Building and Environment 46 (2011) 1962e1971

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Building and Environment

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Sustainability assessment and rating of buildings: Developing the methodology

SBToolPTeH
Ricardo Mateus*, Luís Bragança
University of Minho, Department of Civil Engineering, 4800-048 Guimarães, Portugal

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Although sustainable building is a multidimensional concept, attention to the issue often focuses solely
Received 1 October 2010 on environmental indicators, ignoring the substantial importance of social, economic and cultural
Received in revised form indicators. Building sustainability involves various relations between built, natural and social systems
18 March 2011
and therefore comprises a complex of different priorities that require consideration at each stage of
Accepted 5 April 2011
a building’s life-cycle. To cope with this complexity and to support sustainability systematic, holistic and
practical approaches to building design need to be developed. The main objective of a systematic
Keywords:
methodology is to support the development of a building design that achieves the most appropriate
Building sustainability assessment
Life-cycle
balance between the different sustainability dimensions, and is, at the same time, practical, transparent
Rating and flexible enough to be easily adapted to different types of buildings and technology.
Sustainability It is the aim of this paper to present an innovative approach for developing building sustainability
assessment and rating, and to contribute to the evolution of generic methodology and international
understanding by introducing an approach which takes the different dimensions of sustainability into
account. The scope of the methodology presented in this paper (SBToolPTeH) is to assess the sustain-
ability of existing, new and renovated residential buildings in urban areas, specifically in the Portuguese
context.
Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Due to an increasing awareness of the effects of the contempo-

Construction, including the building sector, first began to
recognize the impact of its activities on Sustainable Development in
the 1990s [1]. In the construction and real estate sector, sustain-
ability issues have global, as well as local and sectorial features. The
construction and real estate sector has a strong influence on
economies and societies, and thus is linked to global environmental
sustainability indexes, such as the ESI scores from the Universities
of Yale and Columbia which benchmark the ability of nations to
protect the environment worldwide [2]. Agenda 21 on sustainable
construction [3] emphasized the importance of proceeding with
related non-technical issues in order to successfully implement
improvement strategies. The fundamental differences between
these dimensions have been effectively identified by researchers,
for example, Ronchi et al., whose study states that “quality of life is
recognised as the non-physical and non-ecosystem counterpart of any
suitable model of sustainable development” [4].
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: ricardomateus@civil.uminho.pt (R. Mateus), braganca@civil.
uminho.pt (L. Bragança).
rary development model on climate change and the growing inter-
national movement towards high-performance/sustainable
buildings, the current paradigm of building is changing rapidly. Such
change is affecting both the nature of the built environment as well
the actual method of designing and constructing a facility. This
newly emerging approach differs from established practice in the
following important ways: by selecting project team members on
the basis of their eco-efficient and sustainable building expertise;
increased collaboration among the project team members and other
stakeholders; greater focus on global building performance than on
building systems; a strong emphasis on environmental protection
for the whole life-cycle of a building; careful consideration of worker
health and occupant health and comfort throughout all phases;
scrutiny of all decisions for their resource and life-cycle implica-
tions; the added requirement of building commissioning, and a real
emphasis on reducing construction and demolition waste [5].
A building project can be regarded as sustainable only when all
the different dimensions of sustainability e environmental,
economic, social and cultural e are taken into account. The various
issues of sustainability are interrelated, and the interaction of
a building with its surroundings has important ramifications.
Common concerns include those of reducing the use of non-

