Search Results (10)

Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) represent an innovative approach to thinking and designing cities sustainably, in compliance with the European Union energy strategy. This strategy integrates sectors such as urban planning, energy, and construction to synergistically address energy and environmental challenges. Studies on sustainability assessment systems applied in PEDs evidenced that they focus mostly on energy aspects, while few include a comprehensive life cycle assessment of equivalent CO₂ emissions, considering the building component and the impacts of the materials used. Additionally, most assessments are conducted on the urban and district scale, such as Neighborhood Sustainability Assessments (NSA), which begin to correlate PEDs with the dynamics of selecting sustainable materials for green-certified projects, analyzed throughout the entire life cycle, relying on the adoption of Green Building Rating Systems (GBRS) at the building scale. To explore the impact of environmentally friendly (i.e., ‘green’) GBRS certifications in the selection of building materials and products according to sustainability criteria, and to encourage their use in projects explicitly referring to PEDs, this study analyzes the technical solutions implemented in two significant residential building renovation projects in Italy from a PED perspective. It proposes a classification system based on the required targets of energy efficiency, energy production, and energy flexibility. The results include the definition of an expandable portfolio of technical solutions, an analytical comparison between the materials used in the energy renovation projects of the case studies examined, and the sustainability criteria provided by voluntary ’green’ certification tools (GBRS). The collected evidence offers an operational framework that confirms the positive impact of GBRS certifications and the related selection of materials on sustainable urban development, contributing to the scientific debate on PEDs. Furthermore, the use of voluntary ’green’ certifications at the building scale can be encouraged in the context of the transition towards PEDs, aiming to identify specific criteria and indicators for the selection of building materials to be integrated into future PED certifications. This aims to contribute to creating energy self-sufficient urban areas, focusing on sustainability, efficiency, and innovation, in line with global emission reduction and climate change mitigation goals. Full article

In order to foster a more sustainable and eco-friendly trajectory for the construction industry, while concurrently mitigating environmental pollution and energy inefficiency, it is imperative to cultivate an environmentally conscious building and urban environment. Under the background of Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality, the green building rating system has become a research hotspot in the field of green building. This paper systematically summarizes the research progress of the GBRS in weight setting, indicator setting, and the evaluation process, and creatively proposes the following three directions for future research: (1) Weight determination methods based on machine learning or deep learning models, and reasonable weight allocation by mixing multiple evaluation methods. (2) Setting dynamic evaluation indicators, strengthening interdisciplinary research and regional consideration, and introducing a life cycle assessment to solve the problem of setting indicators in the existing evaluation system. (3) Combine building information modeling with GBRS to realize the automation and intelligence of evaluation and improve the comprehensiveness and accuracy of evaluation. Full article

Existing building carbon emissions contribute to global climate change significantly. Various Green Building Rating Systems (GBRS) have considered low-carbon requirements to regulate the emissions. Low-carbon retrofitting is an important way to reduce existing building CO₂ emissions. However, low-carbon retrofitting of existing public buildings is not sufficient and systematic, and there is a lack of research on low-carbon retrofitting from the perspective of GBRS. The purpose of this study is to propose a carbon emission control framework for existing public buildings based on GBRS analysis and guide the low-carbon retrofitting. This study makes comparisons among the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), Green Mark (GM), and Assessment Standard for Green Retrofitting of Existing Buildings (ASGREB). A low-carbon retrofit pathway for existing public buildings is proposed from the GBRS research for the first time, encompassing six aspects: materials, energy, management, innovation, site, and water, involving 15 measures. Among them, measures on energy and materials are the main considerations, with weights of 18.3% and 17.7%, respectively. Six recommendations for implementation pathways are also given. Furthermore, the necessary measures, the importance of local context and quantification, priorities of materials, and energy scopes are defined. Full article

