Sezer, A (2012) Environmental assessment tools and efficiency in housing and office refurbishment. In: Smith, S D (ed.) Proceedings of 28th Annual ARCOM Conference, 3-5 September 2012, Edinburgh, UK.
Abstract
Most environmental sustainability assessment tools are focused on new construction while refurbishment of buildings presents a different picture. Short term, local environmental effects such as noise or dust are more frequent in a refurbishment process since both occupants and neighbours are affected whereas in new construction only neighbours might be affected. The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework in order to assess strength and weaknesses of environmental assessment tools for housing and office refurbishment projects, taking into account practical aspects, fundamentals of sustainability as well as conflicts between sustainability and efficiency. A review of literatures on sustainability, measurement systems in general and major environmental assessment tools confirms that these tools focus on energy consumption, heat insulation, air quality, light, noise, water efficiency and material consumption in new construction, but rarely in a refurbishment context. Short term, negative effects during a renovation process are not covered by current environmental assessment tools. The conflict between local and global effects of sustainable refurbishment, users' needs, workers' efficiency during the refurbishment process, problems caused by occupants and waste management should be reflected in a framework for indicators to be used in refurbishment projects. Since there are important effects on building users involved in most refurbishment processes, more attention should be paid to the relation between their productivity and both economic and social sustainability.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | environmental impact; measurement; productivity; refurbishment; sustainability |
| Index terms: | productivity, efficiency, refurbishment project, environmental effect, consumption, insulation, environmental assessment, environmental sustainability, housing, social sustainability, air quality, renovation, energy consumption, waste management, environmental impact |
| Subjects: | communities and social development, performance management, renovation and retrofit, management, infrastructure engineering, health safety and environment, building materials, energy systems, construction type, climate science, waste management, environmental impact, consumer economics |
| Topics: | Design Practice, Quality Management, Stakeholder Management, Construction Technology, Sustainability, Business Strategy, Health and Safety, Engineering Principles |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here