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Evolving green building: triple bottom line or regenerative design?
Accepted Manuscript Evolving Green Building: Triple Bottom Line or Regenerative Design? Zhonghua Gou, Xiaohuan Xie PII:
S0959-6526(16)00254-7
DOI:
10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.02.077
Reference:
JCLP 6778
To appear in:
Journal of Cleaner Production
Received Date: 29 June 2015 Revised Date:
7 February 2016
Accepted Date: 16 February 2016
Please cite this article as: Gou Z, Xie X, Evolving Green Building: Triple Bottom Line or Regenerative Design?, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.02.077. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Evolving Green Building: Triple Bottom Line or Regenerative Design?
Zhonghua Gou
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School of Environment, Griffith University, Australia
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Xiaohuan Xie
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School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shenzhen University, China
Correspondence:
Email: [email protected]; [email protected] Address:
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Science, Engineering and Architecture (G39) 3.40 Griffith University Gold Coast Campus
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QLD 4222, Australia
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Evolving Green Building: Triple Bottom Line or Regenerative Design?
Abstract: The research aims to envision the next generation green building. It starts from a review of
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critiques on green building concepts and practices. The critiques mainly come from two perspectives: one is triple bottom line and the other is regenerative design, which require that green building should cover holistic sustainability as well as raise its benchmark. Revisiting
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green building rating systems (such as LEED), the article found that the green building concept and framework is being evolved to embrace sustainability critiques not in a way of
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bringing more ambiguous, complicate indicators but through leverage, linkage and contextualization. This article also argues that the rhetoric debate on triple bottom line and regenerative design does not help much to push forward building practices for more sustainable built environments. It is necessary to evolve the current engineering approach to
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benchmarking and measuring building performance. An ecological approach is anticipated for next generation green building practices.
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Keywords: green building, triple bottom line, regenerative design, sustainability, LEED
Highlights:
Critiques on green building are reviewed. Suggestive frameworks for sustainable design are compared. Green building concept and practice are interrogated. Next generation green building should be more physical rather than rhetorical. There must be an ecological design approach to replace the engineering approach
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 1. Introduction
Green building usually refers to a building and using process aiming to reduce the overall impact of the built environment on human health and the natural environment by efficiently
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using energy, water, and other resources and by reducing waste, pollution and environmental degradation (USGBC, 2009). As a result of increased interest in green building concepts and practices, a number of countries and areas have developed tools for designing and measuring
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green buildings, which can also let government regulators, building professionals and developers embrace green building with confidence. Well-known tools such as BREEAM
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(United Kingdom), LEED (United States and Canada), DGNB (Germany), Green Star (Australia), Green Mark (Singapore) and CASBEE (Japan) have helped the professionals quantify environmental performance in an explicit way. These tools mainly adopt a credit and score awarding system for design features that can minimize a building’s environmental
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impact in categories such as location and site, conservation of water, energy, and materials, and occupant comfort and health. The number of credits or scores generally determines the level of achievement. These assessment or measurement tools have individually and made
significant
contributions
to
understanding
of
building-related
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collectively
environmental impacts.
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However, they are facing intensive critiques on their capacity to define a sustainable built environment that is more complex and synergistic. Although these methods are continuously updated both in content and for different kind of applications, the update is usually driven by marketing needs and seldom takes into account the critiques raised in theoretical and empirical research. This article reports a review of these critiques and suggestions on green building concepts and practices, aiming to anticipate the next generation green building.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2. Methodology and Framework
Basically, the research methodology is literature review. An exhaustive literature search was conducted using Scopus and Web of Science and searching keywords are one or any
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combinations of “green building” + “review” + “standards” + “design”. Initially, 206 articles are found. After preliminarily screening title and abstract and eliminating duplicates, 115 articles remain for the further selection. The second round selection is based on three research
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aims: to identify critiques; to find out suggestions; and to revisit green building concepts and practices. Finally, 64 articles fall into the three aims (Table 1). Among all, 31 empirical as
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well as theoretical studies are found on comparing green building standards, and examining green building environmental performance and social and economic impacts. 15 articles look for suggestive, alternative design guidelines or frameworks for sustainable building practices. The explorative frameworks are mainly developed by architectural companies and research
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institutes. These explorations inspired the research to revisit current green building rating systems. 18 articles focus on some key green building standards to find implications to address critiques and embrace explorations. Besides the 64 articles, relevant books, reference
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guides and reports are reviewed for more in-depth and comprehensive discussion.
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Review Aims
Review Themes
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Table 1. Review aims, themes and references Sources
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(Alwaer et al., 2008; Burnett et al., 2005; Burnett and Yik, 2001; Chew and Das, 2008; Choguill, 2008; Cole, 1998, 1999, 2005; Conte and Monno, 2012; Cooper, 1999; Dammann and Elle, 2006; Ding, 2008; Gething and Bordass, 2006;
Weighting and Indicators/
Gou et al., 2013a; Gou et al., 2013b; Haapio and Viitaniemi, 2008; Horvat and Fazio, 2005; Kaatz et al., 2006; Kimata,
Environmental Performance and
1999; Kohler, 1999; Liu et al., 2006; Lützkendorf and Lorenz, 2006; Ng et al., 2013; Papamichael, 2000; Robinson,
Social and Economic Impacts
2004; Sharifi and Murayama, 2013; Todd et al., 2001; Todd and Geissler, 1999; Wallhagen and Glaumann, 2010; Zhang
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Green Building Scope,
To identify critiques
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et al., 2011; Zuo and Zhao, 2014) 31
Alternative frameworks:
(Clegg, 2012; Cole, 2011; Cole et al., 2011; Cole et al., 2013; Cooper, 2012; du Plessis, 2011; Hoxie et al., 2011; Mang
SPeAR; REGEN; LENSES;
and Reed, 2011; Newton, 2013; Pedersen Zari, 2011; Plaut et al., 2011; Reed, 2007; Svec et al., 2011; Tainter, 2012;
Peter & Wills Framework
Williams, 2012) 15
To find out
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To revisit green
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suggestions
(Alyami et al., 2013; Becker, 2004; Berardi, 2013; Burnett, 2007; Chau et al., 2000; Geng et al., 2012; Gou and Lau,
LEED; HK-BEAM; BREEAM; building concepts and
2014; Hiete et al., 2011; Lee and Burnett, 2006; Lombardi and Brandon, 2007; Murakami et al., 2011; Olgyay and Herdt,
Green Star; CASBEE and so on practices
2004; Retzlaff, 2008; Schweber and Haroglu, 2014; Scofield, 2013; Tam et al., 2004; Tam, 2007; WB., 2003) 18
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 3. Critiques
Table 2 selects some of literatures to show key appraisals as well as criticisms based
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on the first literature review. Basically, green building assessment and rating follow a structure of scopes, weightings, credits and points in a stringent way, which is easily understood, communicated and applicable.
