sustainability-logo

Journal Browser

Journal Browser

Assessment and Communication of the Environmental Performance of Buildings and Construction Products

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2021) | Viewed by 458

Special Issue Editors

Institute for Sustainability and Innovation in Structural Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minho, Escola de Engenharia,‎ 4800-058 Guimarães‎, Portugal
Interests: sustainable construction; sustainability assessment; life cycle analysis; multi-criteria decision support methods for sustainable construction; vernacular construction
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
KU Leuven. Department of Architecture. Kasteelpark Arenberg 1 - box 2431. 3001 Leuven. Belgium
Interests: building sustainability assessment; life cycle assessment, renovation of the building stock; urban sustainability; circularity on the built environment; climate-resilient building, architecture

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The environmental performance of building products and built assets is an essential factor influencing the sustainability of the construction sector. Although important research developments regarding the evaluation of the environmental performance of buildings have been made in the past decade, there is still a vast number of aspects to address. Both academics and practitioners face important challenges for the development of a new generation of building sustainability assessment methods and communication formats.

Several studies comparing different life cycle assessment (LCA) and building sustainability assessment (BSA) methods have been carried out, highlighting the differences between the approaches. Nevertheless, the debate on how the results of these LCA and BSA methods can be incorporated into decision-making during the different design stages and influence the stakeholders’ opinions is still in progress. Recently, better integration of LCA, BSA, and building information modelling (BIM) is being explored as a solution to streamline the practical use of the LCA and BSA methods, therefore contributing effectively to more sustainable building design, though international understanding of such an approach is lacking.

Another important constraint is the lack of common business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) environmental and sustainability communication formats. Nowadays, there are different types of environmental and sustainability labels, and only through their harmonisation, will it be effectively possible to support sustainability procurement practices in the construction sector.

Furthermore, it is apparent that for new nearly zero energy buildings, the focus is shifting towards reducing the environmental impact of the other life cycle stages. As we need to further reduce the environmental impact of buildings in order to work within the carrying capacity of the earth, the impacts caused by the materials (the product stage) should be a point of focus. Various strategies are possible, such as cleaner production, low-maintenance buildings, smaller sized buildings and buildings that are more intensively used (e.g., cohousing or multifunctional buildings), and circular building. However, assessing the life cycle environmental impact of circular building strategies still poses critical methodological challenges.

On the basis of the described context, this Special Issue invites authors to contribute with original research in the following fields:

  • Integration of the LCA and BSA methods in the BIM process;
  • Integration of LCA in the various stages of the building design process for better decision support;
  • Methods to assess and analyse circular buildings;
  • Harmonisation of LCA and BSA communication formats;
  • Benchmarks for building sustainability indicators and environmental parameters;
  • Case studies on LCA and BSA related to any of the above issues.

Prof. Dr. Ricardo Mateus
Prof. Dr. Karen Allacker
Prof. Dr. Luís Bragança
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Building sustainability assessment
  • Life cycle assessment
  • BIM-based life cycle and building sustainability assessments
  • Circular building
  • Sustainability and environmental performances communication formats
  • Case studies.

Published Papers

There is no accepted submissions to this special issue at this moment.
Back to TopTop