Introduction
For many years, the construction industry has increasingly been concerned about environmental impact, usually expressed as greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, resource consumption, and waste generation. This industry consumes more than 40% of the world’s resources, requires 40% of global energy, emits 30% of GHG emissions, and uses 25% of the global water supply (UNEP 2016). To reduce these problems, sustainability goals have been incorporated into the construction industry globally.
Apart from the building and construction industry, the office buildings sector has a significant impact on the environment. It should take responsibility for its energy consumption, waste generation, greenhouse gas emissions, natural resources depletion during project lifecycle from initial stage to demolition stage (Ortiz et al. 2009). Regarding the United States (USA), buildings alone consume 39% of energy use, 72% of electricity resources, emit 39% of carbon dioxide, and consume 13.6% of...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
ABS (2016) Construction and the environment [Online]. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/featurearticlesbytitle/17A5995C5D55BBBDCA256CAE0015F653?OpenDocument. Accessed 9 Jan 2016
Ahn YH, Pearce AR (2007) Green construction: contractor experiences, expectations, and perceptions. J Green Build 2:106–122
Akadiri PO, Olomolaiye PO, Chinyio EA (2013) Multi-criteria evaluation model for the selection of sustainable materials for building projects. Autom Constr 30:113–125
Australian Government (2015) National Inventory by Economic Sector 2013
Butera FM (2010) Climatic change and the built environment. Adv Build Energy Res 4:45–75
Calkins M (2008) Materials for sustainable sites: a complete guide to the evaluation, selection, and use of sustainable construction materials. Wiley, Hoboken
Chen M, Chen JG, Cheng XX (2011) Life cycle incremental cost-benefit analysis of green building. Appl Mech Mater 71–78:4645
Collier ZA, Wang D, Vogel JT, Tatham EK, Linkov I (2013) Sustainable roofing technology under multiple constraints: a decision-analytical approach. Environ Syst Decis 33:261–271
Convertino M, Baker K, Vogel J, Lu C, Suedel B, Linkov I (2013) Multi-criteria decision analysis to select metrics for design and monitoring of sustainable ecosystem restorations. Ecol Indic 26:76–86
Corr K, Adams I, Boynton D (2008) Water use and sustainable commercial buildings [Online]. Australian Policy Online. http://apo.org.au/resource/water-use-and-sustainable-commercial-buildings2016. Accessed 9 Jan 2016
Da Silva L, Ruwanpura JY (2009) Review of the LEED points obtained by Canadian building projects. J Archit Eng 15:38–54
Dadzie J, Ding G, Runeson G (2017) Relationship between sustainable technology and building age: evidence from Australia. Procedia Eng 180:1131–1138
Darko A, Chan AP, Owusu-Manu D-G, Ameyaw EE (2017) Drivers for implementing green building technologies: an international survey of experts. J Clean Prod 145:386–394
Doulos LT, Tsangrassoulis A, Kontaxis PA, Kontadakis A, Topalis FV (2017) Harvesting daylight with LED or T5 fluorescent lamps? The role of dimming. Energ Buildings 140:336–347
EIA report (2008) Annual energy review [Online]. https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/archive/038408.pdf. Accessed 3 Dec 2018
Elkington JB (1997) Cannibals With Forks: The Triple Bottom Line of 21st Century Business. Oxford: Capstone Publishing
Energy Market Authority (2018) Singapore energy statistics [Online]. https://www.ema.gov.sg/cmsmedia/Publications_and_Statistics/Publications/SES18/Publication_Singapore_Energy_Statistics_2018.pdf. Accessed 3 Dec 2018
GBCA (2008a) The dollars and sense of green buildings: building the business case for green commercial buildings in Australia, Sydney, NSW, Green Building Council of Australia
GBCA (2008b) Technical manual: green star office design & office as built. Green Building Council, Sydney
GBCA (2015a) Green Star-Office v3 [Online]. https://www.gbca.org.au/green-star/rating-tools/green-star-office-design-v3-green-star-office-as-built-v3/1710.htm. Accessed 30 Mar 2017
GBCA (2015b) Mid-tier commercial buildings sector report [Online]. https://www.gbca.org.au/advocacy/mid-tier-commercial-office-buildings-pathway-project/36449.htm. Accessed 30 Mar 2017
Gluch P, Baumann H (2004) The life cycle costing (LCC) approach: a conceptual discussion of its usefulness for environmental decision-making. Build Environ 39:571–580