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Review of existing green building design indicators and coverage tends to find that the emerging importance of issues such as social and economic sustainability,
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life-cycle assessment and climate change were not yet fully addressed or answered in these tools (Cole, 2005). Most of the tools were focused too much on environmental sustainability while did not do well with respect to the coverage of social, economic, and institutional aspects of sustainability (Zhang et al., 2014). Most tools were
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originally developed to reflect national or local priorities of sustainability issues. However, they have been directly used or adapted for use in other countries as they
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have gained wide markets throughout the world. For example, LEED, originated from the U.S. had been applied to more than 30 countries. Arguably, importing these tools
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from one nation to others caused problematic consequences especially on economic and social sustainability. To address these weaknesses, a standardized methodology and generalized framework with specific environmental criteria for changing and fine-tuning were needed. To reduce biases and conflicts, it is suggested that performance criteria or credits reflect national, regional, and cultural varieties by assigning weights to various credits according to the local and regional conditions.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT The review of measurement and benchmark of these green building concepts and practices pointed to the deficiency of measurement of environmental performance. The measurement and benchmark ‘green building’ which lays the foundation for the
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common attributes of different green building tools is based on reducing negative impacts (Figure 1), such as reducing resource use and reducing energy consumptions. It has been used consistently to describe buildings that have a less negative
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environmental impact compared with that of typical buildings. A green building’s
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energy and water savings are discernible by the extent to which it achieves the performance standards, such as saving energy by 30%. However, the information is often of relativity and does not delineate what is a sustainable building. By contrasting the levels of environmental performance of the baseline or benchmarks
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(Burnett, 2007), it was argued that the absolute levels of performance of the baseline or benchmarks, as well as the targets for environmental sustainability, were largely unknown. As performance standards rise with more buildings becoming green in
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future, the green building tools have to be raised incrementally. It is becoming
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increasingly evident that focusing on ‘getting more points’ for ‘doing less harm’ as encouraged by current green building tools, will not necessarily produce design solutions that support and strengthen the human-nature system.
In sum, these critiques pointed out two ways moving forward green building concepts and practices: one is expanding the indicator system of green building to more holistically cover sustainability; the other is changing the benchmark of green from reducing to increasing for a positive development. To address the first, the
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT current green building design and assessment tools needs to compose a more comprehensive set of indicators and more flexible framework to be adapted to different contexts. For the latter, it needs to address co-existence and co-evolution of
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buildings and natures by regenerating buildings or creating something new.
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Strengths
Weaknesses
(Chew and Das,
Lucidity and user friendliness
Reluctance, insufficient
2008)
transparency and complexity
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(Alwaer et al., Quantitative methods (Kaatz et al.,
actors Differentiate negative and positive
Clearly defining desired outputs and
processes
outcomes
(Todd et al.,
An attractive and simple checklist
Negative aspects of the building are not
Include negative effect to push
2001)
system
reflected in the overall score
performance
Unable to offer different levels of
Reflecting globalization and
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A clear understanding
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2006)
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building-related environmental issues
performance
Lack of quality of social and technical Fostering sustainable construction
(Lützkendorf and
Develop a common language among key
Inflexibility, partiality, unfairness
2008)
(Cole, 1998)
Opportunities
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Reference
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Table 2. Summary of comparative studies of different green building rating systems
assessment output
standardization
Less addressing economic, social and
An assessment result for all dimensions
performance facets
of sustainable development
Meeting the current requirements Lorenz, 2006) (Haapio and
Covering different types of buildings
Uncertainties in the calculations, analyses Envision transforming from today
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and interpretations of the results
towards future
(Conte and
Little respecting the complexity and
Identify relationships between buildings,
dynamism that affects regional contexts.
built environment and nature
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Viitaniemi, 2008) and different labels and certificates Organized framework and structure
Monno, 2012) Reflecting current status of
Lack of priorities on certain sustainability Balance completeness in the coverage
Rezgui, 2012)
sustainable development in buildings
issues.
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(Alyami and
and simplicity of use
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Reduce Damage
Reduce Energy Uses
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Reduce Material Uses
Green Building
Reduce Carbon Emission
Reduce Water Uses
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Reduce Negative Impacts on Occupants and Communities
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Reduce Hazadous
Figure 1. The benchmark of green building based on reducing negative impacts
4. Explorations
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(Adapted from Cole, R.J., 2011)
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There are a number of suggestive frameworks for defining and benchmarking
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sustainable building. This article selects four most representative frameworks (Figure 2): Arup Arup SPeAR (Sustainable Project Appraisal Routine), REGEN, LENSES (Living Environments in Natural, Social and Economic Systems), and Peter and Willis Framework. They are developed by architectural companies and research institutes. They all found weaknesses of current green building concepts and practices, and aimed to develop alternative frameworks. Frist of all, looking at their compositions and expressions, we will find that they
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT have a common assumption of sustainable design as a circle and cycle. The most explicit is the Perkins & Will framework that sets resource-related design strategies within cycles – from nature and back to nature (Cole et al., 2011). It sets human needs,
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interactions and resource flows within and interdependent of the constraints and opportunities afforded by natural systems. Specifically, it tracks material, energy and water flow from nature, through human systems and back into nature. A critical role
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of buildings becomes engaging in the resource (energy, water and materials) flows to
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support the maintenance of ecosystem functions and to provide necessary services. To achieve this goal, this framework proposes four quadrants of the cycles representing producing, using, recycling and replenishing. To intervene the resource flows, this framework also covers approaches and strategies within the physical bounds of the
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site and those beyond the bounds of the site.
The second commonality is about coverage. They seem to be more ambitious to define sustainability as well as its indicators. For example, the REGEN framework is
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composed of nested systems (Svec et al., 2011). At the broadest level, components of
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life are organized into four quadrants: robust and resilient natural systems, high-performing constructed systems, prosperous economic systems and whole social systems; at the next level, components of life include water, flora, fauna, energy systems, transportation systems, capital, employment, food, social justice, public health etc. The LENSES framework uses a similar layered visual model to illustrate interconnections and assists users in seeing and understanding whole systems (Plaut et al., 2011). In total there are three lenses: ‘Foundational Lens’ representing principles,
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT underlying themes and core values of sustainability, ‘Aspects of Place Lens’ containing key aspects of the built environment, and ‘Flows Lens’ including various elements that flow throughout a place. The lenses are designed to spin on a centre
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pivot, which encourages users to contemplate interconnectedness of the various elements.
Third, they all provide a conceptual design framework to guide dialogue rather
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than quantitative requirements or criteria. For example, REGEN envisions that a
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project team can input basic information about their project type, scale and location and the tool will instantly populate with everything that is known within the tool about that place and its current state of health. In this way, a place-based dialogue can begin among community leaders and decision-makers. This view could stimulate
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dialogue about the data that are or are not available for the region and also whether those findings coincide with the perceptions of local people. The dialogue can continue to consider potential combinations of strategies that might be most
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appropriate in that place to enhance the components toward a greater state of health.
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In addition, an open space is left on each lens to suggest that designers can determine whether any further pertinent topics or issues should be added to the lens. To shift away from rules and regulations that may lead to contextually inappropriate solutions, LENSES uses descriptive metrics under each aspect to allow for flexibility and contextually appropriate solutions. Fourth, these frameworks explicitly distinguish negative and positive impacts and emphasize on creating positive outcomes. Most strategies impact multiple
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT components sometimes positively and sometimes negatively. For example, the assessment on each indicator in SPeAR has five different rating levels which range between +3 and -1 (ARUP, 2012). A rating of +3 is colored dark green representing
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best case and a rating of -1 is dark red representing worst case. RGEN also features these positive and negative impacts in a complex web of connections. By entering at one or more components, participants will discover the strategies that are connected to
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the components. In this way, multiple-benefit strategies can be visually identified and
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then explored. Different from LEED that has rigid criteria for each indicator and each credit or score has to have a numeric result to compare against the benchmark, some of the credits in these frameworks can be quantified while some require a subjective
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ranking.
