices to address the identified performance problems.

Energy and Environmental Performance of Solar Thermal Systems in Hotel Buildings

The energy policies in Europe include the reduction in energy consumption of buildings along with their environmental impact, focusing mainly on CO2 emissions. In this framework, solar thermal systems used for space heating purposes and Domestic Hot Water production will be studied in detail. Solar thermal systems are one of the most popular ways to provide sanitary hot water in hotel buildings, all over the world and in particular in the Mediterranean. This is due to the fact that over the last forty years they have been proven to be reliable and cost effective.Still, there is more to those systems, than cost efficiency, as it will be discussed in this paper, based on a study carried out for the Greek hotel sector. The analysis of the solar thermal system was done on the basis of technical characteristics and their energy efficiency as well as of the potential energy saving and their environmental impact, focusing mainly on CO2 emissions. The environmental evaluation of the system studied is expressed by means of an integrated environmental approach, based on environmental rating systems namely LEED and BREEAM.Goal of the paper is to present the result of the overall evaluation of the solar thermal system and its contribution to the improvement of the building's energy and environmental performance and also discuss how this affects the building's respective certification.

J-REIT所有オフィスにおけるCASBEE認証及び東京都トップレベル事業所認定が賃貸事業収益及び水道光熱費に与える影響

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the economic value of certification of green buildings based on j-reit (Japan Real Estate Investment Trust) owned office buildings. In the recent years, assessment systems for the environmental performance of buildings are being widely used in Japan. Some analyses were conducted in Japan to investigate whether green building certificates have a positive influence on the contract rent. However we need to investigate profits and expenses of the real estate rent to clearly explain the economic benefits of green buildings. In this research, we analyze the office building annual data in Japan which was disclosed by J-REIT. Operating benefits and utilities costs of 657 buildings in January 2014 － December 2014 was analyzed. Regarding the objective office, the total leased area is under 50000 m2 and each building was divided into green building certified or Non-certified. Subject green building certifications are Tokyo Top-Level Business Facility and CASBEE (Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment Efficiency). The net operating incomes of Top-Level Business Facility or CASBEE certified office buildings over 10000 m2 of total building area are bigger than that of not certified office buildings. The utilities costs of Top-Level Business Facility certified office buildings are the same as that of not certified office buildings, but the utilities cost of CASBEE certified office buildings is bigger than that of not certified office buildings. The net operating incomes of CASBEE certified office buildings over 3000 m2 and less than 10000 m2 of total building area are bigger than that of not certified office buildings. The utilities costs of CASBEE certified office buildings over 3000 m2 and less than 10000 m2 are the same as that of not certified office buildings. The net operating incomes of expired CASBEE certified office buildings over 10000 m2 of total building area are bigger than that of not certified office buildings. The utilities costs of expired CASBEE certified office buildings are the same as that of not certified office buildings. Using these results, the environmental performance of Top-Level Business Facility certified office buildings over 10000 m2 of total building area and expired CASBEE certified office buildings over 10000 m2 of the area, CASBEE certified office buildings over 3000 m2 and less than 10000 m2 of the area may be high in the value of the real estate. The utilities costs of buildings are not always related to the energy consumption, because an energy source, a type of contract and a contract fee are different in each building. In this survey, the primary energy consumption of CASBEE real estate buildings is correlated with the utilities cost of the buildings. The objective buildings do not install the regional air-conditioning.

Life Cycle Cost Comparison of a High NABERS Performing Commercial Building

NABERS is a world leading program for rating the environmental performance of buildings. It takes real, measured impacts and communicates these in a clear and simple way. NABERS rates offices in energy, water, waste and indoor environment, shopping centres and hotels in energy and water, and energy in data centres.NSW Office of Environment & Heritage, the National Administrator of NABERS, commissioned AECOM to conduct a comparative analysis of the upfront capital and operational and maintenance (O&M) costs for a building targeting different NABERS Star Ratings [1]. The study modelled a new build on a brownfield site with a Net Lettable Area (NLA) of 35,000 m2 located in Sydney, NSW. This was conducted from both a building owner perspective (base building) and a tenant perspective (tenancy). The base building analysis started at 4.5 Star NABERS Energy and 4 Star NABERS Water, increasing in half star increments. The tenancy analysis started at 4.5 Star NABERS Energy, increasing in half star increments. This paper is based on the results from the AECOM study.The study supports the industry trend of high NABERS rated buildings having a greater financial return over the long term. The trend of higher capital investment for greater long term return will be one of the key risks in the development of a business case for a new commercial building.

