Do bea methods fulfil needs of global sustainability initiatives?

Abstract

The last two decades witnessed the notion of sustainable development making its way into growth of all facets of society, including the building industry, which makes a significant impact on the social, environmental and economic well-being of human beings. At present efforts are being made by the building industry to adhere to sustainability norms by introducing green building practices and building environmental assessment (BEA) methods. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a widely accepted BEA method in North America. The existing BEA methods primarily address environmental issues, which restricts the scope within which the performance of a building could be assessed, and are considered as inadequate in addressing sustainable concerns. This paper attempts to determine the extent to which BEA methods adhere to global sustainability requisites with the aid of Agenda 21 - a blueprint for sustainable development adopted by the UN at the Rio Summit - and three selected BEA methods. Accordingly, global sustainability issues as applicable to building industry are determined by analysis of Agenda 21, and are evaluated against credits from BEA methods to establish additional potential sustainability requirements which are verified through feedback from industry professionals.. This exercise paves way for the development of a system to assess sustainability of buildings.