Assessing the environmental performance of buildings: trends, lessons and tensions

ABSTRACT

Since the 1970s, intense discussions have occurred within the research and practitioner communities on how to assess and influence the environmental performance of buildings. Many different methods, criteria and tools were developed to raise awareness, enable goal formulation, support design and decision-making processes, and evaluate a building’s environmental performance. This development can be retraced through the example of the works of Raymond J. Cole, who made an important contribution to this scientific debate. The integration of environmental performance into a sustainability assessment, the ongoing development of life cycle assessment (LCA) methods, and clients’, financiers’ and assessors’ different demands for environmental performance assessment, raise additional questions and highlight the conflicting goals. Six topics are examined in relation to current developments: the further development of the classic ‘three pillars’ sustainability model; the suitability of assessment criteria and indicators; the handling of technological progress; the discounting of environmental impacts; the environmental assessment of existing buildings; and the further development of legal requirements. ‘Time’ is a key factor relating to LCA, weighing current versus future emissions, ecological value and recycling potential of existing buildings or ‘options’ for different ways to use the building in future. Recommended actions are provided for key stakeholders.

KEYWORDS:

• buildings
• decision process
• design process
• environmental indicators
• environmental performance
• life cycle
• sustainability assessment
• time

Acknowledgements

The author thanks the editors for the invitation to participate in this festschrift and for their support, as well as the four anonymous reviewers for their helpful recommendations and information on additional literature. Thanks are also extended to the author’s colleagues from France, Finland and the Netherlands for providing valuable information on the situation in their country.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Thomas Lützkendorf http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5430-4398

Notes

1. In addition to these two mentioned special issues, Cole also acted as guest editor for four other special issues, again all in this journal: ‘Cost and Value in Building Green’ (2000), vol. 28(5–6); ‘Motivating Stakeholders to Deliver Environmental Change’ (2011), vol. 39(5); ‘Regenerative Design and Development’ (2012), vol. 40(5); and ‘Net-Zero and Net-Positive Design’ (2015), vol. 43(1).

2. See also http://www.usgbc.org/articles/business-case-green-building/.

3. See http://www.bamb2020.eu/.

4. See http://www.world-architects.com/en/pages/page_item/biennale-architettura-2012-2/ (under Germany).

5. See https://standards.cen.eu/ (under ‘technical bodies’).

6. See also http://www.annex57.org/.

7. See also http://www.batiment-energiecarbone.fr/.

8. See also http://www.ym.fi/fi-FI/Ajankohtaista/Tiedotteet/Selvitys_rakennusten_hiilijalanjaljen_va(43779)/.

9. As described by Ronald Rovers in a personal communication, 1 July 2017; see also https://www.rvo.nl/onderwerpen/duurzaam-ondernemen/gebouwen/wetten-en-regels-gebouwen/nieuwbouw/milieuprestatie-gebouwen

10. See https://www.findamasters.com/masters-degrees/germany/?40Mw00&Keywords=sustainable+building; http://www.dgnb-akademie.de/akademie/kooperationen/hochschulen.php; http://www.iisbe.org/imosb/.

11. See also http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/smgp/dev_methods.htm

12. See also http://www.nachhaltigesbauen.de/baustoff-und-gebaeudedaten/oekobaudat.html