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Building environmental assessment methods:

redefining intentions and roles
a
Raymond J. Cole
a
School of Architecture , University of British Columbia , 6333 Memorial Road, Vancouver,
British Columbia, V6T 1Z2, Canada E-mail:
Published online: 03 Feb 2007.

To cite this article: Raymond J. Cole (2005) Building environmental assessment methods: redefining intentions and roles,
Building Research & Information, 33:5, 455-467, DOI: 10.1080/09613210500219063

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 BUILDING RESEARCH & INFORMATION (2005) 35(5), 455 –467

Building environmental assessment

methods: rede¢ning intentions and roles

Raymond J. Cole

School of Architecture, University of British Columbia, 6333 Memorial Road,Vancouver,

Downloaded by [University College Dublin] at 06:51 07 November 2013

British Columbia V6T 1Z2, Canada

E-mail: raycole@arch.ubc.ca

The initial intentions and current emphasis of building environmental performance assessment methods are compared
and contrasted with their emerging roles. This analysis provides a starting point for anticipating future developments
in environmental assessment methods for buildings, how they are likely to evolve and how they will be used. The
current varying expectations of assessment methods are examined, including the extent to which they can address
complex issues while remaining simple and practical, their role as ‘market transformation tools’, and their ability to
enhance dialogue among a range of stakeholders broader than a design team. More importantly, the increasing
framing of environmental issues within the wider context of ‘sustainability’ raises the question about whether existing
methods are capable of being easily reconfigured to fulfil this new agenda.

Keywords: assessment methods, building assessment, environmental assessment, futures, stakeholder participation,
sustainability, sustainable development, trends

Cet article compare les premières intentions des méthodes d’évaluation des performances environnementales de la
construction, insiste sur l’importance qui leur accordée actuellement alors qu’elles ne font qu’émerger. Cette analyse
constitue un point de départ qui permet d’anticiper les développements futurs en matière de méthodes d’évaluation
environnementale des bâtiments, de leur évolution probable et de leur utilisation. L’auteur analyse les espoirs
variables que l’on fonde sur ces méthodes d’évaluation, notamment leur aptitude à pouvoir résoudre des problèmes
complexes tout en restant simples et pratiques, leur rôle en tant qu’outils de transformation du marché et leur
capacité à favoriser le dialogue entre intervenants divers en dépassant le cadre d’une simple équipe de conception. Le
cadrage de plus en plus fréquent des questions environnementales dans le contexte plus large de la durabilité suscite
un questionnement sur les méthodes existantes et sur leur capacité à être facilement reconfigurées pour s’adapter à ce
nouveau programme.

Mots clés: méthodes d’évaluation, évaluation de la construction, évaluation environnementale, futures, participation des
intervenants, durabilité, développement durable, tendances

Introduction tools emerged to provide an objective evaluation of

Public awareness of climate change and environmental resource use, ecological loadings and indoor environ-
degradation is currently set amidst a host of other mental quality within a much broader ‘culture of per-
pressing concerns that include national security, vola- formance measurement’ that seeks greater
tile energy prices and over-taxed infrastructures. accountability in sectors such education and healthcare
Only the fullness of time will reveal the extent to as well as building construction.
which solutions to the latter have their roots in recog-
nizing and addressing the former. What does seem
clear, however, is the increasing need to frame environ- Tools and methods
mental issues within a wider political and social The terms ‘method’ and ‘tool’ are currently used inter-
debate. Similarly, building environmental assessment changeably to describe building environmental
Building Research & Information ISSN 0961-3218 print ⁄ISSN 1466-4321 online # 2005 Taylor & Francis
http: ⁄ ⁄www.tandf.co.uk ⁄journals
DOI: 10.1080/09613210500219063
 Cole
assessment techniques. It is difficult to attribute too much
meaning to the use of these terms in the names of current
assessment techniques since they are often selected based
on seeking a distinct acronym rather than precise descrip-
tive terminology. Similarly, the terms ‘certification’,
‘rating’ or ‘labelling’ are used, again often interchange-
ably, to indicate extended outputs from the assessment
process. These typically take the form of a singular,
easily recognizable designation, e.g. ‘Gold’, ‘Excellent’
or the number of attained ‘Green Globes’.
To explore fully the current and future roles of building
environmental assessment in this paper, it is necessary
to define and use these terms more carefully and
consistently:
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. Although the term ‘assessment tool’ is often used
generically to describe all assessment techniques
that have been crafted to assist in accomplishing a
specific intention, it is used here to describe a tech-
nique that predicts, calculates or estimates one or
more environmental performance characteristics
of a product or building, e.g. operating energy
use, greenhouse gas emissions or embodied
energy. There are a variety of tools, varying in com-
plexity and having different underlying method-
ologies – the most important distinction being
between those based on Life-Cycle Assessment
(LCA) principles and those that are not. Most
LCA-based environmental assessment tools such
as the Athena Environmental Impact Estimator
(developed by Athena SMI) and Envest (developed
by BRE) are used as the basis of evaluating
materials or other strategic design options. Other
types of methodologies applied in assessment tech-
niques relate to scoring performance (e.g. aggrega-
tion of points; eco-efficiency-based) and to the
derivation of weightings (e.g. expert consensus,
Analytic Hierarchy Process, etc.). Tools can be pur-
chased or accessed by design professionals or others
and used as and when deemed appropriate by users.
. ‘Assessment method’ is used here to describe a tech-
nique that has assessment as one of its core functions
but which may be accompanied by third-party veri-
fication before issuing a performance rating or label,
include reference to or use of a number of tools and
may offer supporting educational programmes for
design professionals. The terms ‘system’ or
‘scheme’ are often used interchangeably with
‘method’. Assessment methods generally have
recognizable ‘frameworks’ that organize or classify
environmental performance criteria in a structured
manner with assigned points or weightings. More
importantly, assessment methods are managed by
and operate within known organizational contexts
(e.g. BREEAM is operated by the UK Building
Research Establishment; LEED by the US Green
Building Council). Although parts of an assessment
456
method may be used selectively by design pro-
fessionals at their discretion, full engagement of a
method involves some form of registration or certi-
fication. This characteristic represents a critical dis-
tinction between assessment tools and assessment
methods as used in this paper, since the third-party
verification and scrutiny invariably brings
additional layers of constraints, bureaucracy and
costs to the process. Moreover, assessment tools
and methods invariably have different learning
curves on the part of their users – the former typi-
cally being steeper than the latter by virtue of
being used more independently.
The issues and arguments in this paper are directed pri-
marily at the current and emerging roles of building
environmental assessment methods, although many
are equally applicable to tools.
Maturation of assessment methods
The field of building environmental assessment has
matured remarkably quickly since the introduction of
the UK Building Research Establishment Environ-
mental Assessment Method (BREEAM) in 1990, and
the interim period has witnessed a rapid increase in
the number of methods either in use or being developed
worldwide. Within this relatively short period, succes-
sive generations of systems have evolved as a result of
accumulated experience, new conceptual insights and
theoretical propositions (IEA, 2001). Different
systems have greater strengths and weaknesses than
others, and later systems draw on these to include fea-
tures and elements that permit more effective use.
There is little doubt that building environmental assess-
ment methods have contributed enormously to furthering
the promotion of higher environmental expectations and
are directly and indirectly influencing the performance of
buildings. Assessment methods have enjoyed consider-
able success and their widespread awareness has
created the critical mass of interest necessary to cement
their role in creating positive change. ‘Success’ is used
here in reference to the way that assessment methods
have entered the parlance of the building industry
rather than the number of actual ‘assessed’ and ‘certified’
projects, which is still relatively low. This issue is central
to the re-contextualization of assessment methods and to
the identification of how, specifically, they can be most
potent in continually effecting positive change.
A number of factors have collectively generated the
early success of assessment methods:
. prior absence of any means both to discuss and
evaluate building performance in a comprehensive
way left open a distinct niche within an emerging
European and North American ‘culture of per-
formance assessment

. simple, seemingly straightforward declaration of
the requirements of a limited number of perform-
ance measures presented a complex set of issues
in a manageable form
. by offering a recognizable structure for environ-
mental issues, they provided a focus for the
debate on building environmental performance
. public-sector building agencies have used them as a
means of demonstrating commitment to emerging
environmental policies and directives
. manufacturers of ‘green’ building materials and
products have been given the opportunity to
make direct and indirect associations with the rel-
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evant performance criteria
This momentum will likely increase over the next few
years, and current systems will continue to evolve in
terms of refining performance measures and increasing
the level of complexity attainable within acceptable
costs. Similarly, the organizational setting within
which the methods are administered will respond to
concerns over the costs of making an assessment by
streamlining the certification process and the necessary
support documentation.
Because of their success, building environmental assess-
ment methods have dwarfed all other mechanisms for
instilling environmental awareness within the building
industry. Indeed, they are increasingly positioned not
only as the most potent mechanism for affecting
change, but also seemingly, and unfortunately, as the
sole focus of the current debate on buildings and the
environment. Although initially introduced to perform
a specific assessment role as a means to counteract unver-
ified claims of building performance (‘green-wash’),
building environmental assessment methods play a
qualitatively different role in today’s context. Moreover,
a shift in emphasis toward sustainability is already begin-
ning to transform further the structural and operational
requirements of such methods.
One key objective here is to compare and contrast the
initial intentions and emphasis of building environ-
mental performance assessment methods with their
current and emerging roles and to examine whether
too great an expectation is now placed on their
ability to create the desired change at the expense of
their relationship with other potential change mechan-
isms. A second and equally important objective is to
consider whether, framed within a wider context of
sustainability, existing methods are capable of being
easily reconfigured to address this expanded agenda.
This analysis provides a starting point for anticipating
future developments in ‘building’ environmental
assessment methods – how are they likely to evolve
and how will they be used.
Building environmental assessment methods
Throughout, a distinction is made between ‘product’ and
‘process’. The notion of ‘product’ relates primarily to the
recognizable assessment framework within an assess-
ment method and covers all technical characteristics
related to the scope of performance issues, including
the way they are structured, scored and communicated.
Largely dictated by the authors of the assessment
scheme, products currently represent the major focus
of discussion. ‘Process’, by contrast, covers a host of
issues related to the use of assessment methods, including
deployment by the design team and engagement of other
stakeholders as the basis for making informed decisions,
as well as development and maintenance of proprietary
assessment systems. The distinction between ‘product’
and ‘process’ enables the paper to re-emphasize that
developing an assessment framework is only a means
to an end and not an end in itself. As such, by avoiding
much of the current focus on continued refinement and
comparison of the technical characteristics of methods,
the paper examines the equally important issues of
context and application, as well as adaptation to, and
support of, new agendas.
Initial intentions and roles
The majority of existing building environmental assess-
ment methods evaluate ‘green’ performance (Cole,
1999), and have the following general characteristics:
. technically framed and emphasize the assessment
of resource use, ecological loadings, health and
comfort in individual buildings
. primarily concerned with mitigation: reducing
stresses on natural systems by improving the
environmental performance of buildings
. assess performance relative to explicitly declared or
implicit benchmarks and, as such, measure the
extent of improvement rather than proximity to a
defined, desired goal
. assess design intentions and potential as deter-
mined through prediction rather than actual real-
world performance
. structure performance scoring as a simple additive
process and use explicitly declared or implicit
weightings to denote priority
. offer a performance summary, certificate or label
that can be part of leasing documents and pro-
motional documents
. operate primarily through the use of ‘hard’ copies
of performance requirements in the form of pub-
lished manuals and ‘hard’ copies of submittal
requirements
457
 Cole
They were initially conceived, and still largely function,
as voluntary, market place mechanisms by which
owners striving for improved performance would
have a credible and objective basis for communicating
their efforts. Within this context, ensuring that the
methods were simple, practical, and inexpensive in
both use and maintenance was deemed paramount.
Building environmental assessment is now a distinct
and important realm of research and inquiry that
does the following:
. Seeks to develop greater refinement and rigour in
performance indicators, weighting protocols and,
where appropriate, the potential incorporation of
LCA approaches to refine the constituent measures.
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. Has provided numerous side-by-side comparisons
of the more notable methods and tools (e.g.
BREEAM, LEED and GBTool) to illustrate areas
of convergence and distinction, typically as a start-
ing point for generating applicable methods in
other regions or countries seeking to develop new
assessment schemes. Within this debate, the scope
of comparison and analysis is typically based only
on technical content (e.g. the framework) and it
makes little or no reference to the organizational
or market context within which the methods
operate, i.e. comparisons are made indiscrimi-
nately between tools and methods. This represents
a serious problem since the context within which
an assessment method has been designed to
operate profoundly affects the effective scope,
emphasis and rigour of an assessment.
Changing the emphasis
Several emerging issues increasingly frame the use of
building assessment methods:
. Assessment methods have moved beyond volun-
tary market place mechanisms. Performance
thresholds in the assessment methods (e.g. LEED
Silver) are increasingly being specified by public
agencies and other organizations as performance
requirements, and are being considered as potential
incentives for development approval, bonus
density and other concessions.
. Building environmental assessment is increasingly
being recognized by banking, financial and insur-
ance companies as a basis for risk and mortgage
appraisals and real estate valuations.
. With more widespread adoption of assessment
tools, compliance with performance requirements
increasingly affects associated manufacturing
industries. While some industries use this as an
458
opportunity to re-evaluate production processes,
others become increasingly resistive.
. The range of building types seeking certification is
increasing and this, in turn, is creating the need
either to develop generic systems that can recognize
distinctions on an as-needed basis for specific situ-
ations, or to create a suite of related methods and
tools, each of which uniquely addresses a particular
building type.
. The need to permit easy access to tools and
methods, and to enable assessments to be made
quickly and cheaply, is spurring the increased
deployment of Web-based methods and tools (e.g.
ABCplanner (Denmark) and PromisE (Finland))
or attendant software support tools (e.g. Calcula-
tor and Letter Templates within LEED (US)).
. The aggregate effect of individual buildings has an
enormous consequence for community infrastruc-
ture design and operation. This, together with the
inherent limitation of analysing individual build-
ings as the basis to understand ecological
impacts, has generated interest in creating and
linking assessment methods and tools across a
variety of scales.
. Increased awareness of the inevitability of climate
change has extended the approach from one
solely of mitigation to embrace now adaptation
to changing conditions and the conscious restor-
ation of previously degraded natural systems.
Similar to the necessity and value of developing stan-
dardized Life-Cycle Assessment protocols for building
materials and products, i.e. universal criteria for estab-
lishing boundary conditions, data quality, etc., there is
increased activity in defining standardized require-
ments for building assessment methods (e.g. ISO
TG59/SC17: Sustainability in Building Construction).
A forthcoming Technical Standard (ISO/PDTS 21931)
will provide a general framework to improve the
quality and comparability of building assessment
methods. Interestingly, this attempt to establish
enhanced consistency is occurring at a time when, as
Guy and Moore (2004) suggest, ‘a search for consensus
around universal best practice appears to have failed’.
Assessment methods in developing countries
Assessment methods originated in developed countries.
With increased international interest, however, the
cross-cultural transferability of assessment methods is
of particular importance to those in developing
countries. The exchange and ‘borrowing’ of methods
has been greatly assisted through the active partici-
pation of many countries in international programmes
and initiatives such as the Green Building Challenge

(Larsson and Cole, 2001) and the International Energy
Agency Annex 31 (IEA, 2001). Although there are
clear benefits associated with this exchange, the
dangers of homogenization and reduced sensitivity to
the acknowledgement and promotion of regionally
appropriate design strategies is always present.
Indeed, the inappropriate cross-cultural ‘importation’
of specific technical strategies may, in the short-term,
prove potentially detrimental to environmental pro-
gress. Similarly, since assessment methods invariably
carry the implicit cultural biases of their creators, it is
critical that their underpinnings be made explicit
within any comparison and adoption.
Since the social and economic concerns in developing
countries are far more pressing than those in developed
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countries, domestic constraints on environmental pro-
gress are therefore qualitatively different. Gibberd
(2001), for example, contrasts the emphases of devel-
oped and developing countries. Whereas the former
have been concerned with maintaining standards of
living while reducing resource depletion and environ-
mental damage, he argues that the average standard
of living in developing countries is far lower than in
developed countries and in many cases basic human
needs are not being met. Here, Gibberd suggests the
emphasis should therefore be on development that
aims to address these basic needs while avoiding nega-
tive environmental impacts. Whereas some environ-
mental criteria related to resource use and loadings
can be readily reconfigured to acknowledge different
regional and geographical contexts, many others
cannot. All assessment methods carry the values and
priorities of their authors, implicitly or explicitly, and
importing them from one circumstance to another or,
indeed, developing a standardized universally appli-
cable method, is now recognized as problematic. This
will become increasingly acute as the range of consider-
ations is expanded to address social and economic
aspects of sustainability (Cooper, 1999).
The organization of several regional sustainable build-
ing conferences in Brazil, South Africa, China, Poland,
Malaysia and Greece during 2004 was intended to:
elucidate sustainable building issues in these
regions, and to create links with the [SB05
World Sustainable Building Conference] in
Tokyo in September 2005, chiefly through the
tabling of regional strategy documents, including
agendas research and action programmes.
(ABN, 2005)
Ideally, input from sources ranging in scale from
regionally focused meetings to a global forum will
enable the concerns of developing and tropical
countries to be given greater prominence, thus reflect-
ing a more inclusive vision of these agenda. This
input should also illustrate a more expansive debate
Building environmental assessment methods
on the relevance, potential roles and structure of assess-
ment methods within the diversity of global cultures
and climatic contexts.
New tools and methods
Several recent assessment methods and tools, e.g. the
Japanese Comprehensive Assessment Scheme for
Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE); the pro-
posed Hong Kong Comprehensive Environmental Per-
formance Assessment Scheme (CEPAS) and the UK
Design Quality Indicator (DQI), include performance
issues and structural features that differentiate them
from earlier methods:
. CASBEE: while employing an additive/weighting
approach, it breaks away from the simple addition
of points achieved in all performance areas to
derive an overall building score, which has been
the dominant feature of virtually all previous
methods. It distinguishes between the Environ-
mental Loading (resource use and ecological
impacts) and Environmental Quality and Perform-
ance (indoor environmental quality and amenities),
scoring them separately to determine the Building
Environmental Efficiency, i.e. the ratio of Environ-
mental Quality and Performance to Environmental
Loading. Conceptually, therefore, building assess-
ment is presented not as a representation of the
environmental characteristics of the building as a
‘product’, but rather and more explicitly as a
measure of the environmental implications associ-
ated with providing a set of ‘services’.
. CEPAS: while again employing an additive/
weighting approach, it introduces and organizes
performance criteria that make a clear distinction
between ‘human’ and ‘physical’ performance
issues, as well as between ‘buildings’ and their ‘sur-
roundings’. This manifests as eight performance
categories: Resource Use; Loadings; Site Impacts;
Neighbourhood Impacts; Indoor Environmental
Quality; Building Amenities; Site Amenities; and
Neighbourhood Amenities. The inclusion of the
neighbourhood impacts and amenities acknowl-
edges the emerging value placed on the quality of
exterior spaces within the high-density building
context of Hong Kong.
. DQI: supported by the UK Construction Industry
Council, is a toolkit used throughout the develop-
ment process from the inception of a building
through its design, construction and in-use phases
to capture the opinions of all stakeholders. It is
organized within three main categories of Func-
tionality, Build Quality and Impact and it aims to
assist clients in defining their aspirations, to
develop a shared language for the project
between clients and the design team, and then to
459
 Cole
measure the project’s success against the aspira-
tions. The DQI has its roots within a growing
desire to set goals and objectives for the evaluation
of buildings and embraces a broader range of con-
siderations than building environmental assess-
ment methods (Gann, et al., 2003).
Assessment methods that explicitly acknowledge sus-
tainability, such as the South African Sustainable
Building Assessment Tool (SBAT) and Ove Arup’s Sus-
tainable Project Appraisal Routine (SPeAR), are also
emerging:
. SBAT: explicitly introduces performance criteria
that acknowledge social and economic issues.
Fifteen performance areas are identified, equally
divided within the overarching sustainability fra-
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mework of environmental, social and economic
categories, each described through five perform-
ance criteria. Further, SBAT considers how it
could become an integral part of, and subsequently
influence, the building production process by relat-
ing its application to a nine-stage process based on
the typical life cycle of a building: Briefing, Site
Analysis, Target Setting, Design, Design Develop-
ment, Construction, Handover, Operation, and
Reuse/Refurbish/Recycle.
. SPeAR: functions as a project assessment method-
ology within Ove Arup’s consulting projects to
enable a rapid review of the sustainability of pro-
jects, plans, products and organizations. The
SPeAR Diagram combines, in a graphical format,
the diverse issues that need to be considered in sus-
tainable design, including social, economic, natural
resource and environmental issues, acknowledging
both negative and positive results. SPeAR can be
used to highlight areas where a project/design/
development performs poorly in terms of sustain-
ability principles, and to identify opportunities to
optimize performance, integrate best practice or
use new technology. SPeAR provides a basis for
evaluating a project’s sustainability performance
not in comparison with that of other buildings,
but relative to strengths and weaknesses within a
particular context. This permits a greater level of
subjectivity in the definition of performance cri-
teria and their interpretation during scoring.
Re-contextualizing assessment methods
Assessment implies measuring how well or poorly a
building is performing, or is likely to perform, against
a declared set of criteria. Most current building assess-
ment methods attempt to measure improvements in the
environmental performance of buildings relative to
current typical practice or requirements (Cole, 1999).
However, it will become increasingly necessary to
cast building performance and its assessment within
460
an overarching dictate of sustainability. Two key ques-
tions here are as follows:
. Can current assessment methods that were con-
ceived and created to evaluate the environmental
merits of individual buildings be easily transformed
to account for a qualitatively different role?
. Can emerging expectations be met through a single
method or tool?
The following sections explore these issues as a means
of exposing conflicting and supporting roles of assess-
ment methods.
Embracing sustainability
Our transition to an environmentally sustainable
future will invariably parallel the rate and extent to
which all human enterprise is modelled – including
buildings, infrastructure and settlement patterns – on
natural systems and processes (Hawken et al., 1999;
Battle and McCarthy, 2002; Benyus, 2002; McDo-
nough and Braungart, 2002). Natural systems and pro-
cesses together with the requirement of accounting for
social and cultural needs and aspirations should
equally inform the design of assessment methods. A
clear difficulty is the existence of a multiplicity of
views of what form a sustainable future may take
and each is capable of generating a wide range of
approaches to building design and construction. More-
over, given the uncertainties of climate change and
associated social, economic and political conse-
quences, there will be no single or easy path to a sus-
tainable future. Guy and Moore (2004) suggest:
Acknowledging the plasticity of culture and
nature means that we need to recognize and
analyse green buildings as a series of contingent
hybrids, an understanding of which is insepar-
able from the encounter with people and places
that shaped their design and development.
As such, although the design of assessment methods
and tools demands a level of specificity, the arguments
must inevitably remain general.
Sustainable development or sustainability
Robinson (2004), in reviewing how the concept of sus-
tainable development has evolved in industrialized
countries since 1987, distinguishes between the
notions of ‘sustainable development’ and ‘sustainabil-
ity’. Sustainable development, he suggests, is favoured
by government and the private sector while the term
‘sustainability’ has been increasingly used by academic,
environmentalists and non-governmental organiz-
ations. The distinction as well as the broad range of
definitions and interpretations of each reflect their pro-
ponents’ ‘philosophical and moral conceptions of the

appropriate way to conceive of the relationship
between humanity and nature’. Sustainable develop-
ment maintains an anthropocentric view and favours
incremental change that ‘does not challenge any
existing entrenched powers or privileges’ (p. 376), insti-
tutional reforms and technological advance. Sustainabil-
ity, by contrast, promotes a biocentric view that places
the human presence within a larger natural context,
and focuses on constraints and on fundamental value
and behavioural change. Robinson further suggests
that if sustainability is to mean anything, ‘it must act
as an integrating concept’ and will require ‘new concepts
and tools that are integrative and synthetic, not disciplin-
ary and analytic; and that actively creates synergy, not
just summation’. When judged against these criteria,
most current assessment methods and tools are left
Downloaded by [University College Dublin] at 06:51 07 November 2013
wanting in their ability to provide either insights or effec-
tive guidance on sustainability.
Several issues relate to some of the broad conceptual
changes that would be required in a new generation
of methods and tools to assist in charting possible
paths forward:
. As with current systems, there is clearly value in
keeping individual performance criterion scores dis-
tinct to permit access by various stakeholders.
Although it is generally accepted that performance
criteria should be carefully selected to avoid
‘double-counting’, an important but seldom dis-
cussed issue relates to ways and extent to which
assessment methods expose links or synergies
between performance criteria. A sustainable build-
ing is likely to be judged by the way that various
systems fulfil multiple functions and, indeed, it is
typically only possible to achieve high environ-
mental performance within demanding cost and
time constraints through the creative integration of
systems. Similarly, while the three domains of
environmental, social and economic are typically
used to frame sustainability, it is their points of
intersection that are equally critical, i.e. the ways
and extent to which they influence each other posi-
tively or negatively. Simply adding social criteria
to the current mix of environmental performance
measures may not necessarily expose the way that
one influences and is influenced by others. It can
only do so if the method or tool is used as part of
the deliberations between various stakeholders, i.e.
synergies are achieved through active, cross-
disciplinary use of the tool, rather than by simply
the structure of the tool itself. That stated, it is
important to ensure that environmental and social
goals are not, yet again, compromised within this
process.
. Existing assessment developed for the private
sector marketplace, and increasingly being
adopted by government, can be viewed as
Building environmental assessment methods
supporting the fundamental attributes of sustain-
able development as articulated by Robinson
(2004) – anthropocentric, incremental change and
technical advance – and, as such, leave fundamental
questions and goals largely unaddressed. This
suggests the need for greater clarification of the
overall goals and objectives as end points or
desired outcomes rather than the current dominant
focus on assessing improvements relative to typical
practice or other declared benchmarks. Since
current knowledge of ecological and resource-carry-
ing capacity is still primitive, framing assessment
methods in terms of ‘distance to sustainable’ is
clearly difficult – but initiating the discussion is
valuable.
. Existing environmental assessment methods were
primarily conceived to assess individual buildings,
and performance issues are bounded by those
factors that influence and are influenced by them.
Rather than simply the adoption of the notion of
‘sustainable’ building as a replacement of ‘green’
building (Cole, 1999), the issue is one of establish-
ing the extent to which buildings can support sus-
tainable patterns of living and one of nurturing
the demand for buildings that can do so.
Accuracy and precision
If, as Robinson (2004) suggests, one accepts the
notions that ‘what can and should be done to achieve
a sustainable society is not fundamentally a scientific
or technical issue’ (p. 379) and that ‘scientific analysis
can inform but not resolve the basic questions posed by
the concept of sustainability’, then the role of assess-
ment methods and the situations where accuracy and
precision are required can clearly be called into ques-
tion. The issue of accuracy and precision in describing
performance is also evidenced in other aspects of the
current building-environmental debate. Physiological-
based models of comfort, for example, although his-
torically providing a basis for developing a clear set
of quantitative design criteria, are today recognized
as insufficient. The ability or, indeed, need to quantify
the host of psychological and cultural factors that
create a richer, more complex reality is raised directly
and indirectly throughout Steemers and Steane’s
Environmental Diversity in Architecture (2004).
Although much of the content of the book is based
on objective research, there is a strong suggestion
that developing what constitutes an appropriate diver-
sity and range in environmental conditions is probably
more important than seeking further precision.
Chappells and Shove (2005) further argue that
comfort ‘is a highly negotiable socio-cultural construct’
and that ‘concepts of comfort are made and repro-
duced through and as a consequence of the intersecting
actions of a really very wide cast of players, all of
whom have a part to play in constructing the future’.
461
 Cole
Extending the debate of comfort and other previously
narrowly defined aspects of performance beyond tech-
nical and scientific measures can be seen as indicative
of the increasing need to reframe performance assess-
ment within a larger social and political context.
Above all, assessment methods must be seen as an inte-
gral part of a process of change. In discussing the DQI,
Prasad (2004) suggests:
. . . in the end, what is important in assessing
design quality is the whole effect of the built
environment on individuals and society rather
than simply the physically determinate measures,
critical though they are.
Clarifying the most effective means of using an assess-
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ment method should clearly be central to informing its
design. Again, the purpose of the method or tool is a
critical determinant of the precision it should offer. If,
for example, the purpose is to initiate interest or
provoke green building activity, so long as it points
the user in the right direction, precision may not necess-
arily be critical. By contrast, if the tool is to be used to
inform larger policy decisions (e.g. climate change pro-
gramme design with alternative decisions based on
emissions comparisons) or requires comparison or
benchmarking between alternatives for credibility,
then accuracy is obviously important, with equivalent
precision in assessment of the alternatives.
Anthropocentric or biocentric focus
Robinson’s (2004) distinction between ‘anthropo-
centric’ and ‘biocentric’ framed models will require
explicit acknowledgement within the debate regarding
‘market transformation’ and the design of building
environmental methods and tools. There are a
number of conflicting views. For example, there are
least two distinct ways of framing environmental
issues among other societal concerns:
. Sustainability may be framed as the recognition
and accommodation of economic, social and
environmental considerations. The notion of the
‘triple bottom line’ is often posited as the explicit
embracing and balancing of economic, social and
environmental issues as a critical and necessary
requirement.
. Sustainability may also be positioned as having as a
prerequisite the maintenance of the functional
integrity of the ecosphere so that it can remain resi-
lient to human-induced stresses and remain bio-
logically productive (Rees, 1991). As such,
notwithstanding the importance of social and
economic needs and constraints, the health of the
biosphere will be the limiting factor for sustainabil-
ity and economic and social systems must ulti-
mately be set within the constraints and
opportunities afforded by nature.
462
These different positions are evidenced, albeit
implicitly, in the design and expectation of assessment
methods and tools. For example, despite the ambigu-
ities raised by Markus (2003), the anthropocentric
emphasis of the DQI is clear – to ‘engender cultural
change and bridge divides between fragmented disci-
plines by focusing on users’ (Gann et al., 2003). This
emphasis has profoundly influenced the structure and
use of the DQI, which includes a questionnaire designed
to elicit from respondents their intent for a building
against which subsequent judgements of design
quality are made. By contrast, many of the more scien-
tifically rigorous tools are clearly directed at under-
standing the impact of buildings on natural systems.
Ecoeffect, for example, is premised on LCA principles
that explicitly evaluate the ‘Impact Categories’ associ-
ated with emissions of air and water: climate change,
eutrophication, acidification, stratospheric ozone
depletion, ground-level ozone accumulation, human
toxicity and ecotoxicity; and solid waste: radiation
from radioactive material, building and demolition
waste, hazardous waste, and slag and ashes.
The emphasis of most current ‘market-place’ environ-
mental assessment methods is less clear in this regard
since they serve more than one role. As such, they
include criteria related to human comfort and
amenity and environmental impact, often indiscrimi-
nately. While this is a necessary requirement of volun-
tary methods designed to provide a common and
verifiable set of criteria and targets so that building
owners striving for higher environmental standards
have a means of measuring and demonstrating that
effort, it brings with it a clear ambiguity of emphasis.
Kohler (1999) criticizes existing assessment methods
based on relative performance as both hiding ‘the real
mass and energy flows which determine the effective
environmental impact’ and the ‘differences in impact
between individuals and different countries’ (p. 310).
Cooper (1999) elaborates on this limitation and
suggests that, unless methods for assessing the built
environment are capable of measuring performance
against carrying capacity criteria, ‘their ability to con-
tribute to the sustainability debate is likely to remain
limited’.
Assessment
The role of building environmental assessment
methods in providing an objective evaluation of per-
formance will remain central for the foreseeable
future. However, the ways and extent to which they
can acknowledge and accommodate increasing com-
plexity while simultaneously being simple and practical
to users will likely become increasingly significant.
A general characteristic of the building industry is that
it is risk averse and prefers simple, unambiguous mess-
ages regarding what to do rather than why it should be

done. The success of the current generation of building
environmental assessment methods lies in their per-
ceived simplicity in declaring an industry expectation
of what constitutes ‘green’ building design and con-
struction. Solutions to complex environmental pro-
blems that involve a wide range of scales of influence
and time frames require systems thinking: the ability
to appreciate and address linkages and interrelation-
ships between a broad range of often-conflicting
requirements. Gadwin et al. (1997) suggest that
wholes need to be emphasized over constituent parts,
relationships over specific entities, processes and trans-
formations over physical structure, quality over quan-
tity and inclusiveness over exclusiveness. These are
not the underpinnings of most current building
environmental assessment methods and are not easily
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superimposed on them.
A host of other issues surround the conflict of addres-
sing complex issues through the use of simple
methods and tools. The complexity of developing and
using building environmental assessment methods –
perceived or real – derives from host of considerations:
. Sheer number of issues that potentially describe
building environmental performance and the diffi-
culty of knowing which are the critical ones to
address within a specific building project. Weight-
ing protocols can assist, but they are generally
both general and subjective.
. Amount of data that need to be collected to make
an assessment. The nature and number of perform-
ance criteria influence the time, effort and cost of
the assessment, e.g. some credits in assessment
methods require considerable effort to document
and verify, yet it remains unclear if the derived
environmental benefit is worth this effort.
. Varying degree of scientific understanding of the
issues and the metrics for representing them.
. Ability to assimilate and make sense of the results.
Assessment methods are only a means to an end –
the results of the assessment are critical in enabling
decisions and strategic planning to be undertaken.
The results must therefore be summarized in a
simple and easily understood form so they can be
assimilated within a wider context of building
design and construction.
At a practical level, the accommodation of complexity
relates to the relationship between the structure of the
assessment method (i.e. the range and organization of
the performance issues) and the specificity of the con-
stituent criteria requirements. An increasingly cited
notion is that building environmental assessment
methods would be significantly enhanced if LCA meth-
odologies were deployed as underpinnings of relevant
Building environmental assessment methods
performance criteria. A key issue in this paper,
however, is that this is simply not a matter of introducing
more rigorously developed criteria. More important is
the recognition and resolution of fundamentally differ-
ent assessment cultures: those that are uncompromising
in their search for accuracy and precision in describing
and reporting results and those are shaped by the recon-
ciliation of a number of stakeholder interests.
Design guidance
The initial concerns regarding the extent to which assess-
ment methods support or constrain design innovation
persist, but have not proven sufficiently potent to affect
their structure or emphasis significantly. Since environ-
mental assessment methods present an organized set of
selected environmental criteria, by default they commu-
nicate to building owners and design teams what are
understood as being the most significant environmental
considerations. Many existing assessment methods are
used as design tools, even though they may not have
been specifically designed to do so. This raises a
number of potential problems:
. On the one hand, assessment methods offer some
degree of clarity and definition about what consti-
tutes a green building, to which, even though they
may not necessarily agree, all stakeholders can at
least acknowledge. By contrast, they potentially
institutionalize a limited definition of environmen-
tally responsible building practices at a time when
exploration and innovation should perhaps be
encouraged.
. Building owners may commit their designers to
achieving a high-performance score using a specific
assessment method, resulting in ‘points-chasing’ as
an unfortunate, but understandable, consequence.
. ‘Gaming’, whereby design teams explore the require-
ments within an assessment system for interpret-
ations that will yield the greatest score for the least
cost or effort rather than those that deliver the
most appropriate or effective environmental per-
formance for the project at hand – is also an unfor-
tunate practice with any assessment method.
These are all issues that can be evidenced in the early
stages of the adoption of an assessment method and
provided its credibility remains intact, will invariably
diminish with their maturation.
Encouraging dialogue
The notion that by structuring environmental criteria
in an organized fashion, building environmental assess-
ment methods offer a structure and focus for design
teams and create a common language, remains a posi-
tive indirect benefit of using such methods. A more
463
 Cole
important, and perhaps primary future role is how they
can transform the culture of the building industry to
accommodate sustainability as a common, consistent
and integral part of its decision-making. Given the
broad range of perspectives and stakeholder interests,
contradiction and conflict is inevitable.
The introduction of the DQI has raised a host of rele-
vant issues related to the future development of assess-
ment methods in general. While some of these issues
have been evident in earlier debates on performance
assessment (e.g. the handling of quantitative and quali-
tative measures), others highlight the need for greater
clarity. Prasad (2004), for example, indicates that
the DQI ‘currently occupies an imprecise position
between being a tool for measuring and a tool for
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enabling dialogue’ and asks ‘whether and to what
extent the design measurement and dialogue support
are contradictory aims’. In view of the ‘conflicting
and divergent sets of values’ between developers and
builders and architects and other designers, the DQI
would have to ‘perform a balancing act to engage
and win acceptance in both cultures’.
It is generally recognized that the significant changes
required to meet the dictates of sustainability cannot
and will not occur through independent action, but
will require concerted and broad-based partnerships.
Brandon and Lombardi (2005), for example, explore
ways of creating ‘a structure of knowledge and think-
ing’ that allows the development of a vocabulary that
all participants ‘can own and feel able to contribute’.
The significant requirement is, therefore, the extent to
which assessment methods can provide a common
language not just between the participants in the
design development, but how they can facilitate and
enhance dialogue, communication and story-telling
among and between key parties involved in a building
project – both technical and administrative. More gen-
erally, they can be part of a mix of approaches that can
begin to facilitate greater cross-fertilization of knowl-
edge from different disciplines of natural and social
sciences. In this role, it is not a question of creating
methods that can describe performance more accu-
rately, it is one of acknowledging the potential to
change and positively influence the current mental
models, attitudes and priorities of multiple stake-
holders involved in the production of the built
environment.
Robinson (2004, p. 380) suggests that the ‘need to
develop methods of deliberation and decision-making
that actively engage the relevant interests’ of stake-
holders will become increasingly important to infuse
sustainability considerations into day-to-day conduct
and practice. Given the current multiplicity of conflict-
ing views, he further suggests that the ‘power’ of sus-
tainability lies ‘precisely in the degree to which it
brings to the surface these contradictions and provides
464
a kind of discursive playing field in which they can be
debated’ (p. 382) and subsequently encourage the
‘development of new modes of public consultation
and involvement intending multiple views to be
expressed and debated’. Again, the parallel debate in
building environmental assessment is becoming
increasingly evident. Kaatz et al. (2005), for example,
advocate the implementation of a broader participa-
tory approach in building assessment, including con-
sideration of process design, definition of desired
outputs and outcomes, etc.
The development of assessment methods has, for the
main part, been driven by the scoping and structuring
of performance criteria. Although it is generally
accepted that environmental criteria must be organized
in ways that facilitate meaningful dialogue and appli-
cation, the structuring of criteria within the assessment
method is most important during the output of the per-
formance evaluation, when the ‘story’ of the perform-
ance must be told in a coherent and informative way
to a variety of different recipients. Gann et al. (2003)
indicate that the ‘methods by which results are depicted
has a direct bearing on how the indicators are used and
understood – and by whom’. CASBEE explicitly dis-
tinguishes between the way that performance infor-
mation is organized during the assessment process
and how it is transformed to communicate a variety
of different outputs. It uses a variety of different
output formats, providing the opportunity to tell
different ‘stories’ about a building’s performance –
an overall performance as well as more detailed
descriptions.
Market transformation
An often-stated role and expectation is that the wide-
spread adoption of assessment methods could ulti-
mately transform the ‘market’ in its expectation and
demand for buildings with higher environmental per-
formance. Almost all current building environmental
assessment methods are voluntary in their application
and have the primary objective of stimulating market
demand for buildings with improved environmental
performance. This has been accompanied by the
notion of ‘branding’ the names of LEED and
BREEAM to building owners, purchasers and lessors
to make them synonymous with high levels of environ-
mental performance and companion mechanisms such
as the LEED Accredited Professional programme to
‘transform’ expectations and valuation of skills and
knowledge of design professionals.
An underlying premise of voluntary assessments is that
if the market is provided with improved information
and mechanisms, a discerning client group can and
will provide leadership in environmental responsibil-
ity, and that others will follow suit to remain competi-
tive. Guy and Moore (2004) suggest that such

approaches assume ‘a purely scientific or quantitative
framing of the problem and that there are no barriers,
save our awareness, to implementation’. Irrespectively,
a rationalist, empirical framing of assessment methods
has certainly highlighted the systemic and social nature
of the real barriers.
Key questions that emerge at this time include the
following:
. Are assessment methods solely about making an
assessment of building performance in the most
objective, precise manner? And by having objective
measures of building performance, will these be the
vehicle by which the value of high performances
are diffused through the market? Assumptions
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answering these questions affirmatively have not
been subject to any serious critique.
. Are assessment methods primarily a method to
transform the market in the most effective
manner? Here, the notion of accuracy of the assess-
ment process may not necessarily be a critical
requirement and awarding of points and associated
labels centres on encouraging building owners to
engage in environmentally responsible practices.
. What ways and to what extent is the assessment
process and accuracy compromised by issues of
market acceptability? This is a clearly a matter of
degree since all methods and tools must be
designed to facilitate their acceptance and use.
Voluntary assessment protocols must serve two
conflicting requirements. On one hand, they must
function as an objective and sufficiently demanding
metric to have credibility with the general public,
and particularly with the environmental activist
community. On the other hand, they must be
attractive to building owners who require a posi-
tive, obvious benefit to show for any effort that
they have placed on environmental performance.
Satisfying these twin requirements invariably com-
promises both the number of criteria that are
assessed and the placement of benchmarks before
performance points are earned.
In a detailed and comprehensive critique of the Design
Quality Indicator, Markus (2003) indicated that its
creators have increasingly ‘turned away from a
measuring tool to a dialogue one’. He continues that:
. . . creating an informed dialogue must be a valu-
able way to improve the quality of buildings.
However, if informed dialogue is the primary
aim, much of the numerical paraphernalia
(scoring, weighting algorithms, etc.) can and
should be abandoned, and the evaluative com-
ponents should be enriched.
Building environmental assessment methods
This would further reinforce the potency of assessment
methods in changing the culture of the building indus-
try and would clarify which features are most effective
in doing so. A key question emerges as to how
informed a dialogue can be without a way of
measuring real performance.
Discussion and conclusions
Few would deny that wider development and appli-
cation of building environmental assessment methods
has provided considerable theoretical and practical
experience on their potential contribution in furthering
environmentally responsible building practices. While
their most significant early contribution was to
acknowledge and institutionalize the importance of
assessing building across a broad range of consider-
ations, the increased use of building environmental
assessment methods has began to expose and clarify a
host of new potential roles. These relate primarily to
their facilitation of communication between stake-
holders as the focus shifts to addressing sustainability
and changing the culture of the building industry.
Despite their current success and influence, however,
building assessment methods remain constrained by a
lack of clarity regarding their emerging roles.
This paper has attempted to redefine and clarify the
emergent roles of assessment methods. The discussion
has permitted clarification of the distinction between
the notions of performance assessment and market
transformation, and elucidation of the extent and
ways in which assessment methods expose relationships
between environmental and social considerations,
enable synergistic links to be made and enhance dialo-
gue among a range of stakeholders broader than the
design team. A number of fundamental issues and ques-
tions seem to lie at the heart of this debate, in particular
the need for clarity and distinction between the role of a
method as an assessment – measuring performance and
progress – and the role of a market transformation cat-
alyst. This is symptomatic of a wide range of expec-
tations placed on such methods that, without being
made explicit, cloud a host of decisions regarding
their structure and rigour. The notion of ‘assessment’
implies uncompromised accuracy, objectivity and
transparency in defining the performance indicators,
matched by an equally rigorous process of evaluation.
By contrast, the notion of a ‘market transformation cat-
alyst’ – encouraging the market to aspire to higher per-
formance – carries the implications of constraining the
rate and extent to which changes can be made to
methods (as a way to prevent market confusion), avoid-
ing negative scoring, setting performance requirements
to encourage use, etc.
Despite the fact that they embrace a broad range of
environmental considerations, building environmental
465
 Cole
assessment methods have provided focus in the building
industry’s definition of a ‘green building’. Two key ques-
tions that emerge are whether assessments that focus on
sustainability will find favour with the business commu-
nity and whether, as is evidenced in the paper, this change
will require greater engagement by all stakeholders. How
might they be better engaged in the processes without
undermining the process? It is possible that in the
short-term this may create a loss of the focus, afforded
by earlier assessment methods, for improving the
environmental performance of buildings. This can be
countered somewhat by a clarification of how they are
deployed and how they complement other mechanisms.
An enormous amount of research effort has been
directed at the ‘product’ aspect of building environ-
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mental assessment methods – their technical features.
Although it is generally accepted that environmental cri-
teria must be organized in ways that facilitate the con-
ducting of an assessment, the structuring of criteria
within the assessment method has profound implications
for the output of the performance evaluation. It is at this
stage that the complete performance profile of the build-
ing is evident and the ‘story’ of the performance must be
told in a coherent and informative way to a variety of
different stakeholders. That stated, relatively little con-
sideration has been given to this and other ‘process’
aspects of assessment methods or, more importantly,
to how the structure of assessment methods facilitates
dialogue between different stakeholders in formulating
and pursuing a design project.
There is also a clear need to acknowledge how and to
what extent building assessment methods create and
assist ‘conversations’ by those directly affected by
and attempting to engage in green building design,
and the ways in which these evolve over time. During
early days while such discussions are nascent and
immature, it is necessary to provoke the necessary dis-
cussion. Here, the ‘language’ (i.e. the assessment
method as product) that forms the context for discus-
sions is less important than the dialogue it provokes.
As discussion participants become more sophisticated,
the ‘language’ used becomes increasingly critical, since
this will inherently and imperceptibly shape the discus-
sion – the ‘language map’ creates the mental territory
for the design team and stakeholders. Any method or
tool used in such dialogues should be grounded on
solid and widely accepted performance indicators and
estimation methods, framed in terms of, and accurately
signalling, ecological and resource context. This
focuses ‘conversations’ on how best to react to systemic
and technical barriers; the language used imperceptibly
guides discussion to the most effective ways of addres-
sing fundamental issues (Ian G. Theaker, private com-
munication, 2005).
A meaningful infusion of sustainability thinking into
the building process cannot, as Kaatz et al. (2005)
466
suggest, be effectively achieved through stand-alone
methods and tools and ad-hoc assessments. As such,
the relationship between an assessment method and
other complementary mechanisms assumes consider-
able importance. While current assessment methods
are being expected to fulfil multiple roles and, to an
extent, have been quite successful in doing so, it
remains uncertain whether they can retain this
potency as the field matures.
Acknowledgement
The author is grateful for editorial comment provided
by Ian G. Theaker, PEng, LEED Program Manager,
Canada Green Building Council.
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