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Figure 2. Four alternative design frameworks for sustainable building (upper left: REGEN; upper right: LENSES; lower left: Perkins & Will; lower right: SPeAR)
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(Adapted from Cole et al., 2011, Svec et al., 2011, Plaut et al., 2011, and ARUP, 2012)
Table 3 summarizes key differences between green building design and explorative sustainable design. Compared to current green building’s conservative thinking, these explorative frameworks tend to be more proactive and positive. However, they do not have specific requirements on how to design or assess these variables. These frameworks just open up a dialogue about adoption of regenerative approaches and
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT processes. Application of these frameworks largely depends on the context in which they are used and on designers who are using them. These frameworks do not generate a new rating system or level of certification, and no comparable
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measurements and outcomes are generated from these frameworks. Therefore, using these frameworks is confined to the early stage of designing a project. They can complement existing green building rating systems by allowing dialogue, reflection
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and learning, thus intriguing unique solutions for specific places and contexts,
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especially on the resource flow that is an important measurement of the impact of a building on the nature.
Table 3. What green building can learn from alternative design frameworks
Diagram
Reduce, reuse, recycle, etc.
Alternative design frameworks
replacement, renewal, rebirth, etc.
A list of building related A
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Design principle
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Green building frameworks
processes
of
regeneration by design
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sustainability issues
cyclical
Decision-making
Depending on international Depending on local context and
and national design codes, design professionals’ decision regulations, etc.
making
Approach
Scoring and weighting
A framework for dialogue
Measurement
Performance
Resource flow
Objective
Quantity
(e.g.
resource Quality
(e.g.
resource
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Low
upgrading) (e.g.
structured High
(e.g.
no
structured
template)
Quantification
Scores
Partial/No quantification
Outcome
Green tiers
Partial/No tangible outcome
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template)
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5. Revisit Green Building Evolution
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There are quite a number of studies examining the green building standards and their revisions. Rather than examining rhetorical advancements or technical improvements, this revisit interrogates the green building framework, benchmark and measurement based on triple bottom line and regenerative design that are the two main critiques
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facing green building concepts and practices. Particularly, this article uses LEED as a case study for this interrogation. LEED provides an international tool defining green
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building concepts as well as guiding their practices. It evolves through several generations in past decades. LEED for New Construction (NC) v1.0 was released in
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2000 as the first LEED design tool mainly for new commercial office buildings. LEED NC v2.0 and LEED NC v2.2 were released in 2005 and LEED NC v3 in 2009 to cover other building types including offices, libraries, churches, hotels and government buildings. Using NC as a template, LEED for Commercial Interiors, Neighborhoods, Healthcare, Operation etc. were one by one released. In 2013, LEED NC v4 is published representing state-of-the-art green building tools (USGBC, 2013).
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT This article examines LEED evolution from v3 to v4, aiming to understand how to the current situations as well as the ways forward.
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5.1 Framework
First of all, we need to acknowledge the fact that green or sustainable building rating systems are building-centric. Table 4 summarises main aspects covered in most
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recent green building standards. They have similar aspects which cover a building’s environmental impact from the global scale (e.g. site, land, emissions, etc.), through
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the local scale (e.g. transport, energy, water, etc.), and to the building scale (e.g. indoor environments, management, etc.). Under each aspect, there are supportive indicators or credits to measure the performance. Even though these methods try to
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encompass as many sustainability indicators as possible in a simple checklist system, these indicators are not able to cover all important sustainability issues. Following the consciousness of climate change and natural resources depletion, different assessment
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frameworks, systems and tools have tended to privilege a few, specific environmental
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indicators such as energy and water assessment. Few of them seemed to include social and economic indicators of sustainability. On the other hand, although the triple-bottom line concept referring to the three dimensions of social, environmental and economic sustainability is well known, there is no consensus established regarding the selection of the social and economic performance indicators for buildings. Rather than adding more ambiguous indicators or aspects into the green building rating systems, it is more important to understand how to use the current
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT frame to contextualize buildings in a larger socio-economic context (Gou and Lau,
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2014).
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GBL 2014 for Civic
BREEAM 2014 for
LEED 2013 for
CASBEE 2010 for
Building Design
New Construction
New Construction
New Construction
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Table 4. Aspects covered in building environmental assessment methods Green Star 2014 for
BEAM Plus 2012
for New Buildings
Design & As Built
for New Buildings
- Energy Efficiency
- Management
- Site Aspects
- Water Efficiency
- Indoor Environment
- Material Aspects
Quality
- Energy Use
- Energy
- Water Use
- Transport
-
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and Major Renovations
Green Mark 2013
- Integrative Process
- Energy
- Location and Transportation
-
Wellbeing
- Sustainable Sites
Materials
-
- Energy Saving and
- Energy
- Water Efficiency
- Off-site Environment
Protection
Utilization
- Transport
- Energy and Atmosphere
- Indoor Environment
-
- Water Saving and
- Water
- Material and Resources
- Quality of Service
Environmental
- Water
Environmental
Utilization
- Materials
-
- Outdoor Environment
Quality
- Materials
Quality
- Material Saving and
- Waste
Quality
on Site
-
Utilization
-
Environment
-
Indoor
Environment Quality
Health
Land
Ecology - Pollution
Use
and
and
Indoor
- Innovation
Resources
Environmental
- Regional Priority
and
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-
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Outdoor
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- Management
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- Land Saving and
Environmental
Indoor
Other
Features
Green
-
Land
Use
Ecology - Emissions
and
Indoor
- Innovations and Additions
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT The most significant response to regenerative design is a new category “Integrative Process” to encourage an open dialogue for an early analysis of optimizing energy, water and materials flows in buildings. The intention is enhanced
“Building-Level
Water
Metering”,
“Building-Level
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by new credits respectively in Water, Energy and Material. For example, Energy
Metering”
and
“Advanced Energy Metering”, and “Building Life-cycle Impact Reduction” are new
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credits in LEED v4 to track the resources uses and flows.
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The response to social sustainability could be detected in a new category “Location and Transport” that highlights the significant role of transport related energy consumptions. The innovation is that this category could be alternatively achieved if the design is certified by LEED for Neighborhood Development (ND) that is more
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focused on walkability, a sense of place, social cohesion and stability, and resiliency (Weshah and Sadeghpour, 2011). Other standards such as Japan CASBEE has a assessment
method
to
neighborhood
and
community
frameworks
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similar
(CASBEE-City) rather than solely on an individual building (Murakami et al., 2011).
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These large scale frameworks tend to appreciate how a part of the whole city moves towards some pre-defined goals of sustainable urban development and begin to give the right weight and place the proper attention to social issues usually underestimated by the same systems when evaluating buildings. For a larger urban context, LEED v4 has an important new credit: “Site Assessment” that assesses site conditions before design to evaluate sustainable options and inform related decisions about site design. The site assessment shall include topography, hydrology, climate, vegetation, soils,
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT human use and health effects etc. This is an important revision to address the regional and local context.
Although there is no direct indicator for economical sustainability, we can still
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grasp the indication through credits on building product disclosure and optimization in the category of “Materials and Resources”. It is a very important step to push green
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product suppliers and manufacturers to disclose the life cycle environmental impact of their product; where and how they get their raw materials; what is in their product;
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and whether there is anything hazardous. By disclosure, their products can be more attractive in the market. Disclosure is a basic step towards further greener and cleaner production. Green consumers are more aware of how and where to source and select products and how their behavior would impact the environment (Zhang et al., 2011).
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Consequently, suppliers and manufacturers have to be more environmental-friendly on their production because they need to be totally transparent to disclose information
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related to environmental and health impacts (Espinoza et al., 2012). Transparency and disclosure inevitably elevate the market entry for green building products.