A Holistic Methodological Approach in the Urban Context Towards Characterizing the Environmental Performance of Buildings and Promoting Strategic Governance and Sustainability

Nowadays, over half of the world's population is living in urban areas. Urbanization has not led only to economic and social transformation, but also to high resource consumption and considerable environmental damage. This study aims to promote a holistic methodological approach in the urban context in order to foster policy modeling, efficient governance and sustainability. The paper has a twofold purpose: (i) to provide an approach for tractably characterizing the environmental performance of the building sector, and (ii) to promote sustainable practices towards greener buildings in urban areas. Towards this aim a composite indicator is analytically defined. The index combines the main environmental pressures that can be attributed to the building sector and is mathematically formulated to be finally implemented generically. Apart from energy, water consumption and waste generation, the presented scheme establishes links with LCA in order to include estimations of carbon footprint (CO2-eq). The formulated index is combined with the structure dialogue approach that has been developed within Urban Empathy, aMED Programme funded capitalization project focused on the efficiency of sustainable urban policies in the Mediterranean Basin. The structured dialogue process identifies key barriers to the implementation of the selected available practices into sustainable urban policies for the building sector. The paper highlights insights for common priorities, real pilot project results and their relation to implemented policies in order to foster strategic governance and policy modeling for specific areas under consideration.

국내 녹색건축 인증제 (G-SEED) 평가를 위한 BIM 시스템 적용방안에 관한 연구

Green buildings are result of the Framework Convention on Climate Change adopted by developed countries as a response to the crisis sense of the global environment, as energy depletion and environmental pollution. To reduce the load on the environment and improve the environmental performance of buildings, a certification system is established. To acquire a green building certification, the requirements must be considered in the early design stages of the building. However, many complex problems and work processes need to be recognized effectively apply the detail of many items that require analysis and data. BIM template provides BIM-based standardized data that allows users to take make use of the objective information and analysis on the design phase of eco-friendly building. However, the results are different because of the absence of standardized working environment for designers or users of the BIM library and models. Accordingly, the objective of this study is to propose and apply the BIM system which can confirm green building certification score and grade on the basis of the constructing green building data through GBT, and to verify its effectiveness. As a result of this study, it was verified that the algorithm of the proposed system was correctly constructed with the same BIM assessment and general assessment except one item.

Sustainability tools for the assessment of construction materials and buildings

The construction industry, being the backbone of the European economy, has played a significant influential role in the development of the energy strategy of Europe and is also anticipated to be an important contributor in its successful implementation. Holistic sustainability assessment tools that are able to evaluate and optimise the environmental performance of construction materials and buildings are considered a key for the development of advanced building designs and use of sustainable building materials and elements and green energy- efficient systems that will raise high the sustainability level of the European built environment. The aim of this work is to present the current legislation addressing the construction industry, as well as the state-of-the- art Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools that are used for the sustainability assessment and optimisation of construction materials and buildings. In view of that, the standardised LCA methodology, and the approach of EcoHestia, a comphrehensive building sustainability assessment tool, are discussed. Through the employment of EcoHestia, the environmental impact of a case study building is defined, also providing a detailed breakdown of the contribution of each construction material in the overall environmental performance of the building. The analysis of the results has not only determined on the construction materials of the building that are most harmful to the natural resources and the environment, but also showcased the effectiveness and added value of utilizing this approach in moving forward towards a more sustainable green building sector.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.16.3.16172

An integrated environmental and health performance quantification model for pre-occupancy phase of buildings in China

To comprehensively pre-evaluate the damages to both the environment and human health due to construction activities in China, this paper presents an integrated building environmental and health performance (EHP) assessment model based on the Building Environmental Performance Analysis System (BEPAS) and the Building Health Impact Analysis System (BHIAS) models and offers a new inventory data estimation method. The new model follows the life cycle assessment (LCA) framework and the inventory analysis step involves bill of quantity (BOQ) data collection, consumption data formation, and environmental profile transformation. The consumption data are derived from engineering drawings and quotas to conduct the assessment before construction for pre-evaluation. The new model classifies building impacts into three safeguard areas: ecosystems, natural resources and human health. Thus, this model considers environmental impacts as well as damage to human wellbeing. The monetization approach, distance-to-target method and panel method are considered as optional weighting approaches. Finally, nine residential buildings of different structural types are taken as case studies to test the operability of the integrated model through application. The results indicate that the new model can effectively pre-evaluate building EHP and the structure type significantly affects the performance of residential buildings.

