Sustainability Assessment Schemes Research Articles

Production of solid biofuels from organic waste in developing countries: A review from sustainability and economic feasibility perspectives

The current increase in the world population and its energy demand promotes the study and implementation of cleaner energy forms since the traditional energy recovery systems are seriously affecting the environment. Biofuels and especially biomass or solid biofuels represent a sustainable energy source for developed and developing countries. This review aims to discuss the characteristics and advantages of solid biofuels, analyse the pretreatments and thermal treatments required to recover energy, and compare them with traditional fossil fuels. Other areas such as the sustainability and economic feasibility of solid biofuels are likewise addressed by explaining frequently used tools to evaluate the environmental impact as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Comparatively, more recent methodologies are examined as efforts for accomplishing sustainability in the biofuel industry, namely Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) and certification schemes like the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), the Inter-American Development Bank Sustainability Scorecard, and initiatives like the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Finally, it was revealed that the economic feasibility and competitiveness of solid biofuels differ among developing countries but represent a notable contribution to their energy matrix.

The critical role of advanced sustainability assessment tools in enhancing the real-world application of biofuels

Sustainability has become of paramount importance in the biofuel industry. Accordingly, various ‎sustainability assessment schemes such as emergy analysis, techno-economic analysis, life ‎cycle ‎assessment, energy accounting, and exergy analysis and its extensions (exergoeconomic, ‎exergoenvironmental, and ‎exergoeconoenvironmental analyses) are being employed increasingly for decision-‎making on biofuel production and consumption systems. In this opinion paper, after classifying ‎and describing biofuel generations, the developed sustainability assessment tools are critically ‎explained, and their pros and cons are discussed. Overall, among the various sustainability assessment approaches introduced so far, exergy-based methods appear to be ‎the most promising tools for developing ‎sustainable biofuel systems. This can be attributed to the fact that the exergy ‎concept is deeply ‎rooted in the well-defined principles of thermodynamics.‎

Social sustainability assessment framework for managing sustainable construction in residential buildings

Nowadays sustainability concept has gained worldwide recognition in the building industry worldwide. However, despite the recent trends toward consideration of environmental and economic aspects in sustainability assessment framework for buildings, the concept of social sustainability has given less attention. Therefore, social issues were less included in the main categories of sustainability assessment schemes. As a result, such frameworks failed to effectively correspond to social aspects of sustainability and they have created gaps in analytical support necessary for sustainable decision-making. While there are some researches regarding social aspects of sustainability worldwide, investigations are still lacking in developing countries. In order to resolve this issue, this study aims to propose an assessment framework which addresses social sustainability in residential building construction by prioritizing social sustainability criteria based on Iran context. In this research, after exploiting social sustainability indicators, through multi-criteria decision making approach, criteria priorities were obtained with the aid of local experts. Results revealed that among the proposed criteria, local experts considered safety issues as the most important and site considerations and equipment as the least important criterion to be considered in the social sustainability assessment for residential buildings in Iran. After safety issues, performance and flexibility factor was the third-highest important criterion in terms of social sustainability in planning and construction in this country. From the results, it can be concluded that the establishment of social sustainability scheme with a consideration of priorities in a particular country can be a pivotal step forward to provide a responsive sustainability assessment for buildings, especially in developing countries such as in Iran. This research can shed light on the way in which other developing countries customize such social sustainability framework based on their own context to offer decision makers an efficient approach for measuring the social sustainability status of a residential building.

Sustainability Assessment in Water Infrastructure Projects—Existing Schemes and Challenges in Application

Ecological, economic and societal challenges require decision-making and planning processes aiming at sustainability in water management. Such processes are increasingly informed and supported by sustainability assessment schemes. The focus of this article is on water infrastructure. A selection of national (German) and international assessment schemes is presented and compared. Both interdisciplinary schemes, applicable to a wide range of infrastructure measures, as well as schemes specialized in water infrastructure are considered. In addition to methodological aspects and dissemination, thematic priorities are analyzed and compared. Apart from methodological similarity, specialized schemes tend to be still in the development stage. In contrast, the interdisciplinary schemes have already been used commercially and have been applied in a considerable number of projects. The schemes considered differ significantly in the number of criteria. The interdisciplinary schemes tend to focus more on the ecological dimension while considering a small number of economic criteria. The assessment results depend on various subjective factors and the schemes do not produce true or false results in absolute terms. However, their application can make these factors visible and help identify the most stable solution with regard to different sustainability perspectives.

