Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy Strategy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/esr

Energy Efficiency in Sustainable Buildings: A Systematic Review with

Taxonomy, Challenges, Motivations, Methodological Aspects,
Recommendations, and Pathways for Future Research
Fatma S. Hafez a, **, Bahaaeddin Sa’di b, M. Safa-Gamal c, Y.H. Taufiq-Yap c, d, Moath Alrifaey e,
Mehdi Seyedmahmoudian f, Alex Stojcevski f, Ben Horan g, Saad Mekhilef f, h, *
a
Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Gombak, 53100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
b
Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS), University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
c
Catalysis Science and Technology Research Centre (PutraCat), Faculty of Science, University Putra Malaysia, 43400, UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
d
Faculty of Science and Natural Resources, University Malaysia Sabah, 88400, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
e
Faculty of Engineering, Technology and Built Environment, UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, 56000, Malaysia
f
School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, VIC, 3122, Australia
g
School of Engineering, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC, 3216, Australia
h
Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Selangor, Malaysia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In recent years, increasing interest has been shown in targeting energy efficiency as a roadmap for carbon
Sustainable buildings mitigation, limiting energy use, improving buildings’ energy performance, and reducing energy consumption for
Energy efficiency achieving sustainable buildings. This article presents a systematic review to provide the best practices in this area
Environmental impacts
and identify the challenges, motivations, recommendations, and pathways for future work. Discussing the
Economic impacts
Social impacts
methodological aspects gives insights for future researchers. This research used papers published on three sci­
Systematic review entific and reliable databases—Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and IEEE Xplore-from 2014 to May 23, 2021. The
selected papers reached N = 134 based on inclusion and exclusion criteria and divided into review papers,
proceeding conference, and articles. The review articles (N = 16/134) give an overall view on improving energy
efficiency to achieve sustainability in buildings by using green building rating systems, developing and imple­
menting policies, technology utilization, adopting techniques, and applying strategies. The conferences (N = 33/
134) and articles (N = 85/134) focus more on details of different aspects of improving energy efficiency by
reducing environmental, economic, social, and other impacts. A few articles proposed multiple-criteria decision-
making methods to solve energy efficiency gaps for promoting sustainability in buildings. Achieving energy
efficiency toward sustainable buildings is a hot topic in the sustainable development area. The outcomes from
this paper will provide a valuable reference to stakeholders, governments, and decision-makers and give sug­
gestions from the selected past studies. This review will provide motivation and attract future research endeavors
in the field.

1. Introduction
Sustainable buildings have become a key issue for many developing
and developed countries in the twenty-first century. The global popu­
lation is expected to rise from 7.7 billion in 2019 to 9.7 billion in 2050
and will reach more than 10.9 billion by the end of this century [1]. This
increase in the global inhabitants will correspondingly increase the de­
mand for water, energy, and natural resources, which will consequently
overburden biological systems and progressively degrade nature by
expanding energy utilization, thus having a general effect on the built
environment. Previous studies indicated that buildings are the primary

* Corresponding author. School of Science, Computing and Engineering Technologies, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia.
** Corresponding author. Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, International Islamic University Malaysia, Jalan Gombak, 53100, Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia.
E-mail addresses: fatmaalzahraa.sami@gmail.com (F.S. Hafez), eddinsq@gmail.com (B. Sa’di), safagamal31@yahoo.com (M. Safa-Gamal), taufiq@upm.edu.my
(Y.H. Taufiq-Yap), eng.alrifaiy2005@gmail.com (M. Alrifaey), mseyedmahmoudian@swin.edu.au (M. Seyedmahmoudian), astojcevski@swin.edu.au
(A. Stojcevski), ben.horan@deakin.edu.au (B. Horan), smekhilef@swin.edu.au (S. Mekhilef).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esr.2022.101013
Received 2 September 2022; Received in revised form 24 October 2022; Accepted 20 November 2022
Available online 6 December 2022
2211-467X/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).
F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Abbreviations GHG Greenhouse Gas Emissions

GM Green Mark
Nomenclature GG Green Globes
ASGB Assessment Standard for Green Buildings in China GHG Greenhouse Gases
ASHRAE The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air- GS Green Star in Australia
Conditioning Engineers GSEED Global earth Society for Environmental Energy and
AHP Analytic Hierarchy Process Development
BAS Building Automation System GMP Government of Madhya Pradesh (India)
BESO Building Energy Simulation and Optimization HRVS Heat Recovery Ventilators
BIM Building Information Modelling HVAC Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning
BIPV Building Integrated Photovoltaic IBMS Integrated Building Management System
BREEAM Building Research Establishment Environmental IGBC Indian Green Building Council
Assessment Method IGBT Iranian Green Building Assessment Tools
CASBEE Comprehensive Assessment System for Built Environment InsBV Insulated Brick Veneer model
Efficiency ITACA (Italy) Italian Institute for innovation and transparency of
CBC Choice-Based Conjoint procurement and the environmental compatibility
CCDI Comprehensive Contribution to Development Index IGBRS International Gren Building Rating Systems
CCS Carbon Capture and Storage LCA Life Cycle Analysis
CCSDI Comprehensive Contribution to Sustainable Development LCA Life Cycle Assessment
Index LCSA Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment
CO2emissions Carbon dioxide emissions LED light Light-Emitting Diode light
CREST Collaborative Research in Engineering, Science and LEED (USA) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design in
Technology America
DCV Demand Control Ventilation MOPBEM Multi-Objective Optimal Model on Building Envelope
DG Distributed Generation Design
DSFs Double-Skin Façades NABERS (IE) National Australian Built Environment Rating System
EA Energy and Atmosphere (Indoor Environment)
EEG Energy Efficiency Gap NSGA-II Nondominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm
EEP Energy Efficiency Project NZEB Net Zero Energy Buildings
EETA Energy Efficiency Technology Application MCDM Multi-Criteria Decision Making
EETCP The Economic Evaluation Theory of Construction Project OTTV Overall Thermal Transfer Value
EFdeN project A research and educational project that represented PCC Post-Combustion Capture
Romania at Solar Decathlon Europe 2014 from Versailles, PCM Phase Change Material
France PHPP Passive House Planning Package
EGPRS The Egyptian Green Pyramid Rating System PMP Percent of maximum points
EPC Energy Performance Certificate POE Post-occupancy evaluation
ESBDP Environmentally sustainable building design practices PRISMA Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and
ETTV Envelope Thermal Transfer Value Meta-Analyses
EU 2020 The Europe 2020 strategy is the EU’s agenda for growth PV system Photovoltaic system
and jobs for the current decade. SAHSBPT Sustainability Assessment of High School Buildings in
FM organizations Facility management is a professional Portugal
management discipline focused on the efficient and SFMOMA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
effective delivery of support services for the organizations SPE Sustainable Property Expert
that it serves. TARSHEED The National Campaign for the Conservation and
GB Green Buildings Efficient Use of Water and Electricity in Qatar
GBIO Green Building Investment Opportunities UAE United Arab Emirates
GBRSs Green Buildings Rating Systems UK United Kingdom
GBTs Green Building Tools UN SDGs United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
GCC Gulf Cooperation Council countries

key for energy consumers [2–4]. One of the sectors that consume the
highest amount of energy is the building sector, with around 30%–40%
[5]. In addition, more than one-third of the total greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions [6], which is a critical factor in global warming and climate
change [7,8], generates waste and potentially harmful atmospheric
emissions [9]. Thus, achieving sustainability in buildings is a way to
objectively reduce these negative impacts.
Sustainability in buildings is a concept that has multidimensional
pillars, such as environmental, economic, social, ecological, technical,
and technological aspects [6]. Green and sustainable buildings can help
mitigate the impacts of buildings on the environment, economy, and
society [10]. Moreover, attainment sustainability in buildings by
reducing GHG emissions with embodied energy through natural
resource utilization, releasing of pollutants, recycling materials,
ensuring building safety, and meeting indoor environmental quality
(IEQ) requirements [11]. Some researchers and academics defined sus­
tainability buildings as green buildings that are better able to reduce
GHG emissions than conventional ones and can achieve the Net-Zero
Carbon Buildings Commitment [8]. However, energy efficiency needs
to be investigated as a basic concept for achieving sustainable buildings,
green buildings, low-energy buildings, ultra-low-energy low buildings,
and zero-energy buildings.
Energy efficiency is an integral part, if not the key, in green and
sustainable buildings [12]. Energy efficiency in existing and new
buildings is a fast-track solution for limiting the environmental, eco­
nomic, social, and other impacts in this sector [13]. To achieve

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F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Fig. 1. PRISMA flowchart.