0360-1323/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2011.04.023
 R. Mateus, L. Bragança / Building and Environment 46 (2011) 1962e1971
renewable materials and water, as well as the production of emis-
sions, waste and pollutants. The following goals are those most often
found on building project agendas: optimization of site potential;
preservation of regional and cultural identity; minimization of
energy consumption; protection and conservation of water
resources; use of environmentally friendly materials and products;
healthy and convenient indoor climate, and optimized operational
and maintenance practices [6]. To attain these goals and to support
a sustainable building design, systematic, holistic and practical
approaches must be properly implemented. Developing and using
building sustainability assessment methods is one solution to
explore in order to promote a more sustainable built environment.
The following paragraphs will present an innovative approach
for developing building sustainability assessment and rating and
contribute to the evolution of generic methodology and inter-
national understanding by introducing an approach which takes
the different dimensions of sustainability into account. This
approach is based on the state-of-the-art in building sustain-
ability assessment, including the latest developments archived by
the above mentioned standardization bodies and in other inter-
national fora.
1.1. The state-of-the-art on sustainability assessment methodologies
The purpose of sustainability assessments is to gather and report
information for decision-making during the different phases of
construction, design and use of a building. The sustainability scores
or profiles based on indicators result from a process in which the
relevant phenomena are identified, analyzed and valued. At present,
it is possible to identify two opposite trends at work in the process:
on the one hand, the indicators commonly used by the different
operators are characterised by their complexity and diversity while,
on the other hand, there is a growing movement towards better
usability through common understanding and simplicity.
Building sustainability assessments based on a life-cycle
approach can produce important long-term benefits for both
building owners and occupants [7], namely: helping to minimize
environmental impacts; solving existing building problems; creating
healthier, more comfortable and more productive indoor spaces, and
reducing building operation and maintenance costs. Life-cycle
analysis considers all the inputs and outputs of acquiring, owning,
and disposing of a building system. This approach is particularly
useful when project alternatives, which fulfil the same performance
requirements, but differ with respect to initial costs and operating
costs, have to be compared in order to select the one that maximizes
net savings [7].
The development of assessment methods and the respective
tools is a challenge both for the academia and in practice. An issue
of prime importance is that of managing the flows of information
and knowledge between the various levels of indicator systems.
An important constraint to these methods is that the specific
definition of the terms “sustainable building” or “high perfor-
mance building” is complex, since different actors in the building’s
life-cycle have different interests and requirements [8]. For
instance, promoters will give more attention to economic issues,
whereas the end users are more interested in health and comfort
issues [1].
During the last two decades a significant number of environ-
mental and sustainability assessment tools for buildings have been
developed. The first commercially available environmental assess-
ment tool for buildings was the Building Research Establishment
Assessment Method (BREAM) [9,10]. This method was established
in the UK in 1990 and together with the following two rating and
certification systems it provides the basis for the other approaches
used throughout the world: Sustainable Building Tool (SBTool),
1963
developed through the collaborative work of representatives from
20 countries [11]; and the Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEEDÒ), developed in the U.S.A. [12]. In general, these
methods are characterized by assessing a number of partial
building features and aggregating these results into an environ-
mental rating or sustainability score [13].
In the SBTool the approach is to weight different indicators,
taking into account weighting factors that are fixed at the national
level. Each “score” is the result of the comparison between the
studied building and the national reference. This scheme allows an
international comparison of buildings from different countries.
Other tools, for instance, BREEAM and LEED, are based upon credits.
The maximum number of credits available for each indicator is
related to its weight in the overall score, which is expressed by
a rating (e.g. from Pass to Excellent in BREEAM).
There are also LCA-based tools available that are especially
developed to address the building as whole, such as, for example,
Eco-Quantum (Netherlands) [14], EcoEffect (Sweden) [15], Env-
est2 (U.K.) [16], BEES 4.0 (U.S.) [17] and ATHENA (Canada) [18]. In
the existing literature, comparative studies of contextual and
methodological aspects of tools have been made, for example,
Forsberg and Malmborg [19]. Haapio and Viitaniemi [1] also per-
formed a study that analysed and categorised a group of sixteen
environmental impact assessment tools. The majority of these
tools are developed according to a bottomeup approach, i.e.
a combination of building materials and components add up to
a building, even though they are designed to consider the whole
building, including energy demand, etc [20]. Tools to support
decision-making in accordance with principles of performance-
based design have also been developed, mainly in research
communities.
Sustainability assessment tools are constantly evolving in order
to overcome their various limitations. The main goal, at present, is
to develop and implement a systematic methodology to support
a building design which achieves the most appropriate balance
between the different sustainability dimensions, and which is, at
the same time, practical, transparent and flexible enough to be
easily adapted to different kinds of buildings and to the constant
evolution of technology. There are many countries that already
have or are in the process of developing domestic assessment
methods, which means that examples of international exchange
and coordination are increasingly evident.
Sustainability assessments are usually based on indicators.
These indicators provide information about the main influences
of the industry as a whole and about the impacts of construction
and operation of buildings and other built assets [21]. In trying to
establish a list of generally accepted indicators, it seems that
development leads to different parameters and weighting factors
in different countries [22]. This finding can be regarded as a real
response to the actual needs of decision-making as both the
essential indicators and their weights are highly dependent on
the environmental, social and economic contexts of their use.
1.2. The ongoing standardisation work