Sustainability Assessment of the Building Construction Stage Using Building Sustainability Assessment Schemes (BSAS)

Building Sustainability Assessment Schemes (BSAS) are the key instruments to measure, evaluate and implement sustainability goals through all building’s life-cycle. The current trend for the establishment of practices resulting to green and sustainable buildings is based on environmental protection aspirations, as well as on rising real estate market demands for improved indoor air quality (IAQ) conditions. The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of the construction stage process on the results of BSAS ratings. Seven administrative buildings rated by BREEAM or LEED, located in Lithuania, were assessed in terms of this study. Five criteria were employed to assess the sustainability of the investigated buildings at the construction phase, including the project management, the responsible purchase of building materials, the use of legal timber materials, the construction waste and the protection against environmental contamination. The selected criteria constitute a significant part of the established sustainability assessment schemes such as BREEAM and LEED. Following the analysis of the actual ratings for the selected categories, weights of the construction stage as well as their impact on the final evaluation results were defined. The findings of this study revealed that the impact of the selected criteria on the final BREEAM scheme rating ranged from 6.98 to 8.57 percent. The impact of the construction stage criteria on LEED system final results ranged from 4.05 to 6.97 percent and in any case demonstrated reduced impact on the final rating result. The study also revealed the contractor’s point of view to a building sustainability at the construction stage in Lithuania. The findings of this study may serve as a framework for contractor’s organizations intended to improve the construction sustainability of green building projects and this way to increase the overall building sustainability ratings.

Sustainability assessment framework: a mini review of assessment concept

Sustainability assessment is viewed as a vital instrument to aid in the shift towards sustainability which is simply an appraisal method which integrates an iterative and pluralistic procedure. Sustainability assessment is viewed as a vital instrument to aid in the shift towards sustainability. Sustainability assessment is a rather complex appraisal technique conducted for supporting decision-making and policy in an extensive environmental, economic and social perspective. Sustainability assessment transcends a technical or scientific evaluation. Sustainability assessment tools are essentially a structured process encompassing different field-specific analytical methods and models. The growth of indicators in numerous fields has influenced sustainability assessment methodologies to a great extent. In general two broad approaches for sustainability can be distinguished, top-down and bottom-up. Despite the abundance and diversified procedures for evaluating sustainability, indicators based assessment is one of the most widely used platform. Many parties feel that the presence of conceptual inconsistencies and the absence of operational definitions have hampered attempts to appraise, let alone achieve, sustainability. Assessing the sustainability assessment schemes in a quantitative manner requires the identification and integration of diverse phenomena or indicators, in a framework consistent with the evolving concept of sustainability. In fact, integration of indicators for sustainability assessment, have been at the forefront of various political, academic and scientific researches. Existing sustainability assessments schemes typically provide interpretation in the form of comparative value analysis where impacts are scored based on pre-set values, utility analysis where impacts are ranked on a uniform scale and weighted, cost-benefit analysis where positive and negative impacts are apportioned to monetary values, multi-criteria analysis where quantitative as well as qualitative impacts are scaled on pre-set criteria or risk assessment where degrees in risk reduction is identified relative to pre-set risk thresholds. Consequently, the paper that follows provides an integrative analysis of existing sustainability assessment approaches. Such review not only offers a very valuable insight on the features of existing sustainability assessment schemes, but also highlighting gaps to a certain extent.

Enhancement of roundtable on sustainable palm oil (RSPO): qualitative to quantitative assessment tool

Sustainability assessment is an appraisal process which takes a pluralistic and iterative approach. It is conducted for supporting decision-making and policy in broad scenario (environmental, economic and social perspective) and viewed as a vital instrument to aid in the shift towards sustainability. Sustainability assessment transcends a technical or scientific evaluation. The growth of indicators in numerous fields has influenced sustainability assessment methodologies to a great extent. In general, two broad approaches for sustainability can be distinguished, top-down and bottom-up. Despite the abundance and diversified procedures for evaluating sustainability, indicators based assessment is one of the most widely used platform. Existing sustainability assessments schemes typically provide various interpretations involving various quantification methods, hence difficult to be integrated. Subsequently, this paper provides an integrative analysis of existing sustainability assessment approaches. It not only offers a very valuable insight on the features of existing sustainability assessment schemes, but also highlighting gaps to a certain extent.

Life cycle input indicators of material resource use for enhancing sustainability assessment schemes of buildings

Suitable methods and indicators to address the sustainability of resource use in the buildings sector are still in their infancy. Indicators and sustainability assessment schemes so far focus on the availability of natural resources, while the efficiency of their use is widely neglected. This article focuses on the assessment of the material resource use in buildings (abiotic raw material including energetic material), and the applicability of material input indicators, Raw Material Input (RMI) and Total Material Requirement (TMR), within life cycle assessment (LCA) using a contemporary database. The indicators cover the life-cycle-wide cumulative input of raw materials (RMI) and the total primary materials requirements (TMR) which in relation to the functionality of buildings ought to be minimized when resource efficiency shall be increased. The applicability of the resource use indicators in addition to the corresponding Global Warming Impact (GWI) is tested for a virtual design of a multi-family building. Use of resources and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are determined per square meter of usable floor area. The calculations comprised the production phase of the construction materials and the use phase of the building with five alternatives of exterior walls using GaBi XIV construction materials database. Results show that accounting for material input indicators i.e. RMI and TMR could significantly contribute to the reduction of a building's material resource use and explicitly define the actual input weight of each material resource taken from nature and the accompanied ecological rucksack within LCA framework.

Developing weighting system for refurbishment building assessment scheme in Malaysia through analytic hierarchy process (AHP) approach

The building industry has an undeniable impact on the natural environment. Evidence shows that existing buildings make a significant contribution to energy demand and CO2 emissions. Refurbishing existing buildings offers significant opportunities to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The Malaysian government has set a target to retrofit 100 government buildings in order to contribute to the country's commitment to reduce the CO2 emissions intensity of gross domestic product by 45% by 2030. However, there is no specific sustainability assessment scheme targeted at building refurbishment in Malaysia. Thus, this research aims to support the development of a refurbishment sustainability assessment scheme for Malaysia. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was adopted in order to rank assessment themes and identify the priorities of the study's participating stakeholders. The outcome is the Malaysian Refurbishment Assessment Scheme (MRAS), which includes a set of weightings and a classification system for the selected assessment themes and sub-themes. The methods and findings can be adapted for use by other practitioners to develop building assessment schemes in order to pursue the goals of sustainable development through refurbishment.

Ratio based indicators and continuous score functions for better assessment of building sustainability

A sustainability assessment scheme for buildings is proposed with two key features, namely the use of quantifiable indicators rather than subjective scores for aspects; and the use of continuous functions for the indicator scores, since such functions will yield better comparisons across buildings than given by step functions. The indicator scores would need to be normalized with respect to benchmarks, whether global ones available in the literature, or local ones that can be obtained by averaging the scores from local ‘green’ buildings. The systems level and operation stage of a building are found to contribute most to the overall sustainability score, with a high degree of coupling between them. Ten buildings seeking ‘green’ certification are assessed together with two that are ‘not green’. Assessments are made using the basic assessment scheme proposed and two variations thereof, the first based on local rather than global benchmarks and the second based on accentuating indicator score differences in highly weighted aspects by using a non linear indicator score function. The LEED rating system, which uses mostly step functions for aspect scores, gives unrealistically low scores for the ‘non green’ buildings, thus justifying the use of continuous functions for indicator scores.

Building sustainability objective assessment in Estonian context and a comparative evaluation with LEED and BREEAM

Common practice building regulations are not that far reaching as are required by sustainable building assessment schemes. At the same time, regulations over a number of indicators can be onerous even without sustainable considerations. We compared indicators and their levels from Estonian regulations against LEED and BREEAM requirements. The differences and gaps between the best practice requirements were shown with the focus on the indoor climate, energy and transport categories of the sustainability assessment schemes. Five best practice buildings were positioned in LEED and BREEAM certification levels. The results show that the current regulations of indoor climate and energy indicators in Estonia form a solid base for high scores in these schemes. Indoor climate class I and class A energy performance achieved at least the second highest certification level in LEED and BREEAM. Thus, the gap between the current best practice and the highest score of a sustainable building scheme was not large. To make the comparison possible in a systematic way the Estonian building sustainability assessment scheme indicators were proposed and their compliance with LEED and BREEAM was quantified.

Quantification of environmental and economic impacts for main categories of building labeling schemes

This study evaluated the weighting factors of five building sustainability assessment scheme categories – productivity, energy, water, materials and transport – to be used in Estonia. The method was based on environmental and economic assessment of available design options relevant for each category and transferring all impacts to euros through energy and carbon prices and productivity costs. The productivity category received the highest weighting, 89 or 70% share of the total impact with indoor climate reference class III and class II, respectively. This shows that the productivity effects are not enough recognized in current codes. To assign meaningful weightings for other categories the share of productivity was limited to 50%. The final weightings obtained with Estonian input data were 50% for productivity, 26% for energy, 21% for location, 2% for building materials and 1% for water efficiency. Obtained weighting factors for Estonia conflict quite remarkably with the weights of most well-known building sustainability assessment schemes, BREEAM and LEED, showing the importance of local conditions. Results denote that specific CO2 emissions of energy sources change the importance of categories in a considerable manner. All findings in this study show that local context should be considered when designing a building sustainability assessment scheme.

Sustainability and Evolution Assessment (SEA) scheme in components and machineries

This paper presents work in terms of introducing a concept called Sustainability and Evolution Assessment (SEA) scheme, which is a step forward from conventional diagnostic methods. SEA is an improved method, which implements not only diagnostic features but also prognostic measures. SEA attempts on-line recording of life-cycle information from the technical processes and the components. The recorded data can be used to analyse the environmental impact during run-time for the reuse, recycle, remanufacture and especially for the design of next generation engineering systems.

Customization of GBTool in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, there has been increasing public demand for developers to pay greater attention to the development of sustainable buildings. A creditable assessment scheme that provides targets and methods and recognition of the efforts that are made in this direction is considered to be an effective way to achieve the goal of construction sustainability. GBTool is by far the most comprehensive building environmental assessment framework and has been developed over the past 6 years through the efforts of 21 national teams. This study aims to address the customization of GBTool as a scheme to assist in the development of more sustainable buildings in Hong Kong. The general principle of triangulation is adopted in the customization process and the initiatives of the Hong Kong government and of voluntary bodies are reviewed. The gaps between the Hong Kong situation and the philosophy of GBTool are identified and a questionnaire survey and a series of in-depth interviews to elicit the attitudes of the parties involved toward the inclusion of additional issues into the customized scheme are conducted. The correlation of several major issues and the weightings across issues and criteria are identified. The results form a good basis for the development of a building sustainability assessment scheme for Hong Kong.