Influence of Insulating Materials on Green Building Rating System Results

This paper analyzes the impact of a change in the thermal insulating material on both the energy and environmental performance of a building, evaluated through two different green building assessment methods: Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Istituto per l’innovazione e Trasparenza degli Appalti e la Compatibilità Ambientale (ITACA). LEED is one of the most qualified rating systems at an international level; it assesses building sustainability thanks to a point-based system where credits are divided into six different categories. One of these is fully related to building materials. The ITACA procedure derives from the international evaluation system Sustainable Building Tool (SBTool), modified according to the Italian context. In the region of Umbria, ITACA certification is composed of 20 technical sheets, which are classified into five macro-areas. The analysis was developed on a residential building located in the central Italy. It was built taking into account the principles of sustainability as far as both structural and technical solutions are concerned. In order to evaluate the influence of thermal insulating material, different configurations of the envelope were considered, replacing the original material (glass wool) with a synthetic one (expanded polystyrene, EPS) and two natural materials (wood fiber and kenaf). The study aims to highlight how the materials characteristics can affect building energy and environmental performance and to point out the different approaches of the analyzed protocols.

Experience feedback for risk assessment in aeronautic buildings

The search for energy efficiency is an increasingly important requirement in the construction or renovation of residential, tertiary and commercial buildings. This requirement imposes the implementation of effective strategies for evaluating energetic performances. However, most of the literature works focused on the use of analytical approaches which sometimes proves insufficient, in the absence of taking into account the practical realities. This paper presents a methodology of risk analysis and assessment for efficient performance of buildings using the knowledge capitalization and exploitation from experience feedback processes. The target buildings (residential, tertiary and commercial) are chosen in the airport area of aeronautic context in which the lessons learnt are generated from the environmental assessment with the assistance of the main domain actors (experts, technicians and users). The effort is focused on identification of non-qualities and discomforts whose resolution could contribute to improving the energy and environmental performance of buildings. This approach integrates the collection of experienced knowledge from passive design strategies of sustainable buildings with innovative practices. Capitalization of knowledge from experience feedback processes will foster the development of proposals for preventive and corrective solutions and dissemination of good practices for solving problems regarding pathologies, damage, and other dysfunctions observed in the building field.

Health Care Building Assessment through Post Occupancy Audit

Health care and hospital buildings are among the most complex construction in the built environment which comprises a broad range of utility, services, and functional units. The objectives of the study are to review the built environment performance level of the public teaching health care hospital in meeting user’s need. Three (3) public training health care hospitals in Selangor district in Malaysia are selected as a case study sample. Based on the finding the study revealed that the correlation coefficient between technical building performance and the importance of POE Guideline are positively correlated based on security, safety, and efficiency and health criteria.

Energy signature models of naturally ventilated hotels in Athens: a hotel classification methodology

ABSTRACTNowadays, improving the efficiency and environmental performance of buildings is becoming an increasingly important issue and a requirement. This study proposes a hotel classification methodology for naturally ventilated hotels based on an energy audit in 35 hotels in Athens. By considering energy consumption and monthly temperature, the energy signature model, Princeton Scorekeeping Method, is adjusted to the hotels’ operating characteristics. The energy signature models of the sample hotels are studied in detail and three types of hotels are identified: the ‘annual’, ‘winter’ and ‘summer’ types, which are further examined in relation to the heating and cooling system they use. The proposed energy hotel classification represents an invaluable tool first at a micro-scale for hotel owners and managers and second at a macro-scale for policy-makers. Finally, the study examines the relation between the hotels’ occupancy patterns and energy consumption.

Factoring in embodied GHG emissions when assessing the environmental performance of building

The building sector accounts for a substantial portion of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions because building facilities are energy and emission-intensive to construct and operate. The embodied GHG emissions of buildings make up a considerable portion of their life cycle emissions. Previous research indicates that up to 30 per cent of their life-cycle emissions can be minimised through the careful selection of low-carbon materials. Although green building rating tools have been widely used to identify and mitigate the life-cycle environmental impacts of building facilities, the existing tools, including Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), have been proven to be unsatisfactory for auditing and benchmarking the embodied GHG emissions of buildings. This study begins by examining the limitations of current green building rating tools, in particular their means of evaluating the embodied GHG emissions of buildings. Then, an embodied GHG emissions assessment module under an existing green building rating tool, i.e. LEED, is proposed. The proposed embodied GHG emissions assessment module will enable clients and design teams to minimise the carbon footprints of buildings and assist users and the general public in identifying low-carbon building facilities.

Energy and emissions analysis of next generation electrochromic devices

The impact of buildings on the environment, energy consumption and climate change is significant, as they use a large amount of resources across their life-cycle. Since windows play an important role in the overall energy and environmental performance of buildings, emerging technologies are focused on the optimization of these building components. Among window design technologies, electrochromic (EC) devices have received growing interest for their ability to dynamically manage the daylight and solar energy entering buildings. Near-infrared switching electrochromic (NEC) glazed windows use a novel EC window technology that is able to continuously provide high transparency while modulating solar heat gains. This study evaluated the manufacturing phase of NEC windows to understand if their use phase performance comes at acceptable manufacturing burdens. This study also identified which constraints are connected to the market shift to the novel technology, which can provide the research community with useful information to better design the technology as it develops. A comparative “cradle-to-gate” energy and emissions analysis was carried out between NEC and conventional EC windows.The obtained results for the Global Warming Potential of the conventional EC device was 85kg CO2-eq/m2 and the Cumulative Energy Demand was 1680MJ-eq/m2. Results for the NEC device were found to be 50kg CO2-eq/m2 and 1050MJ-eq/m2, with the reduction primarily due to replacing the energy intensive thin film deposition used in conventional EC with a solution-based coating process. Finally, when an entire window is modeled (EC device, frame, glazing and sealing), the difference over conventional EC, in terms of primary energy consumption, ranged for the whole window manufacturing from 15% to 21%, depending on the material of the frame.