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Obviously, green building has a well-established framework and this framework
has been tried and proved as effective tool in building industry. The effect of green building in sustainable development never relies on the coverage or scope of indicators. The effect is radiant (Figure 3). Green building has the capability of further stimulating green building market by asking the market to provide green products and to beat out uncertified products that may be environmental unfriendly. The aspect of indoor environments for occupant health, productivity and well-being is another
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT attraction to the real estate market (Gou et al., 2013a). The green building is also linked to a larger society via its neighborhoods and communities. The framework is adaptive to address regenerative design thinking such as upcycling, upgrading and
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regeneration in energy, water and materials, and also to track their flows by metering, monitoring and ingredients disclosure. The explorative design frameworks, such as Arup SPeAR (Sustainable Project Appraisal Routine), REGEN, LENSES (Living
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Environments in Natural, Social and Economic Systems), and Peter and Willis
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Framework, can be applied in the integrative design process for an open dialogue in early design stage. In sum, the concept of green building is flexible to embrace both
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triple bottom line and regenerative design.
Figure 3. Radiant effects of green building
5.2 Benchmark
What’s really challenging is embracing critiques in green building practices. The
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT measurement and benchmark of green building performance is dominated by engineering standards and methods. For example, LEED assess a building’s energy performance using ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and
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Air-Conditioning Engineers) as a baseline and the assessment result is “percentage of saving” of the proposed design compared to the baseline. Up to 18 credits go to “Optimize Energy Performance”. According to a large scale survey of energy uses in
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121 LEED buildings (Turner and Frankel, 2008), the median energy use intensity for
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LEED buildings is 69 kBtu/sf/yr (British thermal units per square foot per year), which is 24% below the average for all commercial building stock in U.S. Although the benchmark shows a relative reduction of energy uses, it could not tell the absolute or direct impact of a building on the natural environment.
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To benchmark both negative and positive impacts of a building on the natural environment, Olgyay and Herdt proposed ecosystems services criteria to benchmark green buildings. The ecosystem services not only include energy, water, and materials,
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but also cover soil, food, etc. Based on the ecological footprint carrying capacity
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baseline, the quantities of ecosystem services can be measured in (ecosystem productivity)*(land area)/(year) (Olgyay and Herdt, 2004). They also used a farmhouse as an example to show how the negative impact becomes positive through the measuring its resources consumptions and ecosystem productivity. Albeit the case is atypical, the method provides a possible solution to benchmark regenerative design by using an ecological approach.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 5.3 Measurement
The shifting from engineering to ecology should not confine to the benchmark of building energy performance; it must also happen to the measurement of design
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practices. In “Optimize Energy Performance”, the measurement heavily relies on ASHRAE standards. The design is measured and assessed in terms of how well
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insulated the building envelope and glazing systems are. In practice, U-value, R-value, air-tightness, shading coefficients are common design criteria for building energy
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efficiency. These simplified factors resulted in more and more insulated green buildings (sealed curtain walls and full air-conditioning), which largely rejects energy and resources flowing into or through buildings. Without bringing energy and resources such as heat, light, wind and water into buildings, it is impossible to
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regenerate or create new energies and resources. For a regenerative design, green building needs an ecological design solution which should be non-isolated,
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non-steady, non-equilibrium, and dissipative. As shown in Figure 4, green building based on the engineering approach rejects
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kinetic energy and resources coming into buildings; while regenerative design needs an open or permeable building to receive these energy and resources, to use them to create a comfortable space, to transform them into new energy and resources, and to feed-back to the nature. It requires that green building bring as much as possible heat, light, wind and water into buildings and use design and technologies to transform or filter them into desirable amount and form. Numerous design and technologies can be found for this transformation or filtration: such as low-exergy heating or cooling,
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT breathing walls, water treatment and so on. However, employments of these design and technologies require a new building form with dissipative structure. Otherwise, the technologies just become additions or attachments rather than an integrative part
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of a building.
Figure 4. Shifting design practices from insulation to filtration
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Shifting green building practices from insulation to filtration is not easy, because insulation is deeply imbedded in the modernity of architecture. Kiel Moe (2014)
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articulated the roles of the various agents inherent in the technological momentum of insulation and its associated practices: architects, engineers, scientists, materials,
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equations, thermodynamics, codes, test standards, entrepreneurs, academics, marketing and consumers. The science theory about energy, thermodynamics simply and reductively applied to building design through standards, codes and single indices that dominate current green building practices. The phenomenon is also reflected on the current situation of human comfort, which is based on state-steady assumption that human comfort is achieved in equilibrium of heat losses and gains and it needs a neutral environment for comfort (Gou et al., 2013b), and that to do so, it is necessary
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT to seal the building and to use full air conditioning. A new design approach for regenerative sustainability goes beyond the epistemology of energy efficiency and conservation. It needs an ecological approach
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to introduce heat, light, wind and water into buildings and to design energy hierarchies to transform them. The ecological design is not just adding more greenery. The ecological design approaches must go beyond an engineering understanding of
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efficiency, insulation and reduction. Otherwise, it just makes green building literarily,
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outwardly green. The ecological design approach for next generation green building is aimed for architectural expressions of energy and resources hierarchies and flows in buildings. There must be in-depth inter-disciplinary research between architecture and
6. Discussion
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ecology.
The building-centric concept of green and sustainability is practical, realizable since
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the building industry has a long history and experience of praxis. The flexible
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framework of green building makes it receptive to cover more sustainability aspects through leveraging building industry and real estate market, linking neighborhoods and communities, and contextualizing in a larger urban context. The way to move forward green building is not about bringing more complicate, ambiguous indicators. The benchmark and measurement used in green building must be significantly evolved to practice sustainability. The engineering approach to benchmarking and measuring building performance blocks the way towards a more sustainable built
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT environment. The engineering approach of benchmark and measurement in building industry is historical, which accumulatively shaped the form, space and materiality of modern architecture. It also lays the foundation of designing a green building. The
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core value of the engineering approach is efficiency, reduction, insulation and neutrality. To change this situation, there must be at least two evolutions: the first is a new benchmark of green building energy performance that shows not only negative
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impacts but also positive impact of a building may have on nature or earth; the second
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is a new measurement of green building design that measure how much energies from nature a building receives and how these energies are transformed and regenerated in buildings. The two evolutions must happen reciprocally, synergistically. Actually, regenerative strategies on upgrading and upcycling energy and resources
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are not new. Books such as “The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance” (Mcdonough and Braungart, 2013), “Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development” (Lyle, 1994) and “Positive Development: From Vicious
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Circles to Virtuous Cycles through Built Environment Design” (Birkeland, 2008)
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collected a number of strategies and technologies. Technology is not the main barrier. A new benchmark and measurement is expected to produce new architectural practices and forms that embed these strategies rather than attach them into buildings.
7. Conclusion
This article examines the state-of-art thoughts and critiques on sustainability, such as triple bottom line and regenerative design, and their implications to green building
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT evolutions. Although the green building concept and framework is building centric, it is receptive to these sustainability thoughts and critiques in ways of leverage, linkage and contextualization. However, the rhetoric debate on sustainability does not help
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much to push forward the building practice towards more a sustainable built environment. The evolution of green building must happen in architectural practices. To do so, what we need is not only a benchmark indicating both negative and positive
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impacts, but also a measurement of regenerative design practices to produce new,
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post-modern building form, space and materiality that can receive, absorb, transform and filter energy and resources. The new measurement can replace the current insulation-based engineering practice towards an open, dissipative structure. In sum, the next generation green building should be physical instead of rhetorical. If we see
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the current generation green building is rhetorically defined by concept, framework, indicators and rating systems; we anticipate that the next generation should be more
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physically defined in new architectural form.