The use of a different list of indicators in different approaches
makes a definition of the term, “Sustainable Construction”, subjective
and causes difficulties in comparing results from different tools. In
order to overcome these constraints, both the International Organi-
zation for Standardization (ISO) and the European Committee for
Standardization (CEN) have worked actively in the last few years to
define standard requirements for the environmental and sustain-
ability assessments of buildings.
As a result of the ISO Technical Committee (TC) 59, “Building
construction”, and its Subcommittee (SC) 17, “Sustainability in
1964 R. Mateus, L. Bragança / Building and Environment 46 (2011) 1962e1971
building construction”, four new technical specifications and stan-
dards were published:
- ISO/TS 21929-1:2006, Sustainability in building construction e
sustainability indicators e Part 1: Framework for the devel-
opment of indicators for buildings [23];
- ISO 21930:2007, Sustainability in building construction e
environmental declaration of building products [24];
- ISO 15392:2008, Sustainability in building construction e
general principles [25];
- ISO 21931-1:2010, Sustainability in building construction e
framework for methods of assessment of the environmental
performance of construction works e Part 1: Buildings [26].
In 2005, CEN set up the Technical Committee (TC) 350,
“Sustainability of construction works”, which aims to develop
voluntary horizontal standardization of methods for the assess-
ment of the sustainability aspects of new and existing construction
works and standards for the environmental product declarations
(EPD) of construction products [27]. As a result of the work carried
out to date the following pre-standards and standards have been
produced:
- EN 15643-1:2010, Sustainability of construction works e
Sustainability assessment of buildings e Part 1: General
framework [28];
- CEN/TR 15941:2010, Sustainability of construction works e
Environmental product declarations e Methodology for
selection and use of generic data [29];
- prEN 15643-2:2009, Sustainability of construction works e
Assessment of buildings e Part 2: Framework for the assess-
ment of environmental performance [30];
- prEN 15643-3:2008, Sustainability of Construction Works e
Assessment of buildings e Part 3: Framework for the assess-
ment of social performance [31];
- prEN 15643-4:2008, Sustainability of Construction Works e
Assessment of buildings e Part 4: Framework for the assess-
ment of economic performance [32];
- prEN 15978:2010, Sustainability of construction works e
Assessment of environmental performance of buildings e
Calculation method [33];
- prEN 15942:2010, Sustainability of construction works e
Environmental product declarations e Communication format
e Business to business [34].
1.3. Aim of the study
This paper presents an innovative approach to develop building
sustainability assessment and rating. The main objective of this
paper is to develop a systematic methodology to support building
design that achieves the most appropriate balance between the
different sustainability dimensions, and which is, at the same time
practical, transparent and flexible enough to be easily adapted to
different kinds of buildings and technology.
This new approach is intended for use in the assessment of
existing, new, and renovated residential buildings and its bench-
marks are especially adapted to the Portuguese context. Further-
more, this methodology will allow future rating and labelling of
buildings, in parallel with the Energy Performance of Buildings
Directive.
This paper also aims to establish a definition of the term,
“Sustainable Construction”, by drawing up an objective list of
indicators, easily understandable by all stakeholders, in order to
promote further sustainable design, construction, operation and
maintenance of buildings.
2. Development of the methodology SBToolPTeH
2.1. Definition
This paper presents a methodology for supporting sustainable
building design as well as predicting the sustainability of residen-
tial buildings. The methodology here discussed is primarily based
on the international Sustainable Building Tool (SBTool) method and
is complemented by the ongoing work of CEN TC350 and by the
work performed by ISO TC59. The SBTool method is the result of the
collaborative work of several countries, begun in 1996 and was
promoted by the International Initiative for a Sustainable Built
Environment (iiSBE). This international involvement is what
distinguishes the SBTool from the others methodologies: it was
specifically designed to allow users to reflect on different priorities
and to adapt it to the environmental, socio-cultural, economic and
technological contexts of different regions.
The Portuguese version of SBTool e SBToolPT e is the result of the
work performed both at the University of Minho and iiSBE Portugal
(the Portuguese chapter of iiSBE), whose aim was to develop and
propose a generic methodology to assess the sustainability of
existing, new and renovated buildings in urban areas, specifically in
the Portuguese context. In this methodology all three dimensions of
sustainable development are considered and the final rating of
a building depends on the comparison of its performance with two
benchmarks: conventional practice and best practice. This method-
ology has a specific module for each type of building.
As a first step, a methodology to assess the sustainability of
residential buildings was developed. The reasoning for this priority
was the fact that most of the impacts from the construction sector
are related to the housing sector. The acronym given to the meth-
odology is SBToolPTeH (Sustainable Building Tool for Housing in
Portugal). The following priorities were defined in the development
of the SBToolPT:
- To develop a list of parameters wide enough to be meaningful
and to comprise the most relevant building impacts, and, at the
same time, limited enough for practical use;
- To develop a building-level assessment method based upon
existing state-of-the-art of methodologies and taking into
account ongoing standardization;
- To establish an appropriate balance between all different
dimensions of sustainable development (environmental, social
and economic);
- To limit or exclude the subjective and/or qualitative indicators
that are hard to validate (e.g. aesthetics and technical
innovation);
- To improve reliability through the use of accepted LCA
methods for environmental performance assessment;
- To produce an assessment output and certification label that is
easy for building users to interpret and understand and equally
easy for clients and designers to work with.
The proposed methodology is able to compare the overall
performance of various construction projects and to rank the
significance of the various sustainability indicators of each of these
projects. The list of indicators and the related weighting system are
able to highlight particular aspects during the earlier design stage,
which then means that design teams can provide a range of
measures for mitigating adverse impacts. In this methodology, the
overall performance is a relative score which makes it possible to
compare the performance of the building under assessment with
 R. Mateus, L. Bragança / Building and Environment 46 (2011) 1962e1971 1965