Houghton A, Vittori G, Guenther R (2009) Demystifying first-cost green building premiums in healthcare. HERD: Health Environ Res Des J 2:10–45
Hwang B-G, Tan JS (2012) Green building project management: obstacles and solutions for sustainable development. Sustain Dev 20:335–349
Issa MH, Rankin JH, Christian AJ (2010) Canadian practitioners’ perception of research work investigating the cost premiums, long-term costs and health and productivity benefits of green buildings. Build Environ 45:1698–1711
Kats G (2010) Greening our built world: costs, benefits, and strategies. Island Press, Washington, DC
Kats, G, Alevantis L, Berman A, Mills E, Perlman J (2003) The costs and financial benefits of green buildings: a report to California’s sustainable building task force, Washington: Capital E
Kim J-L, Greene M, Kim S (2014) Cost comparative analysis of a new green building code for residential project development. J Constr Eng Manag 140: 05014002
Kneifel J (2010) Life-cycle carbon and cost analysis of energy efficiency measures in new commercial buildings. Energ Buildings 42:333–340
Langdon D (2007) The cost and benefit of achieving green buildings. Second Quarter. Retrieved 2 Aug 2012
Love PE, Niedzweicki M, Bullen PA, Edwards DJ (2011) Achieving the green building council of Australia’s world leadership rating in an office building in Perth. J Constr Eng Manag 138:652–660
Matthiessen LF, Morris P, Langdon D, Association, CAB (2007) Cost of green revisited: reexamining the feasibility and cost impact of sustainable design in the light of increased market adoption. Continental Automated Buildings Association, Ottawa
Nadoushani ZSM, Akbarnezhad A, Jornet, JF and Xiao, J (2017) Multi-criteria selection of façade systems based on sustainability criteria. Building and Environment 121:67–78
Ortiz O, Castells F, Sonnemann G (2009) Sustainability in the construction industry: a review of recent developments based on LCA. Constr Build Mater 23:28–39
Pohekar SD, Ramachandran M (2004) Application of multi-criteria decision making to sustainable energy planning – a review. Renew Sust Energ Rev 8:365–381
Property Council of Australia (2017) Office Market report [Online]. Australia. https://www.propertycouncil.com.au/Web/EventsServices/ResearchandData/Office_Market_Report/Web/EventsServices/ResearchServices/Office_market_report.aspx?hkey=7c43b696-cd31-4f6c-8314-4c62a4b0467a. Accessed 28 Mar 2017
Rehm M, Ade R (2013) Construction costs comparison between ‘green’ and conventional office buildings. Build Res Inf 41:198–208
Sheikh N, Daim T, Kocaoglu DF (2011) Use of multiple perspectives and decision modeling for PV technology assessment. Technology Management in the Energy Smart World (PICMET), 2011 Proceedings of PICMET’11, 2011. IEEE, pp 1–21
Si J, Marjanovic-Halburd L, Nasiri F, Bell S (2016) Assessment of building-integrated green technologies: a review and case study on applications of multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method. Sustain Cities Soc 27:106–115
Steven Winter Associates, I (2004) GSA LEED cost study: final report. US General Services Administration, Washington, DC
UNEP (2016) Why buildings [Online]. http://www.unep.org/sbci/AboutSBCI/Background.asp. Accessed 9 Jan 2016
Vyas GS, Jha KN (2017) Benchmarking green building attributes to achieve cost effectiveness using a data envelopment analysis. Sustain Cities Soc 28:127–134
WCED (1987) Our common future. Oxford University Press, London
Yudelson J (2010) The green building revolution. Island Press. Washington
Zhao X, Chen L, Pan W, Lu Q (2017) AHP-ANP–fuzzy integral integrated network for evaluating performance of innovative business models for sustainable building. J Constr Eng Manag 143:04017054
Zuo J, Xia B, Chen Q, Pullen S, Skitmore M (2016) Green building rating for office buildings – Lessions learned. J Green Build 11:131–146
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Ho, O.TK., Iyer-Raniga, U., Wong, J.P.C. (2019). Sustainability Balance. In: Leal Filho, W. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainability in Higher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11352-0_64
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11352-0_64
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-11351-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-11352-0
eBook Packages: EducationReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Education