Assessment of building-integrated green technologies: A review and case study on applications of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method

Abstract

Retrofitting existing buildings with appropriate green technologies is an important element of strategies to mitigate climate change. The selection of green technologies can be a challenging task, where multiple criteria exist and interrelate. However, it is still common for decisions to be based on a single criterion, such as energy efficiency or cost. This paper aims to evaluate the application of Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methods to the selection of green technologies for retrofitting to existing buildings. The paper begins with a review of MCDM methods and the use of these techniques for selecting technologies to retrofit existing buildings. The applicability of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a widely used MCDM method, is demonstrated through a case study of a building that is part of a university estate. The findings show that AHP can help to formulate the problem, and facilitate the assessment and ranking of retrofitting measures when multiple criteria are jointly considered. We have shown that by considering environmental and economic criteria, control technologies such as variable speed drives in air handling units, rank most highly in this case. It has also been suggested that social criteria, such as occupant satisfaction, should also be considered as part of the sustainability agenda, although this can be more difficult to achieve than consideration of environmental and economic criteria, which are more readily characterised using quantitative data. We conclude by proposing an integrated green technology assessment and selection framework, which is applicable to existing buildings.

Ranking of Sustainability Indicators for Assessment of the New Housing Development Projects: Case of the Baltic States

“…It is based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method by Saaty [42]. Literature review revealed that AHP is a useful method for weighting sustainability indicators as: (1) AHP has the characteristics of a hierarchical structure, which is aligned with the structures of most sustainability frameworks and makes the process easy to comprehend for stakeholders; (2) is simple and flexible; (3) provides a consistent verification operation; and (4) this method can be used with both qualitative and quantitative data [43,44].…”

Sustainable Decision-Making in Civil Engineering, Construction and Building Technology

“…Fewer applications were found in the construction management [101][102][103][104], retrofitting [57,[105][106][107], building maintenance [108][109][110] and location selection [111][112][113] application domains. The question of how one method is better suited than another to address a specific problem is constantly scrutinized by researches and practitioners.…”

“…Keshavarz Ghorabaee et al [56] provided a broad overview of the application of MCDM methods in supply chains. Si et al [57] reviewed the application of MCDM methods for the assessment of green technologies. Decision-making for green building, sustainable design, and energy related problems were overviewed [58,59].…”

Critical Factors Influencing Business Model Innovation for Sustainable Buildings

“…Technology development, the emergence of new products/service [36,37,48,49] Emergence of low-carbon or low-energy materials [50,51] Higher requirement of design for adaptability and durability [51] Changing market requirements and customer needs [37,38,42,52] Policy instruments an legislation on SB, Energy codes and standards [31,41,43,53,54] Change in the competitive landscape, threat from competitors [35,42] Increased cost and innovation pressure [35] Environmental issues and awareness [42,43] Stakeholder involvement and collaboration [40,42,55] Economic needs [36,42] Social pressure (e.g., occupant wellbeing improvement and social reputation) [42,43,56] Change of industrial network and requirement [34,57] Energy security [49] Internal factor…”