Sustainability Assessments Of Buildings

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Sustainability Assessments of Buildings" that was published in Sustainability

Sustainability in the built environment is a major issue facing policy-makers, planners, developers and designers in the UK, Europe and worldwide. The measuring of buildings and cities for sustainability becomes increasingly important as pressure for green, sustainable development translates into policy and legislation. The problems of such measurement and evaluation are presented by the authors in contributions which move from the general to the particular, e.g. from a general framework for an environmentally sustainable form of urban development to a specific input-output model application to environmental problems. The book is divided into three parts: the first covers city models and sustainable systems - research programmes, environmental policies, green corporations and collaborative strategies to make urban development more sustainable; part two discusses the problems of evaluating the built environment in planning and construction, covering economic and environmental methods and construction, development and regeneration processes; part three illustrates a number of applications using different approaches and techniques and referring to a range of environmental aspects of the natural and built environment, from maintaining historic buildings to transport management and air pollution monitoring.

This Special Issue covers a wide range of areas—including building orientation, service life, use of photocatalytically active structures and PV facades, implications of transportation system, building types (i.e., high rise, multilevel, commercial, residential), life cycle assessment, and structural engineering—that need to be considered in the environmental impact assessment of buildings, and the chapters include case studies across the globe. Consideration of these strategies would help reduce energy and material consumption, environmental emissions, and waste generation associated with all phases of a building’s life cycle. Chapter 1 demonstrates that green star concrete exhibits the same structural properties as conventional concrete in Australia. Chapter 2 showed that the use of TiO2 as a photocatalyst on the surface of construction materials with a suitable stable binding agent, such as aggregates, would enable building walls to absorb NOx from air. This study found that TiO2 has the potential to reduce ambient concentrations of NOx from areas where this pollutant becomes concentrated under solar irradiation. Chapter 3 presents the life cycle assessment of architecturally integrated glass–glass photovoltaics in building facades to find the appropriate material composition for a multicolored PV façade offering improved environmental performance. Chapter 4 shows that urban office buildings lacking appropriate orientation experienced indoor overheating. Chapter 5 details four modeling approaches that were implemented to estimate buildings’ response towards load shedding. Chapter 6 covers the life cycle GHG emissions of high-rise residential housing block to discover opportunities for environmental improvement. Chapter 7 discusses an LCA framework that took into account variation in the service life of buildings associated with the use of different types of materials. Chapter 8 presents a useful data mining algorithm to conduct life cycle asset management in residential developments built on transport systems.

International research has confirmed that the built environment is the most promising sector for a rapid transition to sustainability. In this scenario, many examples of sustainable urban environments are showing the advantages of sustainability. Meanwhile, an increasing request for tools to assess their sustainability is recorded. The assessment of sustainability of the built environment is an essential step toward its promotion. However, large difficulties exist creating useful and measurable assessment indicators since sustainability is time- and location-dependent. Meanwhile, the need to assess both products and processes for sustainable buildings has been considered particularly important for a sector as inertial as that of the built environment. This books contains ten recently published papers in the Special Issue about "Sustainability assessments of buildings". The demand for this Special Issue raised from the floor, as more and more papers dealing with this topic were submitted to Sustainability in the last few months. The need to collect the recent research in this field became evident, and the respond to the call showed the high attention of the scientific community towards this topic. A selection of ten papers among those published in the special issue will guide the reader thorough the variety of approaches in sustainability assessments of buildings and their main challenges.

Assessing and Measuring Environmental Impact and Sustainability answers the question “what are the available methodologies to assess the environmental sustainability of a product, system or process? Multiple well-known authors share their expertise in order to give a broad perspective of this issue from a chemical and environmental engineering perspective. This mathematical, quantitative book includes many case studies to assist with the practical application of environmental and sustainability methods. Readers learn how to efficiently assess and use these methods. This book summarizes all relevant environmental methodologies to assess the sustainability of a product and tools, in order to develop more green products or processes. With life cycle assessment as its main methodology, this book speaks to engineers interested in environmental impact and sustainability. Helps engineers to assess, evaluate, and measure sustainability in industry Provides workable approaches to environmental and sustainability assessment Readers learn tools to assess the sustainability of a process or product and to design it in an environmentally friendly way

This monograph offers analyses of construction activities using various key concepts and assessments of sustainable development, and provides students and researchers with methodologies and design aspects for the sustainable development of the built environment. Additionally, the book demonstrates various national and international policies for assisting architects, engineers and policy makers in understanding the relevant decision-making approaches to sustainable development in construction. The book begins by reviewing the background of sustainability and sustainable development. The focus then turns to the effects of climate change on the built environment, including impacts of energy and carbon emissions, as well as constraints on water and waste management. The remaining chapters discuss the necessary approaches to achieve sustainable waste management, energy efficient building design, and resilience and adaptation in the built environment In eight chapters, the book encourages readers to think independently, logically and objectively about the complex issues presented by the applications of sustainable development in construction, including resource efficiency, environmental impacts, human health, building economics and social development.

Construction, Buildings, Construction works, Sustainability, Sustainable development, Measurement, Performance, Quality, Life (durability), Life cycle, Environmental engineering, People, Sociology, Definitions