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S0959-6526(16)00254-7
DOI:
10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.02.077
Reference:
JCLP 6778
To appear in:
Journal of Cleaner Production
Received Date: 29 June 2015 Revised Date:
7 February 2016
Accepted Date: 16 February 2016
Please cite this article as: Gou Z, Xie X, Evolving Green Building: Triple Bottom Line or Regenerative Design?, Journal of Cleaner Production (2016), doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.02.077. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Evolving Green Building: Triple Bottom Line or Regenerative Design?
Zhonghua Gou
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School of Environment, Griffith University, Australia
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Xiaohuan Xie
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School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shenzhen University, China
Correspondence:
Email: [email protected]; [email protected] Address:
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Science, Engineering and Architecture (G39) 3.40 Griffith University Gold Coast Campus
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QLD 4222, Australia
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Evolving Green Building: Triple Bottom Line or Regenerative Design?
Abstract: The research aims to envision the next generation green building. It starts from a review of
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critiques on green building concepts and practices. The critiques mainly come from two perspectives: one is triple bottom line and the other is regenerative design, which require that green building should cover holistic sustainability as well as raise its benchmark. Revisiting
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green building rating systems (such as LEED), the article found that the green building concept and framework is being evolved to embrace sustainability critiques not in a way of
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bringing more ambiguous, complicate indicators but through leverage, linkage and contextualization. This article also argues that the rhetoric debate on triple bottom line and regenerative design does not help much to push forward building practices for more sustainable built environments. It is necessary to evolve the current engineering approach to
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benchmarking and measuring building performance. An ecological approach is anticipated for next generation green building practices.
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Keywords: green building, triple bottom line, regenerative design, sustainability, LEED
Highlights:
Critiques on green building are reviewed. Suggestive frameworks for sustainable design are compared. Green building concept and practice are interrogated. Next generation green building should be more physical rather than rhetorical. There must be an ecological design approach to replace the engineering approach
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 1. Introduction
Green building usually refers to a building and using process aiming to reduce the overall impact of the built environment on human health and the natural environment by efficiently
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using energy, water, and other resources and by reducing waste, pollution and environmental degradation (USGBC, 2009). As a result of increased interest in green building concepts and practices, a number of countries and areas have developed tools for designing and measuring
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green buildings, which can also let government regulators, building professionals and developers embrace green building with confidence. Well-known tools such as BREEAM
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(United Kingdom), LEED (United States and Canada), DGNB (Germany), Green Star (Australia), Green Mark (Singapore) and CASBEE (Japan) have helped the professionals quantify environmental performance in an explicit way. These tools mainly adopt a credit and score awarding system for design features that can minimize a building’s environmental
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impact in categories such as location and site, conservation of water, energy, and materials, and occupant comfort and health. The number of credits or scores generally determines the level of achievement. These assessment or measurement tools have individually and made
significant
contributions
to
understanding
of
building-related
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collectively
environmental impacts.
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However, they are facing intensive critiques on their capacity to define a sustainable built environment that is more complex and synergistic. Although these methods are continuously updated both in content and for different kind of applications, the update is usually driven by marketing needs and seldom takes into account the critiques raised in theoretical and empirical research. This article reports a review of these critiques and suggestions on green building concepts and practices, aiming to anticipate the next generation green building.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2. Methodology and Framework
Basically, the research methodology is literature review. An exhaustive literature search was conducted using Scopus and Web of Science and searching keywords are one or any
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combinations of “green building” + “review” + “standards” + “design”. Initially, 206 articles are found. After preliminarily screening title and abstract and eliminating duplicates, 115 articles remain for the further selection. The second round selection is based on three research
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aims: to identify critiques; to find out suggestions; and to revisit green building concepts and practices. Finally, 64 articles fall into the three aims (Table 1). Among all, 31 empirical as
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well as theoretical studies are found on comparing green building standards, and examining green building environmental performance and social and economic impacts. 15 articles look for suggestive, alternative design guidelines or frameworks for sustainable building practices. The explorative frameworks are mainly developed by architectural companies and research
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institutes. These explorations inspired the research to revisit current green building rating systems. 18 articles focus on some key green building standards to find implications to address critiques and embrace explorations. Besides the 64 articles, relevant books, reference
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guides and reports are reviewed for more in-depth and comprehensive discussion.
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Review Aims
Review Themes
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Table 1. Review aims, themes and references Sources
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(Alwaer et al., 2008; Burnett et al., 2005; Burnett and Yik, 2001; Chew and Das, 2008; Choguill, 2008; Cole, 1998, 1999, 2005; Conte and Monno, 2012; Cooper, 1999; Dammann and Elle, 2006; Ding, 2008; Gething and Bordass, 2006;
Weighting and Indicators/
Gou et al., 2013a; Gou et al., 2013b; Haapio and Viitaniemi, 2008; Horvat and Fazio, 2005; Kaatz et al., 2006; Kimata,
Environmental Performance and
1999; Kohler, 1999; Liu et al., 2006; Lützkendorf and Lorenz, 2006; Ng et al., 2013; Papamichael, 2000; Robinson,
Social and Economic Impacts
2004; Sharifi and Murayama, 2013; Todd et al., 2001; Todd and Geissler, 1999; Wallhagen and Glaumann, 2010; Zhang
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Green Building Scope,
To identify critiques
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et al., 2011; Zuo and Zhao, 2014) 31
Alternative frameworks:
(Clegg, 2012; Cole, 2011; Cole et al., 2011; Cole et al., 2013; Cooper, 2012; du Plessis, 2011; Hoxie et al., 2011; Mang
SPeAR; REGEN; LENSES;
and Reed, 2011; Newton, 2013; Pedersen Zari, 2011; Plaut et al., 2011; Reed, 2007; Svec et al., 2011; Tainter, 2012;
Peter & Wills Framework
Williams, 2012) 15
To find out
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To revisit green
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suggestions
(Alyami et al., 2013; Becker, 2004; Berardi, 2013; Burnett, 2007; Chau et al., 2000; Geng et al., 2012; Gou and Lau,
LEED; HK-BEAM; BREEAM; building concepts and
2014; Hiete et al., 2011; Lee and Burnett, 2006; Lombardi and Brandon, 2007; Murakami et al., 2011; Olgyay and Herdt,
Green Star; CASBEE and so on practices
2004; Retzlaff, 2008; Schweber and Haroglu, 2014; Scofield, 2013; Tam et al., 2004; Tam, 2007; WB., 2003) 18
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 3. Critiques
Table 2 selects some of literatures to show key appraisals as well as criticisms based
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on the first literature review. Basically, green building assessment and rating follow a structure of scopes, weightings, credits and points in a stringent way, which is easily understood, communicated and applicable.