3
F.S. Hafez et al.
sustainability in buildings, high energy efficiency needs to be targeted
by reducing environmental impacts through energy performance
benchmarking methods [14], energy-saving measures [15], the inte­
gration of wind turbines in tall buildings [16], an integrative approach
using multi-objective search [17], energy modeling and overall thermal
transfer value calculations [18], building-integrated photovoltaic
(BIPV) façades, PV installations, light fixtures, high-performance
building envelopes [19], resource-efficient building materials, and
innovative energy concepts [20].
Economic impacts can be reduced by achieving cost-saving and
reducing the operating cost (hard and soft costs) by using life cycle
assessment (LCA) [21], developing cost–benefit analysis [22], applying
green price premiums [23], using an optimal design method for
multi-energy systems in buildings such as PV power generation system,
solar water heating system, and seasonal cold storage by minimizing the
total life cycle cost [24]. To reduce social impacts, new local rating
systems need to be innovated by integrating cultures under the social
dimension [25], measuring and comparing the indoor environment
quality factors with a set of benchmarks [26], applying a choice-based
conjoint (CBC) experiment analysis [27], proposing a model that inte­
grate factors such as renewable and optimized energy, construction
waste management, system lighting and daylighting for 75% of spaces,
stormwater quality control, heat-island effect roof, indoor and outdoor
air [28], and the formation of design advice and evaluation groups [29].
Therefore, energy efficiency and energy management remain a hot topic
in the building sector for researchers worldwide.
Since 2014, scientists have studied different areas of energy, such as
energy efficiency, energy performance, energy management, energy
saving, and renewable energy sources in sustainable and green buildings
by utilizing different measures, such as [14,30–33], systems such as
[34–40], technologies such as [13,41–43], acts such as [9,11,44,45],
techniques such as [12,46,47], strategies such as [3,48], and models
such as [49–56]. Even though research institutions, universities, and
governments have conducted various studies in sustainable develop­
ment in developing and developed countries, no systematic review
might have facilitated the achievement of energy efficiency of sustain­
able buildings. Thus, this study aims to review and provide valuable
insights into the energy efficiency of sustainable buildings by mapping
this research into a coherent taxonomy to determine the proper features
and criteria that characterize this line of research, thereby resulting in
an understanding of the current gaps and significant components of
discussing certain items in this domain. Current studies focus on the
main challenges, thus preventing previous researchers and academics
from exploring this area. Exploring the main motivations of previous
selected studies encourages authors to investigate and analyze this area
thoroughly.
The selected studies provide recommendations for stakeholders such
as designers, developers, owners, professionals, practitioners, and poli­
cymakers, which act as guidelines to be followed for further develop­
ment. The pathways for future research provide future researchers the
next directions to overcome the remaining challenges that have not yet
been solved by implementing systems, measurements, strategies, pa­
rameters, software, methods, materials, and equipment. The rest of this
research is organized as follows: Section 2 discusses the system protocol
for achieving sustainable buildings by targeting energy efficiency
through literature search, selection strategy, search coding, and inclu­
sion and exclusion criteria. Section 3 shows a research map that depends
on the literature review of previous studies, which is diagrammed into a
coherent taxonomy. Section 4 discusses the challenges, motivations,
recommendations, and pathways for future research according to work
by previous researchers from the selected articles on achieving energy
efficiency toward sustainable buildings published from 2014 to May 23,
2021. Section 5 presents the methodological aspects of previous re­
searchers according to the year of publication, the author’s country,
software analysis, data collection, types of journal article, journal and
impact factor, and research methods. Section 6 presents the conclusions.
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Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013
2. Systematic protocol
Prior to the systematic review, five to 10 reviews and survey articles
were read to obtain a general understanding of various patterns of green
and sustainable building development research, which is necessary to
determine relevant keywords on “energy efficiency” and “sustainable
buildings”. Preliminary, unsystematic review studies were conducted for
this purpose, which helped identify the seven key patterns in energy-
efficient buildings or green and sustainable building development
literature. In the systematic review as the search code, understanding
particular patterns plays an essential role, which depends on the results
of the preliminary review. Subsequently, a systematic review was
established based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Re­
views and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines [57]. The PRISMA
guidelines require researchers to consider a set of evidence-based
criteria while reporting, interpreting, and evaluating existing litera­
ture related to the topic. The PRISMA guidelines were used to achieve a
transparent and complete reporting of research.
2.1. Literature search
Relevant articles were collected by searching in multiple digital da­
tabases. Review articles, conference proceedings, and peer-reviewed
journal articles were identified from significant databases, namely,
ScienceDirect, Web of Science, and IEEE Xplore. The Web of Science
database contains journal articles from various domains such as social
science, arts, and humanities [58]. The IEEE library includes various
technical standards, engineering, computer science, and related journal
articles [58]. ScienceDirect features many journals from various do­
mains such as life sciences, social sciences, physical sciences, and en­
gineering articles [59]. These databases were selected because they
provide easy accessibility to relevant and reputable publications.
2.2. Selection strategy
The search was initiated by using the advanced search boxes of Web
of Science, ScienceDirect, and IEEE Xplore). The Boolean operator was
used in the search engine; “AND” operators, which was used between
focus areas and “OR” operators, which gathered words or phrases with
the same meaning. Two groups of keywords (queries) were used (Fig. 1).
During the searching process, the criteria, filtration, and final set were
selected from research articles, conference proceedings, and review ar­
ticles. This option was deemed most suitable so that the latest related
scientific articles relevant to the researchers’ interest in reviewing this
area were included.
2.3. Search coding
The coding within the selected databases is as follows: (“High-per­
formance building” OR “high-performance building” OR “sustainable
building” OR “green building”) AND (“renewable energy” OR “energy
efficiency” OR “energy efficient”). The focus was only on the search
about conference proceedings, reviews, and journal articles. The sys­
tematic review operated under the title, abstract, and keywords into
relevant and selected databases. The articles were filtered into three
rounds as described and specified in the following sentences. The first
round of searching in the databases of Web of Science, ScienceDirect,
and IEEE Xplore cumulatively generated search results of 6625 articles.
In the second round, to ensure that relevant articles that suit the purpose
of this review were included, the output from the first round was eval­
uated and examined by using the scanning title, abstract, keyword, goals
of the study, and conclusions.
The number of papers was 278. In the third round, the publications
were fully reviewed and analyzed; 13 articles cannot be found in the
Web of Science database, 103 are not related articles, and 28 documents
were duplicates. Only 134 remaining articles were consistent with the
F.S. Hafez et al.
Fig. 2. Taxonomy of systematic review.
inclusion criteria of the PRISMA protocol. Several notes and comments
were recorded while information from the publications was extracted.
Each article was analyzed separately by using different items with many
attributes recorded into Microsoft word tables
2.4. Inclusion and exclusion criteria
All the articles, including the ones that met the inclusion criteria, are
listed in Fig. 1. The inclusion criteria are as follows: publication years
between 2014 and May 23, 2021; English-language publications; review
articles, research article, and mini-reviews for ScienceDirect papers;
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Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013
journals, magazines, and early-access articles for the IEEE Xplore papers;
and articles and reviews for the Web of Science papers. These categories
were derived from pre-survey literature with no constraints. If the ar­
ticles did not fulfill the eligibility criteria, then they were excluded in the
first round. Removing the duplicate articles from databases and missing
articles in the second round simplified the selection of the final set of
articles used for this review. The exclusion criteria were as follows: non-
English language papers published before 2014 and books, bibliogra­
phies, theatre reviews, reports, and others. Fig. 1 Presents the search
queries, search results, and the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
F.S. Hafez et al.
3. Taxonomy analysis
The initial query search resulted in 6625 articles (521 from Web of
Science, 5996 from ScienceDirect, and 108 from IEEE Xplore) published
in 2014 to May 23, 2021. After the titles and abstracts were scanned, 278
articles remained. Thirteen articles from Web of Science were removed
because we could not find them in the database to reach 265 articles. In
the three databases, 28 out of 265 papers were duplicates. One-hundred
three articles were excluded after the full-text reading process, nar­
rowing down to the final set of articles.
A total of 134 articles constituted the final set to develop a general
mapping on achieving sustainability in buildings through energy effi­
ciency with various topics. The taxonomy is classified into different
sections and subsections. The first section contains a review or survey
articles with 16/134 papers, divided into rating systems, policies,
techniques, technologies, and strategies used to improve energy effi­
ciency to target sustainability in buildings. The second section includes
studies with different impacts, which can be barriers for achieving sus­
tainability in buildings (118/134 papers). A total of 38.13% of papers
(45/118) focused on environmental impact, which included 20 articles
on public buildings, seven articles on residential buildings, nine articles
on certified buildings, and nine articles on other unspecified building
types. Four out of 118 articles (3.38%) included economic impacts on
the buildings. Out of 118 articles and conference papers, nine papers
(7.62%) were associated with social impact matters such as indoor
quality environment; improved comfort, health, and well-being for oc­
cupants; productivity; and users’ behavior in the green building. The last
section, “Others”, includes 60/11 studies (50.84%) that overlap between
two impacts from previous sections. The main sections and subsections
are described in detail in Fig. 2.
3.1. Review papers
The first section in the taxonomy is review articles, which gives an
overall view of how improvements in energy efficiency can achieve
sustainability in buildings by understanding the current thinking in this
field and justifying the need for future research on related topics. The
review articles have 16 review and survey articles (11.94%) from the
134 selected articles. The review papers are divided according to the
study’s main contribution with different aspects such as using green
building rating systems (GBRSs), developing and implementing policies,
and using technologies, techniques, and strategies.
According to the use of GBRSs: A critical analysis of peer-reviewed
articles focused on LEED green building certification by considering
sustainability criteria to reduce energy use in buildings [2]. A compre­
hensive review helps policymakers, investors, and users understand and
improve energy efficiency by adopting renewable energy assessment
methods in GBRSs to evaluate and certify green buildings [10].
According to developing and implementing policies and acts:
Issues related to sustainable energy and environmental future of the two
most important countries among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
countries—the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
(UAE)—were solved by providing insight into the policies and practices
for driving the building sector toward future sustainability [9]. Energy
efficiency measures for meeting the target of Korean government pol­
icies and standards, such as building energy codes for reducing primary
energy usage, achieving energy efficiency requirements, and achieving
zero-energy buildings or sustainable buildings in Korea, were intro­
duced and reviewed [11]. The implementation of Chinese legislation on
civil buildings’ energy efficiency for better promoting limits on energy