In most countries, more than one green building rating system (GBRS) is available on the market. Because of their different approaches, it is difficult to confirm which system can respond to sustainability requirements better. A building considered to be “green” by one Green Building Council (GBC) may fail to satisfy the requirements set by another council. The aim of this study is to evaluate the sustainability performance of GBRSs and establish an integrated model of multi-certification for optimal sustainability. A direct content analysis method was utilized to evaluate GBRSs’ qualitative performance using the ISO sustainable building standards. In this study, seven purposively selected multi-certified buildings were evaluated, and an integrated model was proposed as a better mechanism for the multi-certification process. The proposed integrated model contributes to the achievement of sustainability indicators. The model was implemented on case study buildings, and the proposed combination shows better sustainability performance than existing practice. The developed model helps practitioners in their selection of GBRSs in the multi-certification process. In addition, the performance evaluation of GBRSs will support the future update of GBRSs. The qualitative performance evaluation was performed considering mandatory requirements and prerequisite and credit requirements of selected rating systems, making the work a stronger approach than previous studies. Full article

CO₂ emissions of buildings have a critical impact on the global climate change, and various green building rating systems (GBRS) have suggested low-carbon requirements to regulate building emissions. Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), as an integrated technology of photovoltaics and buildings, is an important way to reduce building CO₂ emissions. At present, the low-carbon design path of BIPV from architecture is still not unified and clear, and there is a lack of BIPV research regarding GBRS or from the perspective of architectural design in China. The objective of this study is to propose a framework of indicators related to carbon emission control in BIPV, guiding the path of BIPV low-carbon design. This study makes comparisons among the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), and Assessment Standard for Green Buildings (ASGB), mainly in terms of the scope weight, induction, and measure features. The BIPV low-carbon design involves energy, materials, environmental adaptability, management, and innovation, in which energy and materials are the main scopes with weights of 10.98% and 7.46%, respectively. The five scopes included 17 measures. Following the measures, the path of the BIPV low-carbon design was defined with six aspects. Full article

This study aims to examine the feasibility of using environmental product declarations (EPDs) as a data source for life-cycle assessment (LCA) in two sustainable building assessment schemes–the pilot version of the European framework Level(s) and the German system DGNB (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen). An EPD is a standardized and third-party certified label to communicate product-specific environmental data based on LCA. Some green building rating systems consider it a robust LCA data source and encourage its use over generic data. This work evaluates the environmental profile of the envelope of an office building in the context of level(s) and DGNB adopting EPD as a data source. The results indicate that the EPDs did not cover the mandatory scope of the schemes. Furthermore, there was a lack of EPDs appropriate to the geographical context of the case study, leading to the adoption of EPDs of products from places other than the building site and an overestimation of the environmental impacts of transportation. Moreover, the need for EPDs considering suitable and comprehensive scenarios as well as life-cycle stages beyond the product stage is highlighted. This gap, in fact, hinders the performance of a complete LCA within the analyzed building assessment schemes when relying solely on EPDs as a data source. With this paper, we wish to encourage the further development of EPDs related to the integration of more life-cycle modules and more comprehensive scenarios, considering the direction of the latest amendment of the ISO 15804 for EPDs of construction products. Full article

Scientific literature provides evidence that mitigating the effects of a building’s operation does not in itself ensure an overall improvement in its environmental performance. A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) plays a key role in gauging the overall environmental performance of a building although several authors argue that the lack of LCA threshold values makes it difficult to compare design options or measure whether reduced impact targets are achieved. This has led the Green Building Rating Systems (GBRS) to include the LCA within their evaluation criteria and, in like Active House (AH), establish threshold values of the main impact categories to quantify the level of performance achieved. Since the reliability of the data sources is a crucial issue for applying the LCA method, the effectiveness of their implementation within the GBRS also strictly depends on the origin of the impact values. To quantify the extent to which the source affects the impacts calculated by the LCA threshold value in AH, the present study compared the outcomes of two assessments carried out in parallel using two different data sources: AH–LCA evaluation tool v.1.6 and the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD). A Passive House (PH)-compliant, small residential building was selected as a case study, as this is a standard that excels in ultra-low-energy performance. Moreover, given the crucial role that the envelope plays in the PH standard, the analysis was undertaken on the envelope of a PH-compliant building located in Northern Italy. To stress the influence of embedded effects in a Passive House, the assessment focused on the production and end-of-life stages of building materials. The comparison showed a relevant difference between the two scenarios for all the environmental indicators: e.g., deviations of 10% for Global Warming Potential, 20% for Acidification Potential and Eutrophication Potential, and 40–50% for Renewable Primary Energy. Full article

Increasing problems regarding pollution and climate change have long been demonstrated by scientific evidence. An important portion of carbon emissions are produced by the building sector. These emissions are directly related not only to the building’s energy consumption, but also other building attributes affecting the construction and operation of existing buildings: materials selection, waste management, transportation, water consumption, and others. To help reduce these emissions, several green building rating system (GBRSs) have appeared during the last years. This has made it difficult for stakeholders to identify which GBRSs could be more suitable to a specific project. The heterogeneity of the GRBS scenario requires the creation of a transparent and robust indicator framework that can be used in any country within the European Union (EU), which is a common EU framework of core sustainability indicators for office and residential buildings Level(s) with the goal to provide a solid structure for building sustainability certification across all countries of the EU. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the most common GBRSs within the EU: Building Research Establishment Assessment Method (BREEAM), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen (DGNB), Haute Qualité Environnementale (HQE), and Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED), and a bottom up comparison of the influence in the final score produced by the indicators stated by Level(s). The indicators studied show a different influence of Level(s) indicators on every GBRS, where LEED and BREEAM were most affected while HQE and DGNB were less so. This paper demonstrates the heterogeneity of current GRBSs in the EU scenario and the difference between sustainability assessments, where DGNB seems to be more aligned to the current EU framework. Finally, the paper concludes with the need to work to achieve alignment between the GBRS and Level(s). Full article

Airports around the world are more and more environmentally concerned, increasing their efforts in reducing aviation impacts by applying environmental management, certification systems, or other types of ecological rating systems to their infrastructures and operation. Especially relevant are the airports’ efforts to manage and reduce their CO₂ emissions through Airport Carbon Accreditation, the efforts made by Eurocontrol to encourage collaborative environmental management, or the increasing numbers of airports worldwide that get their terminals certified according to several world-recognized Green Building Rating Standards (GBRS). However, although these standards are state-of-the-art sustainability valuation programs, none of them fully cover all the environmental impacts of aeronautical activity at an airport. This paper presents the results of an exploratory research where the use of a GBRS into a more holistic certification scheme for airports is discussed and areas of challenge are highlighted. The paper seeks to shed some light on the value of holistic approaches from the perspective of maximizing environmental management efficiency and effectiveness, the integration of actions of individual airport partners to potentially encourage greater coordination of efforts, the challenges of dealing with both construction and operational impacts within one scheme, and the accountability difficulties. Full article

While many countries have developed green building rating systems (GBRSs) to promote the concept of green buildings, it is difficult for designers to achieve better sustainability in the design process when using the real-time green building rating score as a reference. This paper proposes an intelligent green building rating (iGBR) framework supported by a semantic and social approach to realize real-time rating in building design. The framework features four components: (1) An ontology that is used to encapsulate the knowledge of green building rating, (2) score calculation rules that are encoded in Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL), (3) Autodesk Forge, which is employed as a building information modeling (BIM)–based design platform to synchronize design models from different professions in the cloud, and (4) a group chat tool to connect all project participants in a social communication environment to effectively exchange data/information required for score calculation. A prototype iGBR system is developed based on the Evaluation Standard for Green Building of China (ESGBC) to verify the framework, so that a total of 95 articles can be assessed automatically in the real-time approach. Full article