Economic and Technical Considerations in Pursuing Green Building Certification: A Case Study from Iran

Abstract

Buildings use 30–40% of all energy resources and are thus the main consumers in modern society. Moreover, buildings require a vast amount of different raw materials. During the last two decades, several green building certifications have been created in order to consider the social, economic, and environmental aspects of the sustainability of buildings. One of the most famous and widely used of these certifications is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). So far, the use of LEED has concentrated in the US and other developed countries. One reason that restricts the use of this point-based system certification in developing countries is the limited data about its costs. In this study, the extra cost of the certification process were evaluated, besides the changes needed in the design of the building to reach the points required by LEED. At the first stage, the number of points the case study earns in its current format (Scenario 1) were assessed, then the cost difference of getting either the Certified (Scenario 2) or Silver (Scenario 3) level LEED certification for the building was studied. It was found that besides some technical considerations, filling the criteria of the Certified and Silver level increases the total costs of construction by 3.4% and 5.9%, respectively. Further improvement of the building’s energy efficiency would enable the attainment of a higher-level certification. The results of the study could help to promote the use of green building certifications in Western Asia.

Indicators as a Foundation of Eco-Labelling of Baked Clay Construction Products in the Republic of Serbia

“…Sustainable development in the construction material industry is in line with the goals of the UN Agenda 21 on sustainable building, which is a holistic way of thinking about buildings that encourages harmony between the natural and built environment [10]. During the last two decades, several green building certificates have been created that take into account social, economic and ecological aspects of the sustainability of buildings [11].…”

“…During the last two decades, several green building certificates have been created that take into account social, economic and ecological aspects of the sustainability of buildings [11], which served as one of the guidelines for this research. As opposed to eco-labelling applied by TBE, a leading association for the manufacturing of brick products in Europe [17], and based on LCA [3,[13][14][15], in the research presented in this paper, the authors did not use LCA software packages; however, the products were monitored through all stages of their life cycle using the defined indicators.…”

The Prioritization of Sustainability Features of Buildings from the Viewpoint of Experts

“…Rating [43]. Some certifications, such as BREEAM, primarily assess the environmental effectiveness of both new and pre-existing architectural designs, whereas the LEED concept of a green building has gained recognition across different nations and urban centers worldwide [44,45]. Table 1 provides the evolution of the green building and the emergence of green building standards over the years, as adopted from the studies of Ade and Rehm (2019) [40] and Sartori et al, (2021) [46].…”

Investigating the climate-adaptive design strategies of residential earth-sheltered buildings in Iran

“…In addition, the quality and the nature of countless recently manufactured building materials have exacerbated environmental pollution (Xu et al , 2020). Iran is amongst the high-energy-consuming countries in the building industry during both construction and operation (Mohammadnejad et al , 2011; Amiri et al , 2020). However, it is necessary to design appropriate strategies in new buildings, accordingly, to reduce energy consumption and environmental detriments (Makaremi et al , 2019; Nejat et al , 2015; Sofia et al ., 2020).…”