consumption and carbon mitigation of the civil building sector in China
and as guidance for other countries to revise and evaluate their acts was
reviewed [44]. Different initiatives such as policies and regulations were
adopted by India to achieve energy efficiency in residential buildings to
decrease dependence on fossil fuels and utilize more renewable energy
[45].
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Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013
According to technology utilization: Energy efficiency in build­
ings can be improved by using active and passive design technologies,
with their potential benefits in energy saving, reducing energy demand,
and energy budgets in building environmental assessment schemes to
promote more sustainable buildings and using green building rating
tools [13]. A comprehensive analysis review was performed on the ad­
vantages and challenges of passive building technology, such as
double-skin façades (DSFs), that enhance energy efficiency and improve
indoor thermal comfort in building envelopes to promote energy saving
[42]. A review was conducted on BIPV applications and their benefits,
barrier, and future direction in sustainable buildings in South Asian
countries to reduce the costs of a PV system, develop sustainable
buildings, provide on-site electricity generation, and increase market
acceptance of sustainable buildings [41]. A systematic literature review
concentrated on recent progress in residential net-zero energy buildings
(NZEBs) by using technology options to provide support, highlights, and
references for further implementation of these types of buildings in the
world [43].
According to adopted techniques: A comprehensive review was
conducted to derive a better understanding of energy and comfort
management for smart energy buildings. This review involved simula­
tion tools, occupants’ behavior, preferences, control systems, supply
source considerations, intelligent computational methods, comfort pa­
rameters, building types, and countries [47]. Works on state-of-the-art
buildings with energy-efficient design optimization for designing
buildings with better overall performance and high energy efficiency
were reviewed [12]. Surveys and reviews were performed to identify the
benefits and barriers of adopting building energy simulation and opti­
mization (BESO) into passive building design processes and procedures
to help designers exploring various design areas to achieve
energy-efficient buildings [46].
According to strategies: A critical review was conducted on retro­
fitting strategies such as passive strategies with assessment methods
(LCA, cost, and social assessment) in existing buildings to find the
optimal retrofitting solutions by identifying the actual improvements
and enhancements achieved by retrofitting houses to reduce energy
consumption and GHG emissions [3]. A comprehensive analysis review
was conducted by extracting practical lessons learned from Kuala
Lumpur in Malaysia and Darwin in Australia on developing effective,
sustainable building design to enhance sustainable energy performance,
energy efficiency, and energy saving of the building sector [48].
Other reviews: Two state-of-the-art green buildings in China and
Australia were studied to evaluate the relationship between reduced
GHG emissions in the life cycle and to define green buildings to achieve
NZEBs by developing green building rating tools [8].
3.2. Conference proceedings and articles
The second section of the remaining papers in the taxonomy (118/
134; 88.05%) are divided into conference proceedings and research
articles that involved studies related to environment impacts, social
impacts, economic impacts, and others, which is a combination of two or
three of the previous impacts.
3.2.1. Environmental impacts
The environmental impacts were grouped based on building types:
public buildings (which are classified into general, office, and educa­
tional buildings), residential buildings, certified buildings, and others,
which refer to unspecified building types.
3.2.1.1. Public buildings. General building: China adopts two energy
performance benchmarking methods—the Evaluation Standard for
Green Building and the National Public Buildings Energy-efficiency
Design Standards—to reduce energy consumption through technical
and non-technical measures in public buildings, thus promoting and
F.S. Hafez et al.
developing low-carbon sustainable development [14]. The efficient
ETTV method was used to estimate the air-conditioning load of com­
mercial buildings in subtropical climates [60]. LEED certification for the
existing Bayt Al-Suhaymi building was assessed by emphasizing passive
design aspects [61]. Electrical energy in a building in the Universitas
Ciputra campus was optimized by integrating solar energy with BIPV as
on-site renewable energy in shading devices, roof, opaque wall, and
transparent wall to meet Greenship targets [62]. The principles of
BREEM were assessed and evaluated on the eco-friendly Cambridge
Central Mosque in Europe [63].
Office building: Through an integrative approach, a multi-objective
search in the early stages of building design was applied to obtain more
detailed information on energy-efficient envelope configurations by
using NSGA-II genetic algorithms to minimize the energy need for
heating, cooling, and lighting [17]. In the Pearl River Tower building,
which has integrated wind turbines, the wind speed was evaluated
through a wind tunnel test and the test results were combined with
statistical analysis results to predict the power generation in Guangzhou.
This evaluation gives useful information for the design of sustainable tall
buildings [16]. Multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods
were applied with a geographical information system to investigate
green criteria in five sustainable schemes for creating and evaluating
Iranian green building assessment tools to assess green office buildings
to improve environmental, economic, and social impacts during the
construction process and manage energy use in developing countries
[7]. Green office buildings in Jakarta used energy-saving measures
without cost to produce up to 40% potential savings in the energy effi­
ciency index to meet the requirements of the Green ship rating system
[15]. To reduce GHG emissions and meet energy efficiency requirements
of green building tools, energy modeling was applied to evaluate passive
with active energy-efficient measures and features and overall thermal
transfer value calculations and thus determine the passive design of
buildings by complying with international standards (ASHRAE) [18].
The material of a low-energy consumption mix was compared with LEED
v4 materials by using LCA; results show higher environmental impacts
from materials, being >50% compared with those from energy con­
sumption, thus helping building stakeholders have a better under­
standing of the building environmental profiles and improve LEED
ratings [64]. Alternative energy supply scenarios such as optimizing
renewable energy usage, reducing grid electricity consumption, mini­
mizing lifetime environmental impacts, and reducing non-renewable
fuel dependence were analyzed [65]. The energy performance of an
NZEB office building in the Fort Hood army base was evaluated in the
context of a hot and humid climate [66]. A quantitative method was
used to examine the most critical components of office sustainable
buildings design practices in the Ghanaian tropical built environment
[67]. The first NZEB office building in India was achieved by minimizing
energy demand through adopting green building features such as
energy-efficient materials and equipment, HVAC system, lighting fix­
tures, solar power panels in the courtyard and the rooftop, and a
geothermal heat exchange system [68]. Passive design strategies for
achieving NZEB were evaluated by analyzing simulation data from
corporate facilities in the context of the Bangladeshi subtropical
monsoon climate [69]. The required electricity storage life cycle char­
acteristics such as primary energy, GHG emissions, and costs were
evaluated to ensure sustainability in buildings [70].
Educational building: Energy-efficient lighting techniques such as
LED were used in a university to reduce energy consumption and ach­
ieve a dedicated control solution [19]. High-performance building en­
velopes, lighting fixtures, efficient air conditioning systems, BIPV
facades, and PV installations on the roof to generate more electricity
were applied [71]. Integrating renewable energy systems such as PV, a
geothermal cooling system array, and an absorption cooling system in
existing school buildings enhanced the school’s performance and ach­
ieved a reduction of about 19% in annual energy consumption and a
three-Pearl rating [72].
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Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013
3.2.1.2. Residential building. To make energy-efficient settlements the
standard of tomorrow in compliance with the EU 2020 objectives, an
overall design concept for green buildings was developed by using
conventional assessments such as Austrian energy certificate, dynamic
simulation programs like Energy Plus to adjust all parameters, resource-
efficient building materials, and the innovative energy concept with an
analysis of the ecological aspects to demonstrate highly energy-efficient
prototype buildings [20]. The impacts of different LEED v3 and v4
(Energy and Atmosphere category) criteria on the sustainability metrics
of midrise multi-family buildings were compared, and the potential
changes in the energy performance were investigated to improve the
LEED certification for promoting nearly-zero energy buildings and
revising national energy standards among stakeholders for encouraging
energy efficiency in buildings [73]. The Atika building was renovated as
a case study, and Active House standards were used for a comprehensive
quality evaluation and for improving environmental performance [50].
Retrofitting strategies such as on-site renewable energy generation,
passive cooling integration, and insulation were applied for an existing
residential private building stock in UAE, which has a high potential of
becoming Estidama certified in the category of achieving resource en­
ergy credit [74]. A dialogue tool, namely, the energy efficiency maturity
matrix, was developed for the sourcing process to support future
sourcing strategies to renovate and maintain energy-efficient sustain­
able buildings and provide guidance for organizations that manage
municipal facilities and lead decision-making according to capabilities
and in collaboration with energy efficiency service providers [75].
Green building rating tools were adopted to evaluate building perfor­
mance in the local context, such as in Saudi Arabia, which uses the Saudi
Environmental Assessment Method, under three different climate con­
ditions [76]. An MCDM approach was used to assess the sustainability
dimensions for residential buildings in the Indian tropical climate [77].
3.2.1.3. Certified buildings. LEED (USA) and ITACA (Italy) rating sys­
tems were compared to evaluate and improve building sustainability
and prove the main features of both schemes in improving sustainability
[78]. Experimental green building energy was analyzed and evaluated,
and a range of energy conservation measures to reduce emissions and
energy consumption of the built environment based on chosen devices,
coordinated measures, adopted strategies, and new technologies was
presented [33]. In Jordan, a new Comprehensive Contribution to Sus­
tainable Development Index (CCSDI) was proposed for evaluating the
contribution of energy efficiency in LEED 2009-certified prerequisites
and credits in the Energy and Atmosphere category for achieving the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The CCSDI can
be used by researchers in other countries to develop a new assessment
method to measure energy efficiency in different LEED versions or other
green building assessment systems [79]. Empirical evidence from a
comparison between two countries from the same region (Finland and
Sweden) and two European regions (Turkey and Spain) of Gold LEED for
New Construction (NC) 2009 Certified Projects was used to help experts
correct low-performing categories such as reduction of material con­
sumption and increasing renewable energies in different LEED-NC and
to help researchers and scientists deal with LEED empirical studies by
using statistical methods to obtain better conclusions for green building
development [80]. LEED and ASGB were compared with Green Star
through a case study approach to seek the most suitable green building
assessment method and give valuable suggestions to develop green
building ratings for creating sustainable building designs [81]. A case
study of two certified buildings in South Africa green provided signifi­
cant information about building principle applications, environmental
awareness, and green buildings’ benefits and barriers [82]. Building
information modeling (BIM) was applied in the Green Building Index
(GBI) to evaluate energy efficiency [83]. Intelligent techniques were
used to achieve the SDGs by analyzing energy-efficient green hospital
buildings [84]. In Algeria, the performance of multi-integrated
F.S. Hafez et al.
renewable energy systems, such as solar thermal collector, Earth–air
heat exchanger, and underground tank, for addressing the heating needs
of nearly-NZEBs was analyzed and optimized [85].
3.2.1.4. Others (unspecified buildings). The climate conditions in Saudi
Arabia were investigated by using climate classification methods, where