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Review of existing green building design indicators and coverage tends to find that the emerging importance of issues such as social and economic sustainability,
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life-cycle assessment and climate change were not yet fully addressed or answered in these tools (Cole, 2005). Most of the tools were focused too much on environmental sustainability while did not do well with respect to the coverage of social, economic, and institutional aspects of sustainability (Zhang et al., 2014). Most tools were
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originally developed to reflect national or local priorities of sustainability issues. However, they have been directly used or adapted for use in other countries as they
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have gained wide markets throughout the world. For example, LEED, originated from the U.S. had been applied to more than 30 countries. Arguably, importing these tools
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from one nation to others caused problematic consequences especially on economic and social sustainability. To address these weaknesses, a standardized methodology and generalized framework with specific environmental criteria for changing and fine-tuning were needed. To reduce biases and conflicts, it is suggested that performance criteria or credits reflect national, regional, and cultural varieties by assigning weights to various credits according to the local and regional conditions.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT The review of measurement and benchmark of these green building concepts and practices pointed to the deficiency of measurement of environmental performance. The measurement and benchmark ‘green building’ which lays the foundation for the
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common attributes of different green building tools is based on reducing negative impacts (Figure 1), such as reducing resource use and reducing energy consumptions. It has been used consistently to describe buildings that have a less negative
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environmental impact compared with that of typical buildings. A green building’s
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energy and water savings are discernible by the extent to which it achieves the performance standards, such as saving energy by 30%. However, the information is often of relativity and does not delineate what is a sustainable building. By contrasting the levels of environmental performance of the baseline or benchmarks
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(Burnett, 2007), it was argued that the absolute levels of performance of the baseline or benchmarks, as well as the targets for environmental sustainability, were largely unknown. As performance standards rise with more buildings becoming green in
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future, the green building tools have to be raised incrementally. It is becoming
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increasingly evident that focusing on ‘getting more points’ for ‘doing less harm’ as encouraged by current green building tools, will not necessarily produce design solutions that support and strengthen the human-nature system.
In sum, these critiques pointed out two ways moving forward green building concepts and practices: one is expanding the indicator system of green building to more holistically cover sustainability; the other is changing the benchmark of green from reducing to increasing for a positive development. To address the first, the
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT current green building design and assessment tools needs to compose a more comprehensive set of indicators and more flexible framework to be adapted to different contexts. For the latter, it needs to address co-existence and co-evolution of
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buildings and natures by regenerating buildings or creating something new.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT
Strengths
Weaknesses
(Chew and Das,
Lucidity and user friendliness
Reluctance, insufficient
2008)
transparency and complexity
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(Alwaer et al., Quantitative methods (Kaatz et al.,
actors Differentiate negative and positive
Clearly defining desired outputs and
processes
outcomes
(Todd et al.,
An attractive and simple checklist
Negative aspects of the building are not
Include negative effect to push
2001)
system
reflected in the overall score
performance
Unable to offer different levels of
Reflecting globalization and
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A clear understanding
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2006)
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building-related environmental issues
performance
Lack of quality of social and technical Fostering sustainable construction
(Lützkendorf and
Develop a common language among key
Inflexibility, partiality, unfairness
2008)
(Cole, 1998)
Opportunities
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Reference
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Table 2. Summary of comparative studies of different green building rating systems
assessment output
standardization
Less addressing economic, social and
An assessment result for all dimensions
performance facets
of sustainable development
Meeting the current requirements Lorenz, 2006) (Haapio and
Covering different types of buildings
Uncertainties in the calculations, analyses Envision transforming from today
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and interpretations of the results
towards future
(Conte and
Little respecting the complexity and
Identify relationships between buildings,
dynamism that affects regional contexts.
built environment and nature
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Viitaniemi, 2008) and different labels and certificates Organized framework and structure
Monno, 2012) Reflecting current status of
Lack of priorities on certain sustainability Balance completeness in the coverage
Rezgui, 2012)
sustainable development in buildings
issues.
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(Alyami and
and simplicity of use
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Reduce Damage
Reduce Energy Uses
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Reduce Material Uses
Green Building
Reduce Carbon Emission
Reduce Water Uses
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Reduce Negative Impacts on Occupants and Communities
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Reduce Hazadous
Figure 1. The benchmark of green building based on reducing negative impacts
4. Explorations
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(Adapted from Cole, R.J., 2011)
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There are a number of suggestive frameworks for defining and benchmarking
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sustainable building. This article selects four most representative frameworks (Figure 2): Arup Arup SPeAR (Sustainable Project Appraisal Routine), REGEN, LENSES (Living Environments in Natural, Social and Economic Systems), and Peter and Willis Framework. They are developed by architectural companies and research institutes. They all found weaknesses of current green building concepts and practices, and aimed to develop alternative frameworks. Frist of all, looking at their compositions and expressions, we will find that they
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT have a common assumption of sustainable design as a circle and cycle. The most explicit is the Perkins & Will framework that sets resource-related design strategies within cycles – from nature and back to nature (Cole et al., 2011). It sets human needs,
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interactions and resource flows within and interdependent of the constraints and opportunities afforded by natural systems. Specifically, it tracks material, energy and water flow from nature, through human systems and back into nature. A critical role
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of buildings becomes engaging in the resource (energy, water and materials) flows to
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support the maintenance of ecosystem functions and to provide necessary services. To achieve this goal, this framework proposes four quadrants of the cycles representing producing, using, recycling and replenishing. To intervene the resource flows, this framework also covers approaches and strategies within the physical bounds of the
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site and those beyond the bounds of the site.
The second commonality is about coverage. They seem to be more ambitious to define sustainability as well as its indicators. For example, the REGEN framework is
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composed of nested systems (Svec et al., 2011). At the broadest level, components of
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life are organized into four quadrants: robust and resilient natural systems, high-performing constructed systems, prosperous economic systems and whole social systems; at the next level, components of life include water, flora, fauna, energy systems, transportation systems, capital, employment, food, social justice, public health etc. The LENSES framework uses a similar layered visual model to illustrate interconnections and assists users in seeing and understanding whole systems (Plaut et al., 2011). In total there are three lenses: ‘Foundational Lens’ representing principles,
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT underlying themes and core values of sustainability, ‘Aspects of Place Lens’ containing key aspects of the built environment, and ‘Flows Lens’ including various elements that flow throughout a place. The lenses are designed to spin on a centre
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pivot, which encourages users to contemplate interconnectedness of the various elements.
Third, they all provide a conceptual design framework to guide dialogue rather
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than quantitative requirements or criteria. For example, REGEN envisions that a
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project team can input basic information about their project type, scale and location and the tool will instantly populate with everything that is known within the tool about that place and its current state of health. In this way, a place-based dialogue can begin among community leaders and decision-makers. This view could stimulate
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dialogue about the data that are or are not available for the region and also whether those findings coincide with the perceptions of local people. The dialogue can continue to consider potential combinations of strategies that might be most
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appropriate in that place to enhance the components toward a greater state of health.
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In addition, an open space is left on each lens to suggest that designers can determine whether any further pertinent topics or issues should be added to the lens. To shift away from rules and regulations that may lead to contextually inappropriate solutions, LENSES uses descriptive metrics under each aspect to allow for flexibility and contextually appropriate solutions. Fourth, these frameworks explicitly distinguish negative and positive impacts and emphasize on creating positive outcomes. Most strategies impact multiple
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT components sometimes positively and sometimes negatively. For example, the assessment on each indicator in SPeAR has five different rating levels which range between +3 and -1 (ARUP, 2012). A rating of +3 is colored dark green representing
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best case and a rating of -1 is dark red representing worst case. RGEN also features these positive and negative impacts in a complex web of connections. By entering at one or more components, participants will discover the strategies that are connected to
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the components. In this way, multiple-benefit strategies can be visually identified and
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then explored. Different from LEED that has rigid criteria for each indicator and each credit or score has to have a numeric result to compare against the benchmark, some of the credits in these frameworks can be quantified while some require a subjective
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ranking.