The Evolution of 'Greener' Leasing Practices in Australia and England

Improving the environmental performance of the built environment is a ‘super wicked’ problem, lacking a simplistic or straightforward response. This is particularly challenging where space is rented, in part because the relationships between the various owners, users and managers of the space is regulated – at least in a formal sense - through the lease. Traditional leases largely ignore environmental considerations and present barriers to making energy efficient upgrades. Leasing practices are evolving to become greener. Evidence from a Sydney Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) study, Australian leasing experts, a UK commercial lease study and a case-study of a major UK retailer, Marks and Spencer (MandS), suggests an increasing, trend towards green leases in most of these markets and opportunities for improving environmental performance through green leasing. Further research is needed in both countries to understand the impact that greener leasing has on environmental performance of buildings.

北京市住宅建筑生命周期碳足迹

PDF HTML阅读 XML下载 导出引用 引用提醒 北京市住宅建筑生命周期碳足迹 DOI: 10.5846/stxb201504070695 作者: 作者单位: 中国科学院生态环境研究中心,中国科学院生态环境研究中心 作者简介: 通讯作者: 中图分类号: 基金项目: 中国科学院战略性先导科技专项（XDA05140200） Life cycle carbon footprint of residential buildings in Beijing Author: Affiliation: Research center of Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences,Research center of Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences Fund Project: 摘要 | 图/表 | 访问统计 | 参考文献 | 相似文献 | 引证文献 | 资源附件 | 文章评论 摘要:从生命周期角度看，建筑碳足迹与能源和建材生产系统具有密切关系。随着技术的进步和节能政策的推进，中国能源的生产和使用，以及建材生产过程中的环境排放都随着时间在持续降低，这将间接地影响到建筑的环境表现。依据1990-2010年期间每5a的中国能源与建材生命周期清单数据，对北京市20年间住宅建筑系统开展生命周期评价和碳足迹核算，以揭示北京市住宅建筑系统的环境负荷变化特征。结果表明，北京市住宅建筑生命周期碳足迹随时间推移呈现降低趋势，主要来自能源系统和建材生产系统的碳减排贡献。不同结构建筑的碳足迹尽管有差异，但也呈现了相似的下降趋势。从生命周期阶段看，建筑碳足迹主要体现在建筑使用阶段和建材生产阶段。尽管建筑使用阶段的节能对于降低建筑生命周期碳足迹具有重要贡献，但节能在经济成本及环境成本方面而言是有限度的。在可持续的环境政策管理制定中，应从生命周期角度，统筹考虑协调各行业减碳的协调发展。论文同时也验证了在生命周期评价中考虑时间变量将有助于更好地利用生命周期评价结果支持环境可持续管理。结论对于城市规划的政策制定、量化环境表现是有益的。 Abstract:The carbon footprint of buildings relates to the energy system and building material production system from the perspective of life cycle. With the advancement of innovations in technology and energy conservation policies, emissions related to energy production and use as well as the production of building materials have been reducing in China. Consequently, this will influence the environmental performance of buildings indirectly. In this study, the life cycle carbon footprint of residential buildings in Beijing was calculated for the past 20 years, based on life cycle inventory databases in the context of energy and building materials, to determine the change in environmental performance of residential buildings. The results show that the carbon footprint in Beijing exhibited a decreasing trend, mainly as a result of carbon reduction in the energy mix and improvements in the building material production system. The carbon footprints of different structures also exhibited decreasing trends, although they varied in numbers. Considering life cycle stages, the use phase of buildings dominated the carbon footprint profile, which is mainly attributed to energy use. Although energy saving in the use phase was strongly correlated to the reduction of the carbon footprint of buildings, it had a limit in context of both economic cost and environmental cost. The coordination of various industrial sectors, such as energy production and material production industries should be paid sufficient attention while making policies for carbon reduction. Furthermore, as shown by the results, it is necessary to integrate the time parameter in life cycle assessment more efficient sustainable environmental management. The conclusions drawn from this study will be helpful for measuring the environmental performance in the policymaking of urban planning. 参考文献 相似文献 引证文献