a weighted criteria assessment matrix based on the decision matrix
method was applied for optimum classification of energy consumption
and potential for renewable energy (solar energy and wind power) to
promote sustainable buildings [86]. In Korea, a model for determining
the most sustainable technologies was generated by analyzing the fac­
tors and categories of different sustainable green building certifications
such as GSEED, LEED, BREEAM, and CASBEE, which are in line with
GHG reduction technologies for reducing national GHG emissions,
preserve natural resources, and enhance energy efficiency [87]. A new
regulatory and policy framework was adapted in building sectors for
managing the use of energy sources for the power generation and con­
struction industries, reducing environmental impacts and GHG emis­
sions, targeting low-carbon electricity emission, and achieving
sustainable energy usage by integrating the green building concept into
BIM [88]. The energy-saving potential of architectural design based on
the climate was defined by discussing strategies for climate-adapted
architecture and how building energy needs can be reduced with
proper structural design decisions by using building energy simulations
(genetic algorithm approach) with limited computational resources
available to optimize heating, lighting energy demands, and cooling of
different types of building design [89]. Highly energy-efficient buildings
were designed using building energy simulation models. This process is
associated with subjective uncertainty and objective uncertainty in
calculating the energy consumption of buildings and assists in making
design decisions [90]. An MCDM method, namely, the analytic hierar­
chy process (AHP), was used to develop proposed rating system criteria
weights (TARSHEED) in existing buildings in Egypt by comparing and
analyzing international GBRSs such as LEED, the Estidama Pearl rating
system, BREEAM, Green Globes, IGBC, and EnergyStar to encourage
stakeholders to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings by
implementing environmental measures, using renewable energy sour­
ces, adopting functional building operation and maintenance practices,
using energy-efficient appliances, retrofitting buildings with an auto­
mation system, and installing submeters for primary energy [91]. A base
model was developed, which reflects the Korean building code for
selecting and evaluating appropriate energy-saving technologies for a
high-performance building with reduced energy consumption and GHG
emissions and their contributions to energy saving in the Korean climate
[92]. A framework that demonstrates how the proposed LEED criteria
can be collected into the national building code for improving and
attaining sustainable development within the Nigeria’s building sector
was proposed [93]. A development sustainability assessment framework
for buildings in Kazakhstan was created by using MCDM [94].
3.2.2. Economic impacts
The water and energy consumption of six LEED-certified buildings
and certification systems’ impact on achieving cost savings and the
economic impact on operation cost (hard and soft costs) were evaluated
using LCA [21]. Empirical studies on applying green price premiums for
providing meaningful economic returns to developers were conducted
by drawing data from the literature on the Green Mark system in Sin­
gapore’s residential housing market from January 2000 to June 2010 to
evaluate and rate the sustainability and energy efficiency of buildings
[23]. A cost–benefit analysis measure was developed to measure
changes in the residential Italian real estate market and the economic
advantage of investments in energy retrofitting of existing buildings to
obtain higher energy performance in newly redeveloped buildings [22].
Optimal design methods were used in building multi-energy systems,
such as solar water heating system, PV power generation system, and
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Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013
seasonal cold storage by minimizing the total life cycle cost of the entire
system compared with the original building energy system for sustain­
able building development [24].
3.2.3. Social impacts
A questionnaire survey among professionals in Saudi Arabia indi­
cated that education level and work tend to positively influence the
appreciation of sustainability in buildings [95]. A design advice and
evaluation group was established to support the demonstration partners
and the local planning team by giving advice and informing about
suitable technologies during the design, implementation, and evaluation
process for retrofitting to achieve energy efficiency in buildings [29]. A
model that integrates factors—such as renewable and optimized energy,
heat-island effect roof, system lighting, 75% daylighting of spaces,
construction waste management, stormwater quality control, and in­
door and outdoor air—was proposed for an initial investigation to
determine the potential motivators for achieving sustainable construc­
tion safety and health [28]. The influence of social problems on green
buildings, such as the basic understanding of customers, purchase
intention, social acceptance, social and humanistic needs, public atti­
tudes and behaviors, and rebound effects over the consumers’
decision-making process, was studied through a literature review,
questionnaire, and inductive analysis for providing a social health in
green building development [96]. A questionnaire survey was created
with questions using the Green ship rating tool parameters for evalu­
ating the physical condition of an internationally green-rated office
building according to occupants’ perception during the certification
process [97]. CBC experiment analysis was applied to compare and
discuss the responses of the occupants of green and non-green buildings
by identifying and determining the relative importance of environ­
mental design categories, such as water savings, energy efficiency, and
indoor environmental quality, with experiential design categories, such
as visual, non-visual aesthetics, and social territories of the green
building design to evaluate green buildings based on user preferences
[27]. New local rating systems have been innovated in the UAE, taking
into account communities‘ cultures under the social dimension as a key
aspect for raising the effectiveness of the public role in the design pro­
cess of sustainable buildings to reduce carbon emissions [25]. Indoor
environment quality factors, such as the layout of the space, thermal
conditions, noise levels, lighting, and air quality, were measured and
compared according to a set of benchmarks by using the new NABERS
tool to evaluate performance and recognize market achievements in
occupant well-being, comfort, and health to increase staff productivity
in a green office building [26]. Ten questions were presented to explore
indoor air quality challenges and opportunities for improving this issue
in green buildings and their green building certifications, which could
improve productivity, health, well-being, and profitability [98].
3.2.4. Others
This section focuses on works that included two or three impacts that
need to be combined to achieve energy efficiency in sustainable build­
ings. The others include environmental and economic impacts, envi­
ronmental and social impacts, social and economic impacts,
environmental, social, and economic impacts, and others, which were
not specified in previous work.
3.2.4.1. Environmental and economic impacts. Using Applications/
Systems: In China, a cost–benefit evaluation of energy efficiency tech­
nology application on green buildings was applied based on EETCP. The
economic evaluation theory of a construction project was derived by
establishing the theoretical framework system and developing analysis
methods of incremental costs and quantitative calculation formula of
incremental benefits of the energy efficiency technology application to
bring incremental environmental and economic benefits [37]. A
comparative evaluation based on economical optimal analysis and
F.S. Hafez et al.
energy of office buildings in the US and France was conducted by
applying life cycle cost analysis to identify design features that can
achieve higher-performance buildings with the aim of becoming NZEBs
[40]. Hybrid systems were proposed and compared with conventional
energy supply systems by using optimization techniques to minimize
cost or CO2 emissions [35]. The global cost approach defined by EU
legislation was compared by analyzing building’ energy efficiency
measures (different envelope thermal insulation, shading system, win­
dow types, and highly efficient systems) in terms of economic and en­
ergy performance to achieve high performance of an existing typical
multi-family building with cost-optimal levels [38]. Renewable energy
applications such as solar hot water systems, solar PV system, and
ground source heat pump were used as energy supply systems. Through
a survey and analysis of 72 practical projects, this issue was discussed
from the aspects of investment recovery and energy saving to develop
energy-saving buildings and promote the utilization of renewable en­
ergy [34]. Solar passive building techniques, daylighting design
low-embodied-energy building materials, energy-efficient equipment,
and renewable systems for hot water heating were used to reduce energy
consumption through solar PV electrification, which ultimately reduces
CO2 emissions and helps in sustainable development to achieve a highly
energy-efficient or zero-emission green building [36]. The actual energy
performance of a home was determined by comparing the energy per­
formance between the modeled and observed energy performances.
Findings show the following: The simulated energy usage is bigger than
the actual energy usage; energy modeling via simulation tools is accu­
rate for new construction; and energy modeling for existing buildings is
inaccurate because of the big difference in occupant behaviors, thereby
leading to a significant reduction in energy consumption and substantial
financial savings [39].
Adopted model building: A thermal performance model was
developed to predict the details of a building’s energy consumption,
including hot water supply heating, interior lighting, cooling, and in­
door equipment. Sustainable measures such as application of low-E
glazing, the infiltration reduction, and glazing façade conductivity
improvement were compared based on ASHRAE standards. Such a
comparison could ensure economic and energy saving through identi­
fying the most effective measure and improving the energy efficiency of
buildings and thermal comfort [53]. A calibrated computational model
with retrofitting measures (envelope and air conditioning) examined
two energy models of villas of different ages according to two standards:
Dubai Green Building Regulations and German Building Regulation.
Findings show that wall insulation improved performance at a low cost
and upgrading the air conditioning system had a significant effect on
energy consumption, which decreased by 40%, and CO2 emissions
decreased by 32% [32]. A model that explores several possible solutions,
such as an energy audit and a planning process that integrates renewable
sources such as heat pumps, biomass, and a hybrid system was applied in
Craiglockhart Primary School to evaluate the improvement in energy
efficiency and the reduction in emissions and costs related to achieving
energy efficiency [52]. A multi-objective optimal model on building
envelope structure (MOPBEM) was applied, which involved incorpo­
rating an energy performance model with a multi-objective optimizer
that utilizes non-predominated sorting algorithm-II for accomplishing a
trade-off design between limiting the envelope construction cost,
expanding the window opening rate, and limiting the envelope energy
performance to serve as a reference for green designs and obtaining an
optimal design in comparison with the original design, thereby resulting
in lower costs compared with a manual design that demonstrates the
practical application of MOPBEM [55]. In South Africa, an optimization
model for retrofit planning of an office building reduced the building’s
energy consumption in a profitable way and achieved an energy per­
formance certificate [49]. A renewable building’s energy supply chain
model was proposed based on LCA, the low-carbon goal-oriented model,
the economic goal-oriented model, and with the integration of the life
cycle stage to provide a technical reference for green buildings with
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Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013
reduced complexity and time consumption [51]. A model that aims to
achieve a net-zero energy home in sub-zero temperatures was developed
for parametric optimization. This model indicates the key factors for
achieving the highest efficiency for a near zero-energy home
cost-effectively, thereby reducing household energy utilization and
providing economic and environmental benefits for residents [54]. The
energy retrofit for an existing office in an industrial building was
modeled, simulated, calibrated, and optimized to promote more sus­
tainable buildings [56].
Others: A novel methodology, namely, multi-objective optimization,
was proposed for the design of renewable energy systems mix in a
typical new Italian residential building to minimize primary energy
demand and investment cost. The methodology generates environ­
mental benefits for the community and economic benefits to the build­
ing owners [99]. In a green building, empirical evidence of the economic
benefits relating to energy consumption reduction was derived by