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Figure 2. Four alternative design frameworks for sustainable building (upper left: REGEN; upper right: LENSES; lower left: Perkins & Will; lower right: SPeAR)
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(Adapted from Cole et al., 2011, Svec et al., 2011, Plaut et al., 2011, and ARUP, 2012)
Table 3 summarizes key differences between green building design and explorative sustainable design. Compared to current green building’s conservative thinking, these explorative frameworks tend to be more proactive and positive. However, they do not have specific requirements on how to design or assess these variables. These frameworks just open up a dialogue about adoption of regenerative approaches and
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT processes. Application of these frameworks largely depends on the context in which they are used and on designers who are using them. These frameworks do not generate a new rating system or level of certification, and no comparable
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measurements and outcomes are generated from these frameworks. Therefore, using these frameworks is confined to the early stage of designing a project. They can complement existing green building rating systems by allowing dialogue, reflection
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and learning, thus intriguing unique solutions for specific places and contexts,
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especially on the resource flow that is an important measurement of the impact of a building on the nature.
Table 3. What green building can learn from alternative design frameworks
Diagram
Reduce, reuse, recycle, etc.
Alternative design frameworks
replacement, renewal, rebirth, etc.
A list of building related A
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Design principle
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Green building frameworks
processes
of
regeneration by design
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sustainability issues
cyclical
Decision-making
Depending on international Depending on local context and
and national design codes, design professionals’ decision regulations, etc.
making
Approach
Scoring and weighting
A framework for dialogue
Measurement
Performance
Resource flow
Objective
Quantity
(e.g.
resource Quality
(e.g.
resource
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Low
upgrading) (e.g.
structured High
(e.g.
no
structured
template)
Quantification
Scores
Partial/No quantification
Outcome
Green tiers
Partial/No tangible outcome
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template)
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5. Revisit Green Building Evolution
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There are quite a number of studies examining the green building standards and their revisions. Rather than examining rhetorical advancements or technical improvements, this revisit interrogates the green building framework, benchmark and measurement based on triple bottom line and regenerative design that are the two main critiques
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facing green building concepts and practices. Particularly, this article uses LEED as a case study for this interrogation. LEED provides an international tool defining green
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building concepts as well as guiding their practices. It evolves through several generations in past decades. LEED for New Construction (NC) v1.0 was released in
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2000 as the first LEED design tool mainly for new commercial office buildings. LEED NC v2.0 and LEED NC v2.2 were released in 2005 and LEED NC v3 in 2009 to cover other building types including offices, libraries, churches, hotels and government buildings. Using NC as a template, LEED for Commercial Interiors, Neighborhoods, Healthcare, Operation etc. were one by one released. In 2013, LEED NC v4 is published representing state-of-the-art green building tools (USGBC, 2013).
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT This article examines LEED evolution from v3 to v4, aiming to understand how to the current situations as well as the ways forward.
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5.1 Framework
First of all, we need to acknowledge the fact that green or sustainable building rating systems are building-centric. Table 4 summarises main aspects covered in most
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recent green building standards. They have similar aspects which cover a building’s environmental impact from the global scale (e.g. site, land, emissions, etc.), through
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the local scale (e.g. transport, energy, water, etc.), and to the building scale (e.g. indoor environments, management, etc.). Under each aspect, there are supportive indicators or credits to measure the performance. Even though these methods try to
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encompass as many sustainability indicators as possible in a simple checklist system, these indicators are not able to cover all important sustainability issues. Following the consciousness of climate change and natural resources depletion, different assessment
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frameworks, systems and tools have tended to privilege a few, specific environmental
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indicators such as energy and water assessment. Few of them seemed to include social and economic indicators of sustainability. On the other hand, although the triple-bottom line concept referring to the three dimensions of social, environmental and economic sustainability is well known, there is no consensus established regarding the selection of the social and economic performance indicators for buildings. Rather than adding more ambiguous indicators or aspects into the green building rating systems, it is more important to understand how to use the current
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2014).
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GBL 2014 for Civic
BREEAM 2014 for
LEED 2013 for
CASBEE 2010 for
Building Design
New Construction
New Construction
New Construction
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Table 4. Aspects covered in building environmental assessment methods Green Star 2014 for
BEAM Plus 2012
for New Buildings
Design & As Built
for New Buildings
- Energy Efficiency
- Management
- Site Aspects
- Water Efficiency
- Indoor Environment
- Material Aspects
Quality
- Energy Use
- Energy
- Water Use
- Transport
-
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and Major Renovations
Green Mark 2013
- Integrative Process
- Energy
- Location and Transportation
-
Wellbeing
- Sustainable Sites
Materials
-
- Energy Saving and
- Energy
- Water Efficiency
- Off-site Environment
Protection
Utilization
- Transport
- Energy and Atmosphere
- Indoor Environment
-
- Water Saving and
- Water
- Material and Resources
- Quality of Service
Environmental
- Water
Environmental
Utilization
- Materials
-
- Outdoor Environment
Quality
- Materials
Quality
- Material Saving and
- Waste
Quality
on Site
-
Utilization
-
Environment
-
Indoor
Environment Quality
Health
Land
Ecology - Pollution
Use
and
and
Indoor
- Innovation
Resources
Environmental
- Regional Priority
and
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-
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Outdoor
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- Management
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- Land Saving and
Environmental
Indoor
Other
Features
Green
-
Land
Use
Ecology - Emissions
and
Indoor
- Innovations and Additions
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“Building-Level
Water
Metering”,
“Building-Level
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by new credits respectively in Water, Energy and Material. For example, Energy
Metering”
and
“Advanced Energy Metering”, and “Building Life-cycle Impact Reduction” are new
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credits in LEED v4 to track the resources uses and flows.
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The response to social sustainability could be detected in a new category “Location and Transport” that highlights the significant role of transport related energy consumptions. The innovation is that this category could be alternatively achieved if the design is certified by LEED for Neighborhood Development (ND) that is more
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focused on walkability, a sense of place, social cohesion and stability, and resiliency (Weshah and Sadeghpour, 2011). Other standards such as Japan CASBEE has a assessment
method
to
neighborhood
and
community
frameworks
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similar
(CASBEE-City) rather than solely on an individual building (Murakami et al., 2011).
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These large scale frameworks tend to appreciate how a part of the whole city moves towards some pre-defined goals of sustainable urban development and begin to give the right weight and place the proper attention to social issues usually underestimated by the same systems when evaluating buildings. For a larger urban context, LEED v4 has an important new credit: “Site Assessment” that assesses site conditions before design to evaluate sustainable options and inform related decisions about site design. The site assessment shall include topography, hydrology, climate, vegetation, soils,
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT human use and health effects etc. This is an important revision to address the regional and local context.
Although there is no direct indicator for economical sustainability, we can still
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grasp the indication through credits on building product disclosure and optimization in the category of “Materials and Resources”. It is a very important step to push green
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product suppliers and manufacturers to disclose the life cycle environmental impact of their product; where and how they get their raw materials; what is in their product;
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and whether there is anything hazardous. By disclosure, their products can be more attractive in the market. Disclosure is a basic step towards further greener and cleaner production. Green consumers are more aware of how and where to source and select products and how their behavior would impact the environment (Zhang et al., 2011).
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Consequently, suppliers and manufacturers have to be more environmental-friendly on their production because they need to be totally transparent to disclose information
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related to environmental and health impacts (Espinoza et al., 2012). Transparency and disclosure inevitably elevate the market entry for green building products.