two benchmarks: conventional practice and best practice. Further- assess the objectives of a project. Each category is defined by
more, this methodology is also able to compare performance at the a number of indicators and each indicator is defined by a number of
level of a particular sustainability category in various construction parameters.
projects. After analyzing the main characteristics of several building
sustainability assessment systems in different countries and
2.2. Boundaries of assessment studying the local context, authors defined nine categories for the
assessment tool. A category is a global indicator that summarises
Most of the Portuguese construction market is related to the the performance of a building at the level of a key-sustainability
residential sector. This study therefore prioritises the development aspect. SBToolPT has nine sustainability categories (Table 1): C1 e
of a methodology to support and to rate sustainable residential Climate change and outdoor air quality; C2 e Land use and biodi-
buildings. versity; C3 e Energy Efficiency; C4 e Materials and waste
The object of assessment is the building, including its founda- management; C5 e Water efficiency; C6 e Occupant’s health and
tions and external works, within the area of the building site. The comfort; C7 e Accessibilities; C8 e Education and awareness of
impacts of the building upon its surroundings and the urban sustainability; and C9 e Life-cycle costs. Each assessment category
environment are not considered. Some authors have concluded is identified by one or more indicators.
that restricted scales of study (corresponding to a single building An indicator is a sign or a signal that relays a complex message,
for example) are too limited to correctly take into account from potentially numerous sources, in a simple and useful manner
sustainable development objectives [35]. Nevertheless, sustainable [36]. Therefore, the three main objectives of the indicators are:
urban planning is normally limited to municipalities and regional simplification, quantification and communication [37]. SBToolPTeH
authorities and therefore it is more rational and straightforward to has a total of twenty-five indicators (Table 1). The number and
limit the physical system boundary to the building itself (or part of nature of the indicators vary from one category to another according
it) together with the site. As a result, the methodology excludes to the category itself and its importance to the Portuguese context.
construction works outside the construction site (including The list of indicators is based on the commonly accepted life-cycle
networks for communication, energy, and transportation). The use assessment (LCA) methods, the main indicators used in several
of this boundary is in accordance with prEN 15643-2:2009 [30]. building sustainability assessment systems in different countries
The time boundary should represent the whole life-cycle stages (mainly in the international SBTool method), and in the ongoing
of a building. In a new building, all life-cycle stages, from
construction to final disposal, are considered; and in existing Table 1
buildings, the temporal boundary is marked from the moment of List of categories and sustainability indicators for the SBToolPTeH methodology.
intervention until to the final disposal. Dimension Categories Sustainability indicators
Environment C1 e Climate change P1 e Construction materials’
2.3. Structure and assessment steps and outdoor air quality embodied environmental
impact
The methodology is supported by an assessment guide and the C2 e Land use and P2 e Urban density
biodiversity P3 e Water permeability of the
assessment procedure follows four steps (Fig. 1):
development
P4 e Use of pre-developed land
i) Quantification of performance of the building at the level of P5 e Use of local flora
each indicator; P6 e Heat-island effect
ii) Normalization of parameters; C3 e Energy efficiency P7 e Primary energy
P8 e In-situ energy production
iii) Aggregation of parameters; from renewable sources
iv) Sustainable score calculation and global assessment. C4 e Materials and P9 e Materials and products
waste management reused
P10 e Use of materials with
recycled content
2.4. Sustainability categories, indicators and parameters P11 e Use of certified organic
materials
After defining the boundaries the next step was to define the P12 e Use of cement substitutes
categories, indicators and related parameters within the three in concrete
P13 e Waste management
sustainable development dimensions that were going to be used to
during operation
C5 e Water efficiency P14 e Fresh water consumption
P15 e Reuse of grey and
rainwater