analyzing different scenarios of energy price, which affect future cost
savings throughout the whole life cycle of the building [100]. The dis­
tinctions of practitioners’ achievements in accomplishing the goals of
the Energy and Atmosphere credits of certification levels and project
ownership credits in 1500 LEED-NC 2009-certified buildings were
examined by utilizing the percent of maximum points attained by taking
resolutions identified with sustainability building design and giving
proposals to improve future green construction development by
accomplishing credit levels such as platinum, gold, and silver; cost
reserve funds; and lower adverse ecological effects [101]. A framework
was developed by integrating mathematical optimization, LCA, and BIM
for achieving energy-efficient buildings and lowering construction costs
[102]. Cost-effective measures such as occupant behavior techniques
and retro-commissioning of HVAC systems, lighting control, and plug
load equipment were adopted to reduce annual energy consumption by
38.3%, and PV panels were installed on a parking lot and 15% of a
rooftop area, thus enabling a building to become a zero-energy building
with a payback period of 4.3 years [103]. BIM tools were used to analyze
the life cycle energy and life cycle cost of double-reverse glazing, double
low-E glazing, and glass infill of a commercial building [104].
3.2.4.2. Environmental and social impacts. A tool was developed to assist
stakeholders in identifying key areas in buildings, affecting energy
performance to improve the working conditions and health implications
for workers, reducing carbon from operating buildings, and improving
the productivity and asset value to organizations [105]. A
whole-building hygrothermal model was adopted to evaluate different
retrofit design parameters (ventilation rates and strategies, windows,
insulation levels, and combinations) of buildings, which will potentially
enhance the overall existing buildings’ performance, energy saving,
acceptable indoor humidity level, and durability [4]. Adopting
daylighting systems (movable shading devices, window cleaning,
painting of interior surfaces in a light color, and planting trees on the
west side) in classrooms for a green school can enhance the IEQ for
occupants’ health and well-being, and reduce the energy consumption of
electric lighting [106]. For campus facilities, an energy-aware intelli­
gent facility management system was developed based on safety, energy
consumption, and occupant satisfaction to help facility managers
improve the energy efficiency, safety, and damage of the building [107].
Terraced social housing was redesigned and energy performance and
comfort conditions were evaluated for different tenants by applying the
building simulation method and the Passive House Planning Package to
achieve a sustainable building with various aspects of the flexible design
concept in the floor planning layout, such as reduced energy consump­
tion, energy, and carbon emissions; low-impact materials; and use of
renewables [108]. The effectiveness of passive design in terms of indoor
air quality in high-rise and low-rise green office buildings was evaluated
using radiant slab cooling and conventional cooling system to provide
better indoor air quality and thermal comfort level and low-energy
F.S. Hafez et al.
consumption from the lessons learned from both buildings [109]. A
parametric study was adopted in cold winter and hot summer zones to
examine the effect of adaptive indoor environment control thermal
comfort by comparing the results of two actual cases with a simulated
different scenarios in terms of healthy housing environmental control to
achieve indoor thermal comfort with low energy use and an energy ef­
ficiency strategy to save more energy for heating or cooling and thus
improve residential buildings in China [110].
Energy efficiency was investigated through an empirical study ac­
cording to resident behaviors for 300 residential buildings by adopting
and implementing energy-efficiency technologies by integrating the
energy simulation approach into multivariate regression modeling. This
work positively affected the green building performance system and
reduced the energy consumption, with the energy expenditures of the
buildings being almost equivalent to the annual costs for a typical
American home [111]. On a regional scale, sustainable building stra­
tegies were proposed to help designers and offer a more sustainable
design; such strategies include passive strategies, which correct thermal
discomfort in buildings and minimize the energy demand, thus helping
them plan smarter buildings [112]. A hybrid module that consists of PV
panels, external insulation, an efficient window, and a transparent
railing was proposed to form façades, and the west roof pitch of the
building under study was renovated, being covered with dummies, PVs,
and thermal solar panels, thus accelerating energy façade retrofit toward
a 100% productive envelope and calculations of quantitative informa­
tion on the energy production yield (kWh/m2) toward achieving sus­
tainable buildings [113]. Dynamic energy modeling was used to
determine the best design strategies for affordable and low-cost, ener­
gy-efficient residential buildings in Algeria focusing on two climate
regions—the Mediterranean and the Saharan Ghardaia—to evaluate the
energy performance and investigate further variations of the reference
building to determine the most efficient building design strategies,
which can yield optimal energy savings and minimize cooling and
heating demands [114].
The use of the Green Mark green building rating scheme in intensive
laboratory buildings in Singapore demonstrates 42% energy saving,
achieving highly energy-efficient buildings and transparency in energy
consumption, as well as educating users to reduce energy consumption
and CO2 emissions [115]. The parameter values of indoor environment
quality, such as relative humidity levels, indoor temperature, and CO2,
were assessed in the EFdeN project (energy-efficient building) to achieve
minimum energy consumption during winter. The house could be a
model for social awareness in the green and sustainable building
domain, for research matters, and for educational purposes [116]. In
Malaysia, integrating behavioral strategies for occupants (training, in­
centives, energy efficiency guide), technology strategies (BIM tools,
sustainable building materials), and organization policy (action plans,
control systems) can be applied to develop the energy efficiency prac­
tice, guide occupants in reducing energy consumption, enhance energy
performance, and reduce the performance gap between the predicted
energy and the actual energy of green office buildings [117]. In
Switzerland, the results of a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) on four
Minergie-certified buildings were reported to analyze their ability to
provide comfort for their occupants, which could help inform the design
and operational process for moving toward more effective green rating
systems and building certification regulations [118].
3.2.4.3. Social and economic impacts. Empirical survey data were used
to identify the drives of supply and demand of energy efficiency mea­
sures in buildings and then clustered according to their importance in
meeting supply and demand priorities (standardization, low transaction
costs, the stability of the regulatory framework, and energy prices) to
provide consumers with reliable information and project developers
with a stable regulatory environment to shift to sustainable building
choices [31]. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art was expanded to
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Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013
enhance the visitor experience and public access, such as bringing in­
dividual visitors face to face with art, helping triple the number of
visiting schoolchildren, and evaluating the design outcomes [119]. A
managed framework compliance was proposed with socioeconomic
criteria during a building’s life cycle, integrating corresponding cost
assessment and energy sustainability requirements of an energy-efficient
building throughout its lifespan. A series of procedures was used as
reference for researchers, scholars, and students in the field of sustain­
able buildings [6].
3.2.4.4. Environmental, social, and economic impacts. A framework for
decision-making and sustainability assessment was integrated and the
current sustainable remediation movement in the Europe and the US
was summarized to give a holistic view of sustainability considerations
in remediation with important implications for technology vendors,
regulators, consultants, liability owners, and contractors [120]. A
framework of O-House was designed by integrating sustainable strate­
gies, including energy-saving methods such as integrated indoor furni­
ture design, architecture and materials, integrated equipment systems,
building composition mode, and renewable energy technologies to open
a window to an increasingly vast market and exploring more develop­
ment of net-zero houses in China [121]. Indicators for a sustainable
assessment scheme were proposed for current best-practice Estonian
buildings by comparing indicators and their levels according to Estonian
regulations with BREEAM and LEED sustainable building assessment
schemes focusing on indoor climate, energy, and transport categories to
help stakeholders understand the sustainability aspects of buildings
[122]. A green audit methodology based on an occupant survey was
developed to facilitate the transition of existing school buildings into
sustainable ones. Consequently, this school has great potential to reduce
its operating costs and become a healthy and high-performing facility
[123]. A framework was proposed to investigate the certification pro­
cess of six certified projects in Turkey in terms of the impacts, drivers,
enablers, resources, barriers, benefits, and green implementations and
thus better understand the critical success factors of the certification
process to guide construction professionals in certifying existing build­
ings effectively [124]. A critical assessment of building energy efficiency
policies for new and existing buildings was conducted in the context of
Chinese economic development and societal transition to improve the
energy performance, living standards, and climate change mitigation in
China’s buildings and maximize the effectiveness of energy efficiency
policies in the Chinese built environment [125]. A multi-objective
optimization model was presented to generate optimal trade-offs
among three objectives: to maximize the operational environmental
performance of housing units, maximize the social life quality of resi­
dents, and minimize the life cycle cost for improving the design and
construction of housing units and maximize their overall sustainability
[126]. Energy model predictions were compared with the actual energy
performance of three LEED buildings on a university campus, and
findings show an improvement in building energy performance. In­
terviews and focus group studies were adopted to identify multiple
contributing factors to poor energy performance and thermal comfort
problems, which consist of the accuracy of energy modeling, the quality
of project specifications, the compatibility issue on the BAS components,
training for operations and maintenance staff, building design problems,
and issues on building operations. These factors could be addressed by
improving the Ohio State university’s green building and energy policy
and other supporting documents such as guidelines, design standards,
and specifications [127]. For owners’ homes, a simple, user-friendly tool
called Sustainable Property Expert was developed and compared with
two current sustainability certificates for professional builders and
property developers through a case study of an entire residential
building for better building performance and to assess the sustainability
of residential buildings and support sustainable building construction
[128]. In China, empirical studies for analyzing the spatial distribution
F.S. Hafez et al.
Fig. 3. Methodological aspects of the reviewed studies.
of green buildings and their determinants, resulting in regional imbal­
ance and local economic fundamentals with policy incentives to explain
the green building’s presence that will help the government promote
more green buildings, establish a market-oriented mechanism, improve
public awareness related to sustainability, and establish and implement
effective green policies [129]. A methodological framework that in­
cludes a comprehensive literature review and a questionnaire survey
was created for international green building experts to identify and have
a deeper understanding of the major drivers (water efficiency, reduction
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Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013
of environmental impact, occupants’ health, comfort, satisfaction, and
company’s image reputation) in implementing green building technol­
ogies to minimize negative impacts on the construction industry and
promote the GBTs [130]. Design strategies for buildings were selected
based on a proposed complex method that includes life cycle cost
analysis, adaptive thermal comfort, LCA, climate change, and MCDM to
evaluate and select the best design strategies for improving sustain­
ability in buildings, decreasing environmental impacts, and increasing
the life quality of users, taking the economic aspects into consideration
F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

