Using an integrated performance approach in building assessment tools

Abstract

The shift from ‘green building’ to ‘sustainable building’ entails a number of great challenges and opportunities for the developers and users of planning and building assessment tools. The current assumption is that a new generation of building assessment tools is required to meet the current and forthcoming requirements associated with the description and assessment of each building's contribution to sustainable development. Existing design and assessment tools do not address the many economic, social and performance facets over the life span of a building, and do not provide building assessment results for all dimensions of sustainable development. Different assessment tasks within the design process are analysed, and approaches for the further development of building assessment tools are considered. The integration into a ‘job-sharing approach’ with other instruments and measures of the design, construction and management phase are proposed. A proposal for a comprehensive system for the description and assessment of ‘integrated building performance’ is offered. Recommendations are given for its implementation within the next generation of building assessment tools.

Le passage du ‘bâtiment écologique’ au ‘bâtiment durable’ implique un certain nombre de défis majeurs et offre aux promoteurs et aux utilisateurs l'opportunité de planifier et de développer des outils d'évaluation. Dans l'hypothèse actuelle, il faut mettre au point une nouvelle génération d'outils d'évaluation des bâtiments pour répondre aux exigences actuelles et futures relatives à la description et à l'évaluation de la contribution de chaque bâtiment au développement durable. Les outils de conception et d'évaluation actuels négligent de nombreux aspects économiques, sociaux et fonctionnels qui jalonnent la durée de vie d'un bâtiment et ne fournissent pas les résultats de l'évaluation des bâtiments pour toutes les dimensions du développement durable. Dans cet article, l'auteur analyse différentes opérations d'évaluation dans le cadre du processus de conception et envisage des méthodologies permettant d'améliorer le développement des outils d'évaluation des bâtiments. Il propose l'intégration dans une approche ‘partage des travaux’ avec d'autres instruments et mesures de la phase de conception, construction et gestion. L'auteur propose un système global de description et d'évaluation des ‘performances de bâtiments intégrés’. Il fait également des recommandations relatives à la mise en œuvre dans le contexte de la nouvelle génération d'outils d'évaluation des bâtiments.

outils d'évaluation, bâtiment écologique, performance des bâtiments intégrés, durée de vie, bâtiment basé sur les performances, bâtiment durable, développement durable

Keywords:

• assessment tools
• green building
• integrated building performance
• life cycle
• performance-based building
• sustainable building
• sustainable development

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Richard Lorch and Ray Cole for editorial support. They also thank the anonymous referees for constructive critique and useful comments.

Notes

1. Specialized tools that allow for support of the investment decision on an appropriate location, as well as addressing and accounting for the ‘local context’, are beyond the scope of this paper. It is assumed that the basic investment decision to realize a construction project has also been made before the application of building assessment tools. Issues of risk and return will have been addressed by using other methods and tools not directly related to the objective of this paper. Today, building assessment tools that support sustainable planning and construction of single buildings are usually not applied in order to clarify if (in terms of deciding for an investment into the asset class ‘property’) but how the building or construction measure will be realized. Nonetheless, building assessments could be used to influence basic investment and financing decisions by capturing the risk profile of property assets in more detail. However, due to a number of shortcomings of existing assessment tools and data limitations, this is not yet possible.

2. See http://www.etn-presco.net. For this reason, the authors do not provide detailed examples or descriptions of single tools; nonetheless, they are aware that a number of tools and instruments that support sustainable design and construction are already successfully applied in practice, but their description and detailed comparative assessment would lead beyond the scope of this paper.

3. For a more detailed description and explanation of these instruments, see http://www.uni-weimar.de/scc/PRO/TOOLS/instru.html

4. For Switzerland, see http://www.the-software.de/Ogipl.html; for Germany, see http://www.legep.de

5. See http://www.globalreporting.org and http://www.accountability.org.uk, respectively.

6. In a very general sense, a rating can be defined as a procedure that illustrates the assessment of a thing, a person, a situation, etc., on a scale in order to improve the informational basis for the prediction of future outcomes. Rating is not a new concept; it has been used since the beginning of the 20th century by companies such as Moody's and Standard & Poor's in order to provide information on the financial strengths and willingness of companies to comply with liabilities completely and in time (TEGoVA, 2003).

7. This approach is currently pursued by ISO TC 59/SC 17 Sustainability in Building Construction. See http://www.iso.org/iso/en/stdsdevelopment/tc/tclist/TechnicalCommitteeDetailPage.Techni calCommitteDetail? COMMID = 5595.

8. See http://www.cenorm.be/CENORM/BusinessDomains/TechnicalCommitteesWorkshops/CENTechnicalCommittees/CENTechnicalCommittees.asp?param = 481830 & title = CEN%2F TC + 350

9. See http://www.dena.de

10. This paper was written in 2005 and there may have been changes to the specifications of the standards under development mentioned in the text and references.