Society C6 e Occupant’s health P16 e Natural ventilation

and comfort efficiency
P17 e Toxicity of finishing
P18 e Thermal comfort
P19 e Lighting comfort
P20 e Acoustic comfort
C7 e Accessibilities P21 e Accessibility to public
transportation
P22 e Accessibility to urban
amenities
C8 e Education and P23 e Education of occupants
awareness
of sustainability

Economy C9 e Life-cycle costs P24 e Capital cost

P25 e Operation cost
PT
Fig. 1. Framework of the SBTool methodology.
1966 R. Mateus, L. Bragança / Building and Environment 46 (2011) 1962e1971

work at the CEN TC350 standardization body. In addition, each using the SimaPro software [39] and Table 2 presents the LCA
indicator is defined according to a number of parameters. A param- methods used.
eter is a measurable or observable property which provides infor- Fig. 2 presents how the information is organized in the LCA
mation about a phenomenon/environment/area with a significance database for a building component and both the list of environ-
extending beyond that directly associated with a value [38]. As an mental indicators and LCA methods used to quantify it [40]. The
example, the parameter used in SBToolPTeH to measure the functional unit used for the building components database is one
performance at the level of indicator “P7 e Primary Energy” is the square metre (m2) of area and one unit of mass (kg) for the mate-
annual primary energy (in kilogram of oil equivalents per square rials database.
meter of net area) used for heating, cooling and hot water produc- At the level of social performance, the assessment guide pres-
tion, according to the Portuguese thermal regulation methodology. ents the analytical methods that should be used to quantify the
Indicators and related parameters are the basis of the methodology, parameters. If the assessment is being carried out during the
since objectives and results will be conditioned by them. building operation, in-situ measurements can also be used.
This methodology has a total of nine sustainability categories Measuring the economic performance of a building is more
and twenty-five sustainability indicators within the three sustain- straightforward than measuring, for instance, the environmental
ability dimensions. performance. Standardized methodologies and quantitative pub-
In SBToolPT, assessment of embodied impacts related to building lished data are readily available for the Portuguese context.
materials is based on the same list of environmental impacts Economic performance is based on the market value of the dwell-
expressed by the impact categories of LCA, which are normally ings and on their operational costs (costs relating to water and
declared in the Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). The list energy consumption).
of environmental categories and environmental parameters was
extended so that it would be possible, in a holistic approach, to
2.6. Normalization and aggregation
access the main life-cycle environmental impacts, according to
national priorities. Therefore, the methodology uses a list of fifteen
The objective of the normalization of parameters is to avoid
parameters and considers all the environmental impacts expressed
scale effects in the aggregation of parameters inside each indicator
by the impact categories of LCA as well as all environmental aspects
and to solve the problem of some of the parameters being of the
expressed by data derived from LCI and not assigned to the impact
type “higher is better” and others being “lower is better”.
categories of LCA that are listed in the prEN 15643-2:2009 [30].
Normalization was done using Diaz-Balteiro [41] Equation (1).
The list of social parameters includes three categories and eight
parameters. This list was developed in order to include the main Pi  P*i
aspects of the building occupants’ health and comfort and includes Pi ¼ ci (1)
Pi*  P*i
other aspects relating to the mobility of building occupants and
their access to the main urban amenities. It also reflects the func- In this equation, Pi is the value of ith parameter. Pi* and P*i are
tional requirements of a residential building, according to national the best and worst values of the ith sustainable parameter. The best
building codes. A further important aspect that is also considered value of a parameter represents the best practice in use in the
here is the occupants’ education and awareness of sustainability, Portuguese building sector and the worst value represents the
since the real performance of a building, during the operation standard practice or the minimum legal requirement. These
phase, is largely dependent on the occupants’ behaviour. benchmarks are updated in an annual basis or whenever a new
The economic performance indicators were defined in order to regulation enters into force.
include the most relevant life-cycle costs. This list therefore In addition to making the value of the parameters considered in
includes two indicators: one for the costs of the building up until the assessment dimensionless, normalization converts the values
the end of the construction phase and another for the costs (energy between best and conventional practices into a scale bounded
and water) during the operation phase. Operation cost is the Net between 0 (worst value) and 1 (best value). A building design which
Present Value (NPV) of energy and water costs calculated on annual performance is above the best practice benchmarks will have
basis and assuming a life-cycle of at least fifty years. a score above 1 and performances below the conventional will have
a negative normalized value. This equation is valid for both situa-
tions: “higher is better” and “lower is better”.
2.5. Quantification of parameters For example, the normalization of the primary energy used for
heating (hot water heating included) was done as presented in
The assessment guide presents the methodologies that should Table 3 and Equation (2).
be used by the assessor in order to quantify the performance of the
building at the level of each sustainability indicator. Table 2
To facilitate the quantification of environmental performance, Environmental impact categories declared in the built-in LCA database for building
SBToolPT uses the same environmental categories declared in the technologies.
Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). However, there are, at Environmental impact categories Unit/declared unit LCA methods
present, some limitations to this approach due to the scarcity of Depletion of abiotic resources [kg Sb equiv.] CML 2 baseline 2000
available EPDs. The solution proposed to overcome this problem Global warming potential (GWP) [Kg CO2 equiv.] IPCC 2001 GWP 100a
was to develop and use databases with the LCA data for the most Destruction of atmospheric [Kg CFC-11 equiv.] CML 2 baseline 2000
commonly used building materials and components. Therefore, this ozone (ODP)
Acidification potential (AP) [Kg SO2 equiv.] CML 2 baseline 2000
methodology includes an LCA database that is continuously upda-
Eutrophication potential (NP) [Kg PO4 equiv.] CML 2 baseline 2000
ted and covers: common building technologies for each building Photochemical ozone [Kg C2H4 equiv.] CML 2 baseline 2000
element (floors, walls, roofs, windows and doors); the most creation (POCP)
commonly used building materials; and the impacts from the Non-renewable primary energy [MJ equiv.] Cumulative Energy
operation of the most common HVAC equipment. This database Demand
Renewable primary energy [MJ equiv.] Cumulative Energy
covers the six environmental impact categories presented in Demand
Table 2. The environmental impact categories were quantified
 R. Mateus, L. Bragança / Building and Environment 46 (2011) 1962e1971 1967

Fig. 2. Part of the SBToolPT LCA database [37].

Eh  Eh* 100  140
Eh ¼ ¼ ¼ 0:38
Eh*  Eh* 35  140
As presented in Table 4, the normalized values of each param-
eter are converted into a graded scale bounded between E (less
sustainable/below the conventional practice) and Aþ (more
sustainable/above the best practice) in order to facilitate the
interpretation of results. In this graded scale, level D is equivalent to
the conventional practice and A to the best practice. The graded
scale was defined assuming a linear evolution in the building
performance between the upper limit of grade D and grade A. This
methodology considers that a building which performance is until
10% higher than the conventional practice has a similar perfor-
mance to a conventional one.
Although building sustainability assessment crosses different
fields and involves the use of numerous indicators and parameters,
in the communication of the global evaluation of a design approach,
the use of a long list of indicators with their associated levels of
performance is useless. The reasoning for this is the fact that if the
performance is communicated using several grades it is difficult to
understand the overall performance and therefore to compare
different design approaches. To overcome this, the best method is
to combine indicators within each category and sustainability
dimension in order to obtain the respective performance levels
[42]. Consequently, the inclusion of a weighting system of indica-
tors is a necessary stage in the process of developing assessment
tools. This system can define the importance of each indicator
according to the local context in which the tool is developed [7].
This process should consider and integrate different methodol-
ogies such as: Experts panel, Endpoint method, Economy method,
Table 3
Example of benchmarking for normalization.
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, among others [7]. The
(2) final result should be obtained by considering the advantages and
avoiding the constraints of each method [7]. Such a process implies
subjective weighting, which is subject to a number of shortcomings,
as discussed, for instance, by Finnveden [43].
The methodology uses a complete aggregation method for each
indicator, according to Equation (3).
X
n
Nj ¼ wi $Pi (3)
i¼1
The indicator Nj is the result of the weighting average of all the
normalized parameters Pi ; wi is the weight of the ith parameter. The
sum of all weights must be equal to 1.
Difficulties in this method lie in the setting of the weight of each
parameter and in the possible compensation between parameters.
Since weights are strongly linked to the objectives of the project
and to the relative importance of each parameter in the assessment
of each indicator, higher weights must be adopted for parameters of
major importance in the project. In this approach, the possible
compensation between parameters is limited inside each indicator.
The following aspects have been considered in the development
of the system of weights:
- The system of weights of other building sustainability assess-
ment methodologies: the work included an analysis of the
main methodologies in order to indentify the parameters of
greatest importance;
Table 4
Conversion of the quantitative normalized parameters into a qualitative
graded scale.

Parameter Primary energy used for heating Grade Values

(hot water heating included) Aþ Pi > 1:00
Notation Eh A (Best practice) 0:70 < Pi  1:00
Unit kWh/m2/year B 0:40 < Pi  0:70
Value 100 C 0:10 < Pi  0:40
Reference value 140 D (Conventional practice) 0:00 < Pi  0:10
Best practice 35 E Pi  0:00
1968 R. Mateus, L. Bragança / Building and Environment 46 (2011) 1962e1971

Table 5 Table 6 presents the results of the methodology used to define

Relative importance weight (%) of each impact category according to SAB study
[44,45],
Impact category Relative importance weight (%)
8 impacts
Global warming 24
Acidification 8 5
Eutrophication 8 5
Fossil fuel depletion 8 5
Indoor air quality 16
Habitat alteration 24
Water intake 4 3
Criteria air pollutants
Smog
Ecological toxicity
Ozone depletion
Human health
- The actual state-of-the-art concerning the importance of each
environmental impact category in the whole-building environ-
mental impact assessment: different LCA methods and the
opinions of LCA experts were analysed and taken into
consideration;
- The opinion of different stakeholders: besides considering the
opinion of academic experts, the approach adopted for this
study considered the opinions of different intervenients in the
building life-cycle (designers, sustainability consultants,
contractors and users).
During this phase of the study, it was possible to verify a high
level of consensus among the different intervenients on the relative
importance of each sustainability indicator in the assessment of the
global sustainability of a building.
At the environmental level, there are no national impact scores
concerning the weight for each environmental parameter in terms of
its relative importance to overall performance. Nevertheless, there
are some internationally accepted studies that have established an
almost complete definition. Two of the most consensual lists of
values are based on a US Environmental Protection Agency’s Science
Advisory Board (SAB) study [44,45], and a Harvard University study
[46]. SBToolPT uses the SAB’s approach and allocates the listed
environmental parameters in the impact categories of that method,
according to the contribution of each environmental parameter to
the extension, intensity and duration of the impact category. Table 5
presents the relative importance of each impact category, according
to the US EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) study.
the weight of each environmental indicator and category in the
assessment of environmental performance (NA).
Although it is easy to quantify the functional parameters, the
12 impacts way in which each parameter influences the user’s health and
16 comfort, and therefore the overall sustainability of the project, is
not consensual. An assessment of this kind involves subjective
rating and depends, above all, on the type of solution and on the
valuator’s social-cultural and economic status. Several building
11
16
sustainability assessment methodologies consider an empirical
distribution of weights to assess the social performance of
6 a building. In order to overcome this problem, we developed
6 a scientific-based methodology in order to study the relative
11
importance (wi) of the most prominent comfort stressors, namely,
5
11 thermal environment (Ptc), acoustics (Pac), air quality (Paq) and
visual comfort (Pvc), in the perceived global comfort (Gc), according
to the model presented in Equation (4).
Gc ¼ Ptc $wtc þ Pac $wac þ Paq $waq þ Pvc $wvc (4)
This methodology involved subjective evaluation (question-
naires to building users) and parallel experimental evaluations.
During the experimental evaluations, the methodology included
the assessment if four parameters: resultant temperature (Tr),
average illuminance (lx), CO2 concentration (ppm) and weighted A
equivalent continuous noise level (Leq). The subjective and experi-
mental data collected were processed using the multivariable
linear method. Both the weight of the other three social indicators
and the weight of each societal category were based on the opinion
of different stakeholders and building users.
Table 7 shows the results of the methodology used to define the
weight of each society indicator and category in the assessment of
social performance (NS).
At the level of economic performance (NE), according to
a questionnaire conducted with different stakeholders and building
users, it was possible to conclude that the best trade-off is archived
when an equal weight is given to the two indicators. These results
are presented in Table 8.
2.7. Representation and global assessment of a project
As a rule, most stakeholders prefer a single, graded scale
measure to represent the overall score for a building. Such a score
should be easy for building occupants to understand and interpret
but should also be easy for clients, designers and other stakeholders

Table 6
Weight of each environmental indicator and category in the assessment of environmental performance (NA).

Categories Sustainability indicators Weight (%) Weight (%)

of the indicator of the category
C1 e Climate change and outdoor air quality P1 e Construction materials’ embodied environmental impact 13 13

C2 e Land use and biodiversity P2 e Urban density 8 20

P3 e Water permeability of the development 1
P4 e Use of pre-developed land 3
P5 e Use of local flora 4
P6 e Heat-island effect 4

C3 e Energy efficiency P7 e Primary energy 16 32

P8 e In-situ energy production from renewables 16

C4 e Materials and waste management P9 e Materials and products reused 9 29

P10 e Use of materials with recycled contend 9
P11 e Use of certified organic materials 7
P12 e Use of cement substitutes in concrete 3
P13 e Waste management during operation 1

C5 e Water efficiency P14 e Fresh water consumption 3 6

P15 e Reuse of grey and rainwater 1
 R. Mateus, L. Bragança / Building and Environment 46 (2011) 1962e1971
Table 7
Weight of each social indicator and category in the assessment of the social performance (NS).
Categories Sustainability indicators
C6 e Occupant’s health and comfort P16 e Natural ventilation efficiency
P17 e Toxicity of finishing
P18 e Thermal comfort
P19 e Lighting comfort
P20 e Acoustic comfort
C7 e Accessibilities P21 e Accessibility to public transportation
P22 e Accessibility to urban amenities
C8 e Education and awareness of sustainability P23 e Education of occupants
to work with. Therefore, the last step of the methodology is to
calculate the sustainable score (NG). The NG is a single index that
represents the global sustainability performance of a building; it is
evaluated using Equation (5).
NG ¼ wA  NA þ wS  NS þ wC  NC (5)
Where, NG is the sustainability score, Nj is the performance at the
level of the dimension j and wj is the weight of the dimension jth.
The weight of the environment, society and economy dimen-
sions in the assessment of global performance is, respectively, 40%,
30% and 30%. This value considers the following aspects: the
importance of environmental issues for the survival of human
beings and other species; the harmonious coexistence between the
three sustainability dimensions, according to the sustainable
development aims; and the opinions of academic experts,
construction stakeholders and building users.
The labelling system for the SBToolPT methodology is similar to
that used in the existing labelling schemes such as the EU energy
labelling scheme for white goods and the European DisplayTM
Campaign posters [47]. In this study, however, due to the possible
compensation between categories, the global performance of
a building is not communicated by using only the overall score. In
this methodology the performance of a building is measured
against each category, each of the three sustainable dimensions and
the global performance (sustainable score). Building performance
is ranked on a scale from Aþ to E. Fig. 3 represent the output of the
SBToolPT methodology for a hypothetical case study at the level of
the sustainability dimensions and global score.
From the outputs of this building sustainability assessment
method it is possible to monitor and compare the performance of
the solution in study with the benchmarks of the methodology:
conventional solution (D grade) and best practice (A grade). The
nearer to grade Aþ the performance of the solution is, the more
sustainable it is. If the solution shows a grade E in one parameter or
category, it has obviously performed worse than the reference
solution at that level, therefore identifying an issue that requires
special attention.
3. Discussion
The usability, reliability and fitness for purpose of the different
sustainability assessment tools has been carefully evaluated by
Table 8
Weight of each economic indicator and category in the assessment of economic
performance (NE).
Categories Sustainability Weight (%) of Weight (%) of
indicators the indicator the category
C9 e Life-cycle costs P24 e Capital cost 50 100
P25 e Operational cost 50
1969
Weight (%) Weight (%)
of the indicator of the category
7 60
7
19
15
2
17 30
13
10 10
researchers in the area, leading to the publication of some impor-
tant conference and journal papers in recent years. To date, scoring
of the indicator systems is best developed in methods that use
environmental information for single properties like LCA tools.
These tools may be linked to different phases of the building design
process, from the initial definition or technical design phase to
a building in use, in order to obtain an overall picture of the
attainment of sustainability targets. These include tools for the
performance-based design and building approach and other
building rating schemes.
The whole-building evaluation may also be done on the basis of
performance of the completed building with respect to its space,
structural and technical systems and their interaction. The tools
available are, for example, modelling of energy flows, lighting and
accessible routes.
Although there are subjective aspects to the majority of
assessment tools, hindering their adoption, they still have an
important role to play, not only in evaluating the impacts of an
actual building, but also, and even more importantly, in guiding the
appropriate design for the attainment of performance objectives.
The greatest constraint to sustainability assessment is that assess-
ment involves subjective rating and depends above all on the
planned function of the building, as well as on its socio-economic
and cultural heritage context. Additionally, one of the most
important aspects influencing the results is the list of indicators and
their respective parameters, since the result relies on the perfor-
mance obtained in each indicator. The definition of a list of indi-
cators and respective parameters to be adopted on an international
scale is one solution to explore in order to make the evaluation
methods more objective.
Another important constraint is that although there are several
recognized LCA tools, most building sustainability assessment and
rating systems are not comprehensive or consistently LCA-based. The
reasons for this failure are above all related to the complexity of the
stages of an LCA. Besides being complex, the LCA approach is also very
time consuming and therefore mainly used by experts at academic
levels. For these reasons most of the building sustainability assess-
ment methods rely on single material proprieties or attributes, such
as recycled content, recycling potential or distances travelled from
the point of manufacture [48]. This situation causes some distortion
in both the interpretation of the results from the environmental
performance assessment and the comparison of these results with
different building sustainability assessment and rating systems.
Due to the above mentioned reasons, and despite numerous
studies in the area of building sustainability assessment, there is
a lack of a commonly accepted methodology to assist architects and
engineers in the design, construction and refurbishing stages of
a building. Nevertheless, in spite of the limitations of the different
methods, the increasingly widespread use of assessment methods
is having direct and indirect impacts on the promotion of sustain-
able building design. Many countries either have or are in the
1970 R. Mateus, L. Bragança / Building and Environment 46 (2011) 1962e1971

Fig. 3. SBToolPT output for a hypothetical building e performance of the solution presented at the level of the three sustainable dimensions and the sustainable score.

process of developing domestic assessment methods, which is transparency is useful both to designers and end users and is
making the need for international exchange and coordination essential for greater objectivity in the assessment process.
increasingly relevant. Sustainability in the building sector has
gained an international forum and the Green Building Challenge,
4. Conclusions
for example, is organizing several major international conferences
which are having a noticeably positive effect on the promotion of
The sustainable design, construction and use of buildings are
this concept. Furthermore, both the International Organization of
based on the best trade-off between environmental pressure
Standardization (ISO) and the European Committee for Standardi-
(relating to environmental impacts), social aspects (relating to
zation (CEN) are making important progress towards the stan-
users’ comfort and other social benefits) and economic aspects
dardization of sustainability indicators and horizontal methods in
(relating to life-cycle costs). Sustainable design strives for greater
building sustainability assessment.
compatibility between the artificial and the natural environments
This paper has attempted to present an approach to building
without compromising the functional requirements of the build-
sustainability assessment that can contribute to the evolution of
ings and the associated costs.
generic methodology. The methodology is based on the actual
Many countries either have or are in the process of developing
limitations of the existing building sustainability assessment
domestic assessment methods, which makes the need for interna-
methods and on the work currently being developed in interna-
tional exchange and coordination increasingly relevant. This paper
tional fora, including standardization bodies.
contributes to the evolution of generic methodology and interna-
The methodology presented in this paper (SBToolPTeH) is
tional understanding by introducing an approach that takes the
intended to foster more sustainable building design, construction,
different dimensions of sustainability into account and incorporates
operation, maintenance and disassembly/deconstruction by
a standardised LCA method to assess the environmental dimension.
promoting and making possible a better integration of environ-
This paper presented the SBToolPTeH methodology, whose
mental, societal, functional and cost concerns with other traditional
scope is to assess the sustainability of existing, new and renovated
decision criteria. This methodology can be used to support the
residential buildings in urban areas, specifically in the Portuguese
sustainable design, since it defines the sustainable construction
context. Although this paper only presented the SBToolPT module to
concept through a list of sustainability indicators and related
assess the sustainability of residential buildings, the approach used
performance objectives. Additionally it can be used to evaluate the
in the other modules is based in the same framework.
overall sustainability performance. According to this methodology,
SBToolPT methodology is intended to boost sustainable building
a sustainable building is the one which performance is optimized at
in Portugal. It supports steps towards sustainable design and
the level of the twenty five indicators presented in Table 1 and has
construction through the definition of a list of objectives that are
an overall average performance level at least 10% higher than the
easily understandable by all intervenients in the construction
conventional building practice.
market and is compatible with the Portuguese construction tech-
SBToolPTeH is based on the international SBTool approach, since
nology context.
it uses the same core indicators and normalization system to assess
the sustainability of a building (the performance of a building is
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