[5]. In Jordan, a new Comprehensive Contribution to Development Table 1

Index (CCDI) was proposed to evaluate the contributions of LEED v2.2 Duplication in the databases.
water and energy efficiency to achieve the United Nations SDGs [30]. Year Database Duplication Occurrences
For economical and energy-efficient buildings, the Insulated Brick
2020 ScienceDirect, Web of Science 2
Veneer module walling system was used and compared with other 2019 ScienceDirect, Web of Science 7
modules with renewable energy systems (PV systems) for enhancing 2018 ScienceDirect, Web of Science 8
thermal performance with the least cost and greatest energy saving 2018 Web of Science, IEEE 2
[131]. Recommendations for the government and green building 2017 ScienceDirect, Web of Science 6
2017 ScienceDirect, ScienceDirect 1
councils were proposed and stakeholders’ knowledge in green building 2015 ScienceDirect, Web of Science 2
was evaluated to promote the use of the green building concept,
encourage professionals to take relevant certifications, and strengthen
environmental policies and regulations [132]. The SAHSBPT method­ to improve sustainable buildings, decrease the environmental impact,
ology was applied in Portuguese high school buildings to improve or and enhance users’ life quality, with economic aspects taken into
rehabilitate the sustainability of these buildings [133]. Fuzzy-MCDM consideration [5]. A development sustainability assessment framework
was used to assess the sustainability indicators for green building con­ for buildings in Kazakhstan was created by using an MCDM method
struction [134].
Table 2
3.2.4.5. Others. The others are three articles that are unrelated to the Distribution according to the country of the study.
previous sections and are classified into economic and ecological im­ According to the country of the Reference
pacts; environmental, economic, and technological impacts; and envi­ study
ronmental, economic, and technical impacts. Twenty-one studies
3.2.4.5.1. Economic and ecological impacts. A bottom-up model was China [8,10,12–14,16,24,34,37,44,46,51,71,81,90,96,
developed to determine the optimal investment amount from economic 103,121,129,130]
and ecological perspectives by using green building investment oppor­ Eleven studies
United States [39,40,43,53,65,66,107,111,119,126,127]
tunities as insurance against energy price volatility to enhance the
Ten studies
existing valuation methods or tools for reducing the energy efficiency Italy [17,22,31,38,50,56,78,99,106,123]
gap (EEG) in green buildings [135]. Eight studies
3.2.4.5.2. Environmental, economic, and technological impacts. For Malaysia [18,30,41,47,79,83,109,117]
Seven Studies
residential applications, a multigeneration system such as a wind tur­
Australia [26,33,60,88,98,105,125]
bine, concentrated solar collector, organic ranking cycle, and ground Six Studies
source heat pump was proposed, analyzed, and evaluated energetically India [36,45,68,77,84,104]
and exegetically based on optimization of the net present cost, energy UK [11,86,95,110,120,138]
and exergy efficiencies, and levelized cost of electricity to produce Five studies
Canada [4,27,48,64,136]
heating, cooling, electricity, and hot water for green buildings without
Indonesia [15,28,62,97,132]
CO2 emissions and other pollutants [136]. A multi-objective dimen­ UAE [25,32,72,74,108]
sional approach was used to create trade-off solutions, multi-scenario Four studies
mixed-integer nonlinear optimization approach was applied to design Korea [35,73,87,92]
Three studies
water–energy systems in sustainable buildings, and water–energy sys­
Turkey [63,101,124]
tems were defined according to the relationship of biogas production, Switzerland [70,113,118]
emission reduction, and water treatment to minimize the total annual Germany [29,114,135]
cost of the system, water consumption, and GHG emissions, maximize Spain [3,112,128]
renewable source use, and save resources in the building by considering Two studies
Brazil [5,102]
the nonlinear behavior of the equipment [137].
Singapore [23,115]
3.2.4.5.3. Environmental, economic, and technical impacts. Applica­ Denmark [75,89]
tions of NZEB using BIM, energy and cost–analysis model, a novel hi­ Romania [19,116]
erarchy flowchart, and the thermal property of building models on South Africa [49,82]
Saudi Arabia [9,76]
existing built environments were implemented to determine and reduce
Egypt [61,91]
the energy demand, and renewable technologies such as a solar PV One study
system on a roof with three wind turbines at 7.2 m diameter were Estonia [122]
installed for gaining a payback period of 23 years [138]. Czech Republic [21]
Iran [7]
Austria [20]
New Zealand [42]
3.3. Classification of the selected papers with MCDM methods Taiwan [55]
Greece [52]
This section focuses on the findings from our taxonomy. The articles Israel [80]
used MCDM to address energy efficiency problems to achieve sustain­ Mexico [137]
Pakistan [54]
able buildings. Seven articles used MCDM methods to target sustainable Palestine [100]
buildings. The appropriate climate classification for building energy Jordan [131]
modeling in Saudi Arabia was identified through a weighted criteria Cyprus [93]
assessment matrix based on the decision matrix method [86]. The green Ghana [67]
Ireland [2]
criteria in five sustainable schemes were investigated to create and
Japan [6]
evaluate Iranian green building assessment tools by using MCDM con­ Portugal [133]
sisting of AHP weighted by Shannon’s entropy and harmonic mean [7]. Vietnam [134]
In existing buildings in Egypt, proposed rating system criteria weights Kazakhstan [94]
for TARSHEED were developed by comparing and analyzing GBRSs by Bangladesh [69]
France [85]
using AHP [91]. The best design strategies were evaluated and selected