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Obviously, green building has a well-established framework and this framework
has been tried and proved as effective tool in building industry. The effect of green building in sustainable development never relies on the coverage or scope of indicators. The effect is radiant (Figure 3). Green building has the capability of further stimulating green building market by asking the market to provide green products and to beat out uncertified products that may be environmental unfriendly. The aspect of indoor environments for occupant health, productivity and well-being is another
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT attraction to the real estate market (Gou et al., 2013a). The green building is also linked to a larger society via its neighborhoods and communities. The framework is adaptive to address regenerative design thinking such as upcycling, upgrading and
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regeneration in energy, water and materials, and also to track their flows by metering, monitoring and ingredients disclosure. The explorative design frameworks, such as Arup SPeAR (Sustainable Project Appraisal Routine), REGEN, LENSES (Living
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Environments in Natural, Social and Economic Systems), and Peter and Willis
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Framework, can be applied in the integrative design process for an open dialogue in early design stage. In sum, the concept of green building is flexible to embrace both
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triple bottom line and regenerative design.
Figure 3. Radiant effects of green building
5.2 Benchmark
What’s really challenging is embracing critiques in green building practices. The
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT measurement and benchmark of green building performance is dominated by engineering standards and methods. For example, LEED assess a building’s energy performance using ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and
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Air-Conditioning Engineers) as a baseline and the assessment result is “percentage of saving” of the proposed design compared to the baseline. Up to 18 credits go to “Optimize Energy Performance”. According to a large scale survey of energy uses in
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121 LEED buildings (Turner and Frankel, 2008), the median energy use intensity for
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LEED buildings is 69 kBtu/sf/yr (British thermal units per square foot per year), which is 24% below the average for all commercial building stock in U.S. Although the benchmark shows a relative reduction of energy uses, it could not tell the absolute or direct impact of a building on the natural environment.
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To benchmark both negative and positive impacts of a building on the natural environment, Olgyay and Herdt proposed ecosystems services criteria to benchmark green buildings. The ecosystem services not only include energy, water, and materials,
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but also cover soil, food, etc. Based on the ecological footprint carrying capacity
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baseline, the quantities of ecosystem services can be measured in (ecosystem productivity)*(land area)/(year) (Olgyay and Herdt, 2004). They also used a farmhouse as an example to show how the negative impact becomes positive through the measuring its resources consumptions and ecosystem productivity. Albeit the case is atypical, the method provides a possible solution to benchmark regenerative design by using an ecological approach.
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 5.3 Measurement
The shifting from engineering to ecology should not confine to the benchmark of building energy performance; it must also happen to the measurement of design
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practices. In “Optimize Energy Performance”, the measurement heavily relies on ASHRAE standards. The design is measured and assessed in terms of how well
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insulated the building envelope and glazing systems are. In practice, U-value, R-value, air-tightness, shading coefficients are common design criteria for building energy
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efficiency. These simplified factors resulted in more and more insulated green buildings (sealed curtain walls and full air-conditioning), which largely rejects energy and resources flowing into or through buildings. Without bringing energy and resources such as heat, light, wind and water into buildings, it is impossible to
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regenerate or create new energies and resources. For a regenerative design, green building needs an ecological design solution which should be non-isolated,
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non-steady, non-equilibrium, and dissipative. As shown in Figure 4, green building based on the engineering approach rejects
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kinetic energy and resources coming into buildings; while regenerative design needs an open or permeable building to receive these energy and resources, to use them to create a comfortable space, to transform them into new energy and resources, and to feed-back to the nature. It requires that green building bring as much as possible heat, light, wind and water into buildings and use design and technologies to transform or filter them into desirable amount and form. Numerous design and technologies can be found for this transformation or filtration: such as low-exergy heating or cooling,
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT breathing walls, water treatment and so on. However, employments of these design and technologies require a new building form with dissipative structure. Otherwise, the technologies just become additions or attachments rather than an integrative part
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of a building.
Figure 4. Shifting design practices from insulation to filtration
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Shifting green building practices from insulation to filtration is not easy, because insulation is deeply imbedded in the modernity of architecture. Kiel Moe (2014)
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articulated the roles of the various agents inherent in the technological momentum of insulation and its associated practices: architects, engineers, scientists, materials,
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equations, thermodynamics, codes, test standards, entrepreneurs, academics, marketing and consumers. The science theory about energy, thermodynamics simply and reductively applied to building design through standards, codes and single indices that dominate current green building practices. The phenomenon is also reflected on the current situation of human comfort, which is based on state-steady assumption that human comfort is achieved in equilibrium of heat losses and gains and it needs a neutral environment for comfort (Gou et al., 2013b), and that to do so, it is necessary
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT to seal the building and to use full air conditioning. A new design approach for regenerative sustainability goes beyond the epistemology of energy efficiency and conservation. It needs an ecological approach
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to introduce heat, light, wind and water into buildings and to design energy hierarchies to transform them. The ecological design is not just adding more greenery. The ecological design approaches must go beyond an engineering understanding of
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efficiency, insulation and reduction. Otherwise, it just makes green building literarily,
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outwardly green. The ecological design approach for next generation green building is aimed for architectural expressions of energy and resources hierarchies and flows in buildings. There must be in-depth inter-disciplinary research between architecture and
6. Discussion
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ecology.
The building-centric concept of green and sustainability is practical, realizable since
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the building industry has a long history and experience of praxis. The flexible
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framework of green building makes it receptive to cover more sustainability aspects through leveraging building industry and real estate market, linking neighborhoods and communities, and contextualizing in a larger urban context. The way to move forward green building is not about bringing more complicate, ambiguous indicators. The benchmark and measurement used in green building must be significantly evolved to practice sustainability. The engineering approach to benchmarking and measuring building performance blocks the way towards a more sustainable built
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT environment. The engineering approach of benchmark and measurement in building industry is historical, which accumulatively shaped the form, space and materiality of modern architecture. It also lays the foundation of designing a green building. The
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core value of the engineering approach is efficiency, reduction, insulation and neutrality. To change this situation, there must be at least two evolutions: the first is a new benchmark of green building energy performance that shows not only negative
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impacts but also positive impact of a building may have on nature or earth; the second
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is a new measurement of green building design that measure how much energies from nature a building receives and how these energies are transformed and regenerated in buildings. The two evolutions must happen reciprocally, synergistically. Actually, regenerative strategies on upgrading and upcycling energy and resources
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are not new. Books such as “The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability—Designing for Abundance” (Mcdonough and Braungart, 2013), “Regenerative Design for Sustainable Development” (Lyle, 1994) and “Positive Development: From Vicious
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Circles to Virtuous Cycles through Built Environment Design” (Birkeland, 2008)
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collected a number of strategies and technologies. Technology is not the main barrier. A new benchmark and measurement is expected to produce new architectural practices and forms that embed these strategies rather than attach them into buildings.
7. Conclusion
This article examines the state-of-art thoughts and critiques on sustainability, such as triple bottom line and regenerative design, and their implications to green building
ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT evolutions. Although the green building concept and framework is building centric, it is receptive to these sustainability thoughts and critiques in ways of leverage, linkage and contextualization. However, the rhetoric debate on sustainability does not help
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much to push forward the building practice towards more a sustainable built environment. The evolution of green building must happen in architectural practices. To do so, what we need is not only a benchmark indicating both negative and positive
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impacts, but also a measurement of regenerative design practices to produce new,
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post-modern building form, space and materiality that can receive, absorb, transform and filter energy and resources. The new measurement can replace the current insulation-based engineering practice towards an open, dissipative structure. In sum, the next generation green building should be physical instead of rhetorical. If we see
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the current generation green building is rhetorically defined by concept, framework, indicators and rating systems; we anticipate that the next generation should be more
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