Ismaeel, W S E (2021) Material selection for sustainable buildings. In: Scott, L and Neilson, C J (eds.) Proceedings of 37th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-7 September 2021, Online Event, UK.
Abstract
The study provides an insightful view on the institutional infrastructure for regulating and guiding sustainable material selection practice, and different approaches for configuring them. It is noted that this should follow the accelerating demands of the real estate market, providing guidelines, measurement criteria, verification methods as well as investigating market potentials and third-party certification requirements. The study investigates two well-known green building rating systems (GBRSs) according to these defined scopes for the efficiency of materials and resources (MR); BREEAM and LEED. These provide a set of guidelines and measurement criteria. A mixed qualitative and quantitative approach was used to investigate and compare the percentage fulfilment for each scope in their latest version developments. In addition, interviews and designed questionnaires were carried to investigate practitioners' opinion about the use of both rating systems for MR in their sustainable projects. This contributes to a broader discussion about the comprehensiveness of available guidelines, reliability of measurement criteria, quality of verification tools as well as availability and price of certified materials and products. The result showed that new versions put more emphasis on verification of the environmental impact of sustainable materials but less is paid for certification and market potentials. This makes it challenging to comply with these criteria and require further consideration and balance from developers as well as more effort for practitioners to acquire related knowledge and practice about life cycle approach. This points out the importance of striking a balance between prescriptive and performance requirements for material selection and procurement in practice, noting that it is still research in process for a standard acceptable method that is both relevant to construction best practices and supported by scientific knowledge.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | BREEAM; green materials; LEED; sustainable material selection |
| Index terms: | sustainable material, real estate, best practice, sustainable building, questionnaire, green building, environmental impact, practitioner, BREEAM accreditation, life cycle, interview, efficiency, certification |
| Subjects: | sustainable construction, performance management, design practice, administrative processes, practitioner, value management, environmental impact, sustainable materials, business, data collection methods, real estate economics, environmental policy |
| Topics: | Urban Studies, Design Practice, Quality Management, Contract Administration, Business Strategy, Construction Materials, Project Management, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Sustainability |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
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