12
F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

[94]. Fuzzy MCDM was used to assess the sustainability indicators for Table 3
green building construction [134]. An MCDM approach was used to Distribution according to software used.
prioritize and assess the sustainability dimensions of residential build­ Simulation Tool/Software Used Reference
ings in the Indian tropical climate [77].
Energy Plus [3,4,12,15,17,32,38,46,47,56,66,89,90,92,
99,103,110]
4. Methodological aspects Design Builder [12,32,38,46,47,53,56,108,110,116]
TRNSYS [12,13,46,47,50,54,66,72,114]
The methodological aspects of this research on green and sustainable eQuest [46,60,69,71]
IES VE [42,71,83,86]
building with energy efficiency are analyzed to determine the limita­ REM/Rate software [39,111]
tions of previous studies and inform future researchers about the ap­ IDA ICE [12,47]
proaches that were previously used to gain insight into this field of Green Building Studio [69,104]
research endeavors. The methodological aspects are divided into many BESTEST with Indoor Climate and [8]
Energy
aspects, such as publication year, country of the author/location of the
ModelCenter [12]
study, and software used to analyze the data. The result from the Hourly Analysis Program (HAP) [18]
methodological aspects will provide guidance to determine how recent Polysun [20]
the study is, who conducted it, which countries have conducted more PI System Explorer, PI monitoring [33]
research and studies in this field/area, and the credibility, ease, or software,
Simulink tool, and Core Sight
otherwise of the employed software(s). The distribution of the studies software
depends on the journal name and its impact factor to help future re­ Solar Pro [33]
searchers target the journals in this area and distribution based on types Behsazan (Iran) [38]
of review articles, which are divided into articles, reviews, and confer­ Thermal analysis simulation [42]
software
ence proceedings. The distribution was conducted based on previous
Archipak 5.1 [62]
studies’ research methods and based on data collection types such as BIM [88]
questionnaire, interview, case study, and critical, comprehensive, or PVSyst software [113]
extensive review. The distribution of the selected papers from 2014 to Climate Consultant 5.3 [114]
May 23, 2021, is shown in Fig. 3 (see Table 1).TABLE 1 Should be ab­ Testo Easy Climate [116]
DAYSIM [106]
breviations and put it after key words in the abbreviations sections and
RET screen [135]
rename all the tables again HOMER software [136]

Software for Buildings Reference

4.1. Distribution by year of publication
Revit [12,69,74,102,104,138]
MATLAB [12,33,47,56,99]
The demographic statistics in this part come from three databases, BIM [6,69,83,102]
which present the relevant articles with publications by year. In the SketchUp [12,46,114]
table of distribution, the publication by year shows that the demography Autodesk Ecotect [12,24,131]
of the chosen articles came from the three databases. ScienceDirect is the CAD [6,12]
Metronome [12,114]
most extensive database among the three, followed by Web of Science,
DOE-2 [47]
and the IEEE database ranks last. Duplication was detected among the VELUX Daylight Visualizer [50]
selected papers before the full-text reading stage. The results are shown SimaPro 8 LCA [65]
in Table 1. Impact Estimator 5.1 [64]
BEM [69]
Sefaira [74]
4.2. Distribution according to the country of the study TRACE700 [73]
BSim, Denmark tool [78]
Studies on achieving sustainable buildings by targeting energy effi­ IBMS [84]
ciency have been conducted in different countries. Therefore, this BEopt™ [40]
Insight [138]
research area is of substantial and significant interest for researchers,
designers, investors, users, developers, policymakers, decision-makers, Software for Analyzing Data Reference
and owners, who may be applying these studies for research and other SPSS [22,67,132]
benefits. This research showed that most studies on sustainable build­ R [101,117,130]
ings with energy efficiency came from 43 countries, as shown in Fig. 3 Amos version 22 [67]
TrakPro [118]
and Table 2. About n = 20/134 studies were been conducted in China.
DAS-100 [109]
The second-ranking countries that explored in this area are the United
States with n = 11/134 studies and Italy with n = 10/134. Malaysia General software Reference

conducted n = 8/134 studies. Seven studies (n = 7/134) were conducted Google Earth Pro [7]
in Australia. India and the UK conducted n = 6/134 studies. Canada, == [27]
GNU Linear Programming Kit [47]
Indonesia, and UAE led five n = 5/134 studies each, respectively. Korea
Trane TRACE v6.2.6.5 [60]
conducted n = 4/134 studies. The next group includes countries with 3/
134 studies, such as Turkey, Switzerland, Germany, and Spain. Brazil,
Singapore, Denmark, Romania, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt 4.3. Distribution according to software used
conducted only n = 2/134 studies. The last group involves countries that
performed only one study: Ireland, Japan, Iran, Austria, New Zealand, An analysis of the full-text articles on sustainable buildings and en­
Czech Republic, Greece, Bangladesh, Ghana, Israel, France, Cyprus, ergy efficiency showed that researchers used many types of software
Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Taiwan, Palestine, Jordan, Estonia, Portugal, with different purposes for data analysis, simulation programs, software
Vietnam, and Mexico. for buildings, and some tools for optimization. The most commonly used
software in 134 studies is Energy Plus, which is used to simulate the
energy consumption of a building for lighting, ventilation, water, cool­
ing, and heating. Design Builder is the second most frequently used

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F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Table 4 Table 6
Distribution according to the type of data collection. Distribution according to type of journal article.
Type of Data Collection Reference Types of the Journal References
Article
Case study-based approach [4,8,15–17,19,20,25,29,32,37,38,52,53,
71–73,76,88,91,99,105–116,119,121,122, Article [1]
124,127,128] Conference [19–21,25,28,29,86,87,89,90,95,97,106,107,111,113,
[5,10,22,24,39,48–50,61–66,68–70,80–84, Proceedings 121,123],
92,93,100,102–104,118,132,133,137,138], [15,18,24,26,34,35,38,52,71,74,83,84,115,116,131]
Survey- or questionnaire-based [7,19,28,30,67,77,79,91,94–97,105,107, Review Articles [2,3,8–13,41–48]
approach 110,117,120,123,127,130,132,134]
Critical or comprehensive or [2,3,6,9–13,18,31,41–47,67,75–77,82,93,
extensive literature review 94,96,98,105,117,120,130] 4.6. Distribution according to type of journal article
Interview approach [82,86,105,107,117,124,127,129,132]
Other [14,17,21,23,40,86,87,89,90,95,96,110,
123,125,126,136],
The types of the journal article are mentioned in Table 6 . The pre­
[15,26,27,33–36,49,51,54–56,60,85,93,94, vious studies were published in different formats, such as reviews,
101,129,131,135] conference proceedings, and articles. Eighty-five (63%) of the selected
studies are articles, 33 (25%) are conference proceedings, and 16 (12%)
are review articles.
Table 5
Distribution according to research methods.
4.7. Distribution depending on the name of the journal and impact factor
Research Methods Reference

