Sustainability Performance Of Buildings Research Articles

A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Building Sustainability Across Typical European Building Geometries

In recent years, significant progress has been made in the sustainability assessment of building materials and buildings. The introduction of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), the development of Level(s), and the release of relevant series of standards have helped to improve the sustainability of buildings. However, a research question that remains unresolved is the lack of information related to the comparison of the sustainability performance of building units across Europe and the significance of conducting such research. This study addressed this question by implementing a comparative whole-building Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) across buildings in Europe. The study emphasizes the necessity of considering typical building geometries and thermal performance of buildings across Europe and introduces six typical building geometries for three different European clusters (northern-western, central-eastern, southern cluster). The results of this study revealed that the sustainability performance of buildings is not similar across the EU and that cost-optimal minimum thermal performance requirements for building structures have a significant impact on their environmental performance. Particularly, single-family houses in Central and Eastern Europe are responsible for 324.42 kgCO2e/m2. Contrary to this, Northern and Western European single-family buildings have the lowest environmental impact with 268.97 kgCO2e/m2. Multifamily houses in Southern Europe are responsible for 321.82 kgCO2e/m2, in Northern and Western Europe the environmental impact is 275.37 kgCO2e/m2. The outcome of this study is significant for the scientific community involved in assessing the sustainability of buildings in Europe, as it provides valuable insights into their environmental performance, considering the energy efficiency and sustainability aspects of buildings. The study's findings should be considered when setting minimum LCA-related requirements, in view of the provisions of the new EU policies expressed in the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) recast for defining the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of new buildings.

Identifying influential architectural design variables for early-stage building sustainability optimization

Architectural design variables (ADVs) highly influence a building's sustainability performance. Thus, identifying which ADVs are most influential in a building's early stages is of great significance, especially when using computational building design optimization tools. Currently, sensitivity analysis based on computer simulations is the most commonly used means to identify which ADVs are the most influential in the early stages. However, we suggest that a stakeholder perspective should also be considered as stakeholders possess domain-specific knowledge and expertise as well as a contextual understanding that can greatly enhance the development and deployment of building design optimization tools. To explore the above, we combined a literature review with survey data from 24 architects and sustainability consultants in the Nordics. Surprisingly, we found that the influential ADVs in the literature do not always align with those of our surveyed stakeholders. For example, we found that the literature considers building plan, window-to-wall-ratio (WWR), and wall material as the most influential ADVs, which contrasts with storey number, storey height, WWR, roof material and wall material considered by stakeholders to be the most influential. We also found that the most influential ADVs differ across different sustainability optimization objectives, and that these also differ from the literature. Despite our limited survey sample, our study provides insights into influential ADVs and as such has implications for the development, use, and performance of computational building design optimization tools.

Monitoring the Sustainability of Building Renovation Projects—A Tailored Key Performance Indicator Repository

This study aims to assist in the identification of suitable key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used to assess the sustainability performance of buildings given their transition into zero-carbon, resource-efficient, and resilient structures. To that end, a four-step methodology is proposed in this work; the first step includes the development of a KPI repository, which builds upon commonly accepted targets derived from the needs of different stakeholders as well as targets imposed by external factors. The second step refers to the expansion of the initial KPI repository, capitalizing on information from the literature. The third step includes the refinement of the repository based on predefined criteria (relevance, availability, measurability, reliability, and familiarity) and tailored feedback from key stakeholders. The final step concerns the development of KPI cards, which include all the necessary information for understanding and estimating the KPIs included in the final repository. This four-step methodological approach implementation was tested during the EU-funded HORIZON project ‘InCUBE’. The implementation of the first two steps of the proposed methodology resulted in a pool of 68 KPIs. Nearly half of these KPIs were extracted from Step 1 to fully support the monitoring of all InCUBE outcomes, while the rest of the KPIs were extracted from highly relevant Horizon frameworks, the B4P partnership, Level(S) framework, publications, and ETSI standards (Step 2). The implementation of Step 3 resulted in a shortlisted KPI pool which eventually defined the final InCUBE KPI repository, including 31 KPIs. To help with the coordination of the data gathering process and a shared understanding of the sort of information to be monitored among various stakeholders, selected KPI cards (Step 4) are presented.

Cyber-physical systems and digital twins for “cognitive building” in the construction industry

Purpose Despite the growing attention on the relevance of improved building management systems with cognition in recent years in the architecture, engineering, construction and operation (AECO) community, no review has been conducted to understand the human-environment interaction features of cyber-physical systems (CPS) and digital twins (DTs) in developing the concept of a cognitive building (CB). Thus, this paper aims to review existing studies on CPS and DTs for CB to propose a comprehensive system architecture that considers human-environment interactions. Design/methodology/approach Scientometric analysis and content analysis were adopted for this study. Findings The scientometric analysis of 1,042 journal papers showed the major themes of CPS/DTs for CB, and these can be categorized into three key technologies to realize CB in the AECO community: CPS, DTs and cognitive computing (CC). Content analysis of 44 relevant publications in the built environment assisted in understanding and evidently confirming the claim of this study on the integration of CPS and DTs for CB in construction by also involving the CC. It is found and confirmed that CB can be realized with CPS and DTs along with the CC. A CB system architecture (CBSA) is proposed from the three key technologies considering the human-environment interactions in the loop. The study discovered the potential applications of the CBSA across the building lifecycle phases, including the design, construction and operations and maintenance, with the potential promise of endowing resilience, intelligence, greater efficiency and self-adaptiveness. Based on the findings of the review, four research directions are proposed: human-environment interactions, CB for sustainable building performance, CB concept for modular buildings and moving beyond CB. Originality/value This study stands out for comprehensively surveying the intellectual core and the landscape of the general body of knowledge on CPS/DTs for CB in the built environment. It makes a distinctive contribution to knowledge as it does not only propose CBSA by integrating CPS and DTs along with CC but also suggests some potential practical applications. These may require expert judgments and real case examples to enhance reproducibility and validation.

Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Building Construction: A Case Study in China

Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) has been increasingly implemented in a wide spectrum of products. Considering the vital importance of buildings to human lives, it is surprising that there have been few LCSA case studies of buildings from mainland China, which boasts the largest developing economy in the world. This study aims to implement LCSA in a typical residential building project in China. The three areas of protections (AoPs) are integrated into an overarching LCSA framework by applying the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. It is found that the building project has less impacts of climate change, acidification and human toxicity, but greater impacts of ozone depletion and freshwater eutrophication, as compared to benchmarks of buildings. The sustainability single score is estimated to be 71.5/100, with 40.86% caused by the environmental impact, 29.68% by the economic impact and 29.46% by the social impact. The sustainability results of the studied case are further compared with an existing study in Hong Kong. The results would contribute to the knowledge and understanding of the sustainability performance of buildings in China. The methodology presented in this study can contribute to further improvements in LCSA evaluation, both regionally and globally.

Integrating Sustainability into Construction Engineering Projects: Perspective of Sustainable Project Planning

This study examines how sustainability may be included in construction engineering project management practices utilizing project planning approaches. To aid construction engineers and managers in better understanding and implementing sustainable practices, the essential tool of sustainable project management, sustainable project planning, has been developed and validated. Sustainable construction approaches can greatly reduce the environmental and social effect of construction projects. Investigations have mostly ignored the significance of HOPSCA. Researchers used a case study approach to assess a well-known HOPSCA project in China that involved several SCPs. Utilizing both qualitative and quantitative techniques, such as exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of statistical data and content analysis of interviews with construction engineering project managers, sustainable project planning was defined and assessed. Which integrates sustainability principles and should have three components: managerial control, risk response, and work consensus, can be used to predict the performance of sustainable buildings and projects.

Occupant Behavior Impact on Building Sustainability Performance: A Literature Review

Occupant behavior controls a building’s energy system to adapt the indoor environment, significantly increasing building energy consumption. Occupant behavior, which refers to the occupancy inside a building and their interaction with building systems (windows, blinds, thermostats, lighting and appliances, etc.), has been largely overlooked in building energy performance analysis. These factors make it essential to design sustainable buildings. It is widely acknowledged in the literature that there is an alarming performance gap between the estimated and actual energy consumption in buildings. This paper proposes a systematic literature review on energy-related occupant behaviors and their implications for energy performance. It aims to better understand occupant behavior, existing behavior modeling approaches and their limitations, and key influential parameters on building energy performance. It is based on a survey of ScienceDirect, Web of science and Scopus scientific databases, using their bibliometric analysis tools together with the VOSviewer software. Finally, this study identifies the following significant research gaps for future development: limitations of the generic and robust occupant behavior model; lack of actual data for validation; lack of research on different types of buildings (institutions, university buildings); limitations of considering all factors which influence occupant behavior; missing the detailed realistic situations of occupant behavior; integrating building information modeling (BIM) into building energy modeling.

Unlocking Human Factors for More Resilient and Sustainable Built Environments: Human Centric Solutions

Sustainable buildings are designed to provide a better built environment that reduces environmental impacts, supports communities for social needs, and preserves economic gains. Despite a growing interest in sustainable development over the past few decades, there has been surprisingly little research focusing on the implications of human factors to a sustainable built environment. Sustainable building solutions shall be informed by the needs of building occupants and made in adaptive response to environmental, economic and socio-cultural changes. Interactions between users and buildings are of great importance to determine how successful a sustainable building is. Literature revealed that a failure of putting users at the pinnacle of designing sustainable solutions could be one of the main underlying reasons of underperformance of sustainable buildings. This paper presents a conceptual framework to demonstrate how human centric solutions contribute to improving user-environment interactions in sustainable buildings. By considering human centric solutions, sustainable building performance can be optimised by integrating users’ needs and aspirations into the design and development process. This paper helps increase the understanding of the roles of human factors in sustainable buildings, hence supporting the development of social sustainability which has been greatly overlooked in the pursuit of sustainable development.

Trusted DBL: A Blockchain-based Digital Twin for Sustainable and Interoperable Building Performance Evaluation

Trusted DBL: A Blockchain-based Digital Twin for Sustainable and Interoperable Building Performance Evaluation

Nature Positive: Interrogating Sustainable Design Frameworks for Their Potential to Deliver Eco-Positive Outcomes

Built environment design is implicated in virtually all socio-ecological sustainability problems. Nonetheless, paradoxically, construction will be essential to creating sustainability by increasing social and natural life-support systems. Given the rates of land, resource, water, and biodiversity depletion, urban development must do more than restore nature. It must increase nature and environmental justice in real, not relative, terms. The necessary technologies and design concepts for nature-positive development already exist. However, most sustainable building regulations, design criteria, and performance standards only aim to regenerate landscapes and integrate more nature into cities. This cannot sustain nature or society. This paper canvasses contemporary sustainable design and development thinking and finds that a progression toward ‘nature positive’ is occurring. However, so-called ‘sustainable buildings’ still do not compensate for past inequities or nature degradation, let alone the material flows, pollution, or biodiversity losses they themselves cause. This is partly because current standards and measurements are based on existing conditions, not sustainability standards, and do not distinguish net-positive from regenerative outcomes. Positive Development (PD) theory provides a comprehensive alternative to conventional sustainability frameworks, planning analyses, decision-making structures, design paradigms, and assessment tools. This paper provides criteria for evaluating the potential of conventional and alternative methods for achieving nature-positive outcomes.

Application of Epistemic Uncertainty Analysis and Sensitivity Analysis in Green Construction Design

Building performance is often expressed according to primary energy use; however studies should also include environmental load. To mitigate the effects of increased CO2 emissions, green building designs are now increasingly popular options for stakeholders. In contrast, impacts of green design parameters, building performance assessment, and design optimization objectives are not addressed sufficiently for American infrastructure. Designing low-energy architecture to minimize carbon emissions requires thoughtful articulation of green building design alternatives. A common barrier for green building design in the U.S. is the time needed to identify and evaluate alternatives. Modeling energy consumption in buildings is essential for different applications, including building energy management and establishing baselines for sustainable building performance codes. This paper proposes a new optimization objective, which considers annual carbon emissions for multi-family construction in Florida. A multi-step sensitivity and epistemic uncertainty approach are proposed to identify the critical design parameters during the early stages of sustainable building design. Building simulation software was utilized to model green building configuration for carbon emission values, further analyzed using Monte Carlo and Morris Method sensitivity analysis techniques. The present study considered green building design alternatives as variables since carbon emission reduction potential is sensitive to these variables. Results indicate that PV panel efficiency, PV payback limit, lighting efficiency, plug load efficiency, and solar heat gain coefficient are highly influential parameters. The methodology is presented, and an example is applied to a new construction multi-family apartment design in Tallahassee, FL. This uncertainty and sensitivity analysis improved the design efficiency, while emphasizing usefulness in the green building optimization process.

Cloud-based sustainability assessment (CSA) system for automating the sustainability decision-making process of built assets

Digital tools help facilitate the implementation of sustainability practices in the built environment in the era of rapid urban developments. However, the extant literature revealed salient gaps in the use of cloud-based systems and digital tools to evaluate buildings' sustainability performance. Consequently, the current study aims to develop and implement a cloud-based sustainability assessment (CSA) system to evaluate and compare the sustainability performance of buildings based on the Building Sustainability Assessment Method (BSAM) scheme green rating system. A design science research (DSR) approach was adopted in designing, developing, and validating the CSA system. The developed CSA system is based on the SaaS model of cloud computing. The methods evaluation validation of the CSA system when compared with other systems revealed that the developed CSA system would result in higher time and learning efficiency for the users. The findings from the case study validation of the CSA system, using four building projects, indicate that the developed artefact offers a better secured, automated, reliable, and value-adding tool for the building sustainability assessment process. It also eases the automated process of updating data, evaluating, and comparing building projects towards improving the overall building sustainability profile. More so, the CSA system has a great potential to assist stakeholders in their buildings’ sustainability decision-making process and enhancing sustainable development.

Assessing the effect of structural parameters and building site in achieving low carbon building materialization using a life-cycle assessment approach

The building industry has traditionally been driven by cost and time metrics while meeting quality and safety requirements. However, environmental concerns such as the carbon effect of the final product receive less attention. Due to increasing emissions awareness within the society, there have been calls from the public for greater environmental and social accountability. While many client organizations seek to add environmental measures to their tender selection criteria, efforts to reduce carbon emissions in the building construction are not well understood. This paper proposes that by selecting appropriate structural parameters and building sites, the construction of buildings will be in accordance with a low carbon footprint intensity (CFI). This is demonstrated by the analysis of various factories producing structural materials, along with a wide range of residential buildings. It was found that through the replacement of steel structures with concrete structures, a 24.46% decrease (69.97 kg/m2) in the CFI of structures will be achieved. It was also found that replacing an eight-story steel structure with two different four-story structures will result in a 35.94% (127.82 kg/m2) reduction in carbon intensity. In addition, a 14.44% (47.64 kg/m2) reduction in the CFI of a steel structure located in a site with stiff soil was observed by relocating it to a very dense soil site. This figure for a concrete structure was 13.94% (34.87 kg/m2). It is hoped that project managers and client organizations find the results of this research useful when deciding on structural parameters with lower carbon emissions. In this way, the paper contributes to the current performance of sustainable buildings.

Architectural design quality and social sustainability in building certification systems

Abstract The main objective of the study is to examine to what extent the architectural design quality and social sustainability are taken into account in building certification systems. The following most commonly used building assessments in Europe (focus on Germany, Slovakia and Czech Republic) have been investigated: BREEAM, LEED, CESBA, LEVEL(s), DGNB, BNB, BNK, NaWoh, SBToolCZ and WELL. After extensive research of chosen certification systems and various sources on topics such as conditions of well-being, sociocultural indicators, assessment of social performance of sustainable buildings and design quality assessment, the main social and architectural design quality aspects were determined and used for further analysis and final evaluation. Studied aspects are divided into the following categories: user satisfaction and quality of life (building-related), sustainable and healthy lifestyle (building-related), architecture – design quality (building-related), innovation and social responsibility (external). The article contains a summary of results with overall evaluation and comparison of certification systems including weighting of studied categories in selected building assessments. Furthermore, indicators used in building certifications associated with the quality of life and the quality of architectural expression and their weighting are described and presented.

Influence of Building Information Modeling (BIM) Implementation in High-Rise Buildings towards Sustainability

To secure full benefits without jeopardizing project feasibility, sustainability standards in high-rise building design should be included at all phases of the decision-making process. However, there are limited empirical studies on the influence of building information modeling (BIM) implementation in high-rise buildings. Implementing BIM is a viable technique to improve high-rise building sustainability performance. Therefore, the aim of this research is to explore the influence of BIM implementation in high-rise buildings by integrating the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and structural equation modeling (SEM) approaches. Following a detailed review of the literature to identify critical success factors (CSFs) for BIM implementation, empirical evidence was gathered through a questionnaire survey with 205 stakeholders in construction projects. The EFA revealed five components, namely, productivity, visualization, coordination, sustainability, and safety improvement, all of which have a significant impact on the long-term construction of high-rise buildings. Moreover, SEM was conducted to develop the model for high-rise buildings. However, it has been revealed that awareness and usage level of BIM technology in high-rise buildings still appears to be limited. This scenario paves the way for future researchers to develop more models in the domain of high-rise buildings in order to improve sustainable development.

Sustainability implications of service life on residential buildings – An application of life cycle sustainability assessment framework

Abstract Sustainable building design should consider durability, affordability, resource conservation, intra and inter-generational social equity aspects, and stakeholder’s perspective throughout its service life. This research has applied life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) framework to estimate the sustainability performance in terms of a single score, and to identify avenues for sustainability improvement strategies of buildings. These case study buildings were modeled by taking into account the variation in building materials while maintaining architectural designs, covered area and location constant. The paper demonstrate the flexibility of this LCSA framework as the all indicators are interlinked and any change or improvement in one or some indicators affects others positively and negatively. The sustainability objectives were assessed on an annual basis to capture the implications of the variation in the service life of buildings. Buildings made of recycled steel-framed roof, brick walls, and green concrete used in slab footing, showed higher sustainability performance among case study buildings. The use stage energy consumption and maintenance activities have been identified as the main hotspot. The cleaner production strategies (CPS) including product modification (double glazed window) and technology modification (rooftop solar photovoltaic panels, solar water heaters) were thus deemed appropriate to further reduce the use stage triple bottom line (TBL) impacts. These CPS have improved the sustainability performance of the case study buildings by 30- 49%. The LCSA analysis confirms that the service life of buildings and their components have a significant bearing on the overall sustainability performance of residential buildings. However, the material selection at design phase is crucial to building sustainability performance due to its durability and thermal properties. The longer service life of the building could result in a more sustainable building only if service life of the non-structural components is aligned with service life of building to mitigate the maintenance activities.

Predicting buildings life cycle sustainability behaviour using system dynamics

ABSTRACT Many interventions were introduced using holistic concepts to scale building conformity with sustainability concepts, such as rating systems. Most rating systems efficiently tackled scoring each environmental impact solely at an instance of the building life cycle. However, interaction of different sustainability parameters over complete building life cycle is barely considered. This research presents an initial attempt towards using the behaviour of sustainability parameters over time as a tool for measuring and evaluating building sustainability. This work focuses on studying the interactions between sustainability parameters throughout building life cycle using system dynamics concept. The study's framework includes three main phases: 1) parameters selection, 2) modelling building life sustainability, and 3) policies evaluation. The study introduces Building Sustainability Level (BSL) as a key parameter for evaluation together with some additional Prevailing Parameters (PPs) such as water consumption. BSL provides good representation of expected building sustainability performance, which showed slight unstable behaviour due to initial adoption of sustainability concepts through early years followed by a dramatic growth then a rational rise through the rest of the building life. Moreover, behaviours associated with PPs indicated that most preservation actions impose steady impact through the building life with less sensitivity to change in its magnitude. The study indicates that sustainability parameters behaviours provide good grounds for measuring sustainability, mainly when giving special attention to parameters interaction rather than individual influence. In addition, the tool developed is capable of providing an indication for building future performance and investigating different interference scenarios.

Assessing the adequacy and sustainability performance of multi-family residential buildings in Anambra State, Nigeria

The proliferation of multi-family residential building in Anambra State of Nigeria due to increasing demand without recourse to performance has brought concerns about the adequacy and sustainability of this housing type. This study therefore, assessed the adequacy and sustainability performance of multi-family residential buildings in urban areas of Anambra State. The study sampled the opinions of 384 households living in multi-family residential buildings through a questionnaire survey. We conducted data analysis based on 214 responses that were useful for analysis. The study found that internal and building component variables and supporting neighborhood variables were adequate, but the surrounding environment variables were inadequate based on Mean Score Index. However, based on Sustainability Performance Index, the occupants perceived social sustainability performance of the buildings as satisfactory, while environmental and economic sustainability performance were perceived as fairly satisfactory. The Pearson correlation coefficient result further established that adequacy of internal and building component variables was significantly and positively related to the residents’ perceived social sustainability performance. Adequacy of the surrounding environmental variables was also found to be positively and significantly related to the residents’ perceived environmental sustainability performance, whereas adequacy of supporting neighborhood facilities was found to be negatively and significantly related to the residents’ perceived economic sustainability performance. This suggested that investors and owners of multi-family residential buildings should direct more efforts towards improving the surrounding environment to supplements other facilities and increase the economic benefit of the renters or occupiers with increasing economic sustainability performance in terms of value for money.

Ecomusicology: A socioecological dimension towards acoustically sustainable residential buildings

This study examined the socioecological roles of music sounds towards achieving acoustically sustainable residential building. The study adopted a survey research approach where questionnaires were distributed to the occupants of different types of residential buildings in three urban cities of Anambra State Nigeria. The survey data were analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) Software. The results revealed that music plays significant roles towards acoustically sustainable building performance with the overall average mean score index of 4.36 and a range of 3.64 to 4.87. But the three most outstanding roles played by music towards acoustically sustainable building performance were: Enabling pleasant sound environment (4.87), improving quality of relaxation and resting (4.83), and increasing acoustic comfort and satisfaction (4.79). The result of one-way ANOVA revealed that music sounds significantly influence acoustical sustainability performance of residential buildings (p-value (.000) < α (0.05); F-ratio (148.377) > F-critical (3.020)); and that there was no significance difference between opinions of residents of the three urban cities in this regard (p-value (0.713) > α (0.05); F-ratio (0.338) < F-critical (3.020)). This study therefore, canvassed for integration of music principles and acoustics into sustainable building design processes as a way of achieving a sustainable building.

Use of a wellbeing framework for establishing building sustainability performance requirements in building regulations

Improving the sustainability of New Zealand’s housing stock is a significant challenge. Economic, indoor climate and energy use data indicates the affordability, healthiness and environmental impacts of new and existing houses in New Zealand are relatively poor compared with other OECD countries. Poor performance is largely due to the building energy and environmental performance requirements prescribed by regulations, which are low in New Zealand compared with other jurisdictions. Building performance requirements will need to be raised in order to improve the sustainability of housing.A wellbeing approach to determining public benefits from raising building performance requirements in regulations is outlined in this paper. This approach draws on the Living Standards Framework (LSF) developed by The New Zealand Treasury. This framework links 12 domains of wellbeing to each other and to 4 capital stocks, including housing, that underpin future wellbeing. The LSF is used to assess the impacts of raising building performance requirements on community wellbeing. Results indicate better knowledge of the relationships between the domains of wellbeing and the underpinning capital stocks is needed to improve the identification and analysis of preferred regulatory settings.