Quantitative [4] This part shows the classification of selected articles according to the
Methods journal’s name and their impact factor or impact score. This classifica­
Qualitative [2,3,6,8,10–13,41–48,63,75,78,82,84,88,98,107,117,119, tion type assists the authors in targeting the journals that relate to sus­
Methods 124,125,132]
tainable and green building with energy efficiency, as shown in Table 7.
Mixed Methods [51,67,69,76,77,93,94,96,105,120,123,127,129,130]

software used for many purposes, such as evaluating daylight use by
modeling the light control system and energy consumption, visualizing
the site plan, and determining the heating and cooling equipment in the
buildings. It is followed by TRNSYS, which is used to achieve energy
saving toward a net-zero building. Revit is the most commonly software
used for buildings, followed by MATLAB with different versions. Sta­
tistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and R are the most
commonly software for data analysis. The remaining software is
mentioned in Table 3
4.4. Distribution according to the type of data collection
Data for the previous studies were collected through literature re­
views, expert panels, interviews, questionnaire surveys, reports, docu­
ment analysis, and other methods. Most studies used a case study-based
approach. Some used a survey-based approach only. Around 30 articles
used critical or comprehensive or extensive literature review, while the
other articles (n = 9) included interviews. Some articles combined two
or three methods, such as interview with survey or an extensive lecture
with survey and others that are not related to any of the previous
methods, such as mathematical models and optimization tools, as shown
in Table 4.
4.5. Distribution according to research methods used
In terms of the research methods for previous studies, 91 articles or
about 70% used quantitative methods. The most commonly used
quantitative methods are simulation techniques, evaluation of models,
mathematical models, rating system evaluation, integration of technol­
ogies, comparative statistical analysis, experimental design approach,
decision-making methods, and multivariate regression analysis. Twenty-
nine (21%) of these studies used qualitative methods, with the widely
used methods being content analysis, inductive reasoning, document
analysis, focus group studies, review of existing theories, and in-depth
interview. The remaining studies (n = 14, 9%) used mixed methods,
as mentioned in Table 6Table 5.
5. Discussion
The primary purpose of the systematic review is to provide an update
on the latest research on targeting energy efficiency to achieve sus­
tainable buildings, focusing on the social, economic, and environmental
impacts that influence sustainable development. The outcome of this
review highlights the significant trends in this topic after the final set of
the related articles was read with the proposed taxonomy. This section
discusses the papers from four different perspectives—challenges, mo­
tivations, recommendations, and pathways for future work—which are
related to energy efficiency in sustainable and green buildings. The
importance and significance of these perspectives are to reveal the dif­
ficulties faced by previous researchers in reducing the energy demand
and achieving energy saving toward sustainability in buildings. In
addition, the motivation for these researchers to study this topic is given.
Lastly, recommendations and pathways for future research are pre­
sented to encourage new researchers to conduct further studies to fill the
identified research gaps.
5.1. Challenges
Many challenges were faced and addressed, as revealed in this re­
view. These challenges were mentioned by the researchers, who were
concerned about achieving energy efficiency in new and existing
buildings to reach sustainability. These challenges are classified into
different groups according to their nature: 1) challenges according to
knowledge tools, 2) challenges according to development and evalua­
tion, such as lack of parameters, lack of applications or tools or tech­
nologies or systems, lack of adopting models, and lack of methods, and
3) other challenges, which are subdivided into challenges according to
environmental, economic, and social impacts.
5.1.1. Challenges according to knowledge tools
The challenges of knowledge tools are classified into lack of aware­
ness, lack of understanding, lack of experience, lack of information, lack
of findings, and lack of evidence or studies, as shown in Fig. 4 and
Table 8.

5.1.2. Challenges according to development and evaluation

The challenges according to development and evaluation are

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F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Table 7
Distribution depending on journal name and impact factor/score.
Journal/ Journal of Building Applied Sciences Sustainability Science of the Results in Energy Procedia Energies
Conference Engineering Total Environment Engineering
Name

Impact 5.318 2.842 3.521 [4] 2.60 1.89 3.004

Factor/
Score
References [6,32,56,67,77, [80,103,133] [2,22,75,108,138] [44] [62] [18–20,24,25,29, [72,92]
100] 34,35,38,71,74,86,
89,90,95,106,113,
115,116,121,123,
131]

Journal/ Environmental Journal of Green Applied Energy Renewable and Journal of Cleaner Solar Energy Buildings
Conference Engineering and Building Sustainable Production
Name Management Energy Reviews
Journal

Impact 1.00 .91 9.746 14.982 9.297 5.742 3.01

Factor/
Score
References [135] [39,127] [16,17,73] [7–9,12] [3,93,125,130, [41,85] [101]
[102,137] [13,42,43,47,48, 134]
91,96]

Journal/ Procedia Applied Journal of Frontiers of Renewable Energy Procedia Applied Thermal
Conference Environmental Geography Management in Architectural Engineering Engineering
Name Sciences Engineering Research

Impact – 4.240 6.853 1.81 8.001 1.88 5.296

Factor/
Score
References [52] [129] [124] [110] [105,114] [15] [21,26,28,53], [55,99,136]
[87,97,107,111],

Journal/ Urban Climate Sustainable Architectural Science International Materials Today: Alexandria Journal of Industrial
Conference Cities and Review Journal of Green Proceedings Engineering Ecology
Name Society Energy Journal

Impact 5.731 7.587 1.99 2.73 1.24 3.732 6.946

Factor/
Score
References [14] [94] [70] [79] [63,104] [36,61] [64]
Journal/ Environmental Case Studies in Energy Open Heliyon Building and Studies in
Conference Science & Policy Thermal Physics Environment Conservation
Name Engineering

Impact 5.581 4.724 7.147 1.067 2.85 6.456 .623

Factor/
Score
References [120] [54] [33] [51] [31,132] [5,27,30,49,81], [119]
[78,98,118,122]

Journal/ Built Environment Journal of Regional Science Automation in Indoor and Built Energy & Buildings International
Conference Project and Asset Building Physics Urban Economic Construction Environment Journal of
Name Management Environmental
Science and
Technology

Impact – 1.323 2.36 7.700 3.015 5.879 2.74

Factor/
Score
References [117] [4] [23] [88,126] [11,45,109,112] [10,37,46,50,60, [68]
65,66] [40,128],
Journal/ International Management of 20th International Arabian Journal 2nd International
Conference Journal of Building Environmental Conference for Science and Sustainability and
Name Pathology and Quality: An Intelligent System Engineering Resilience Co
Adaptation International Application to Power nference:
Journal Systems Technology and
Innovation in
Building Designs
Impact 1.78 4.21 – 2.53 –
Factor/
Score
References [69] [82] [84] [76] [83]

15
F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Fig. 4. Challenges according to knowledge tools.

classified into lack of parameters, lack of systems, lack of models, and Table 11 (continued )
lack of methods, as shown in Fig. 5 and Table 9. 13.Evaluate building quality by using the Active House standard
methodology.
5.1.3. Other challenges 14.Propose renewable energy of the building supply chain model to [51]
reduce the energy consumption of iron and steel enterprises.
Other challenges, which are subdivided into challenges based on 15.In Korea, review existing policies and government strategies. [11]
environmental, economic, and social impacts, are presented in Fig. 6 and 16.Utilize and use renewable energy applications for achieving energy- [34]
Table 10. saving buildings in Shanghai.
17.In Korea, review existing policies and government strategies. [11]
18.Utilize and use renewable energy applications for achieving energy- [34]
5.2. Motivations
saving buildings in Shanghai.
19.In Malaysia, energy efficiency practices have been developed, such [117]
Researching sustainable buildings and energy efficiency has become as occupants’ behavioral strategies, organization policy, and
an international trend. This section reports several aims listed by re­ integrated technologies in green buildings.
searchers and categorized into different groups of similar benefits with 20.Evaluate pertinent costs and technical issues by applying renewable [138]
technologies to fit the NZEB definition to implement in existing
relevant references for further discussion, as shown in Tables 11–19 and buildings.
Fig. 7.
5.2.1.2 Motivations according to improving energy efficiency Reference

5.2.1. Motivations according to environmental impacts
Table 11
Motivations according to environmental impacts.
5.2.1.1 Motivations according to reducing energy consumption Reference
1.In the UK, terraced housing units are redesigned and their [108]
performance is evaluated by utilizing the building simulation
method with the packages of passive-house planning.
2.In Malaysia, the indoor air quality of a green office building is [109]
evaluated.
3.In GB rating tools, interest in passive design has been renewed. [13]
4.Climate design strategies’ effectiveness is validated by using building [89]
performance simulation tools and computing technology.
5.An educational building project in Cluj-Napoca was developed as an [19]
eco-active building concept.
6.In India, identify sustainable design measures in a new commercial [53]
building.
7.In Hong Kong, achieving zero-energy school buildings and estimating [71]
energy demand requires PV energy supply depending on energy-
saving techniques, building envelope, and availability of PV
installation spaces.
8.High-rise office buildings in Jakarta are encouraged to meet the [15]
energy efficiency and conservation criteria of the Greenship rating
system.
9.A method for evaluating and estimating the daylighting in the [116]
classrooms is tested depending on performance indicators, which are
drawn from LEED guidelines.
10.In the UAE, opportunities for enhancing the sustainable [72]
performance of school buildings in a hot climate are assessed by
applying renewable energy systems.
11.Implement renewable energy technologies with passive building. [36]
12.Identify the actual home energy performance by comparing the [39]
energy use from observations and computational energy modeling.
[50]
(continued on next column)
1.To improve campus facilities’ energy efficiency, an energy-artificial [107]
intelligent facility management system is developed.
2.On a university campus, the energy model predictions for three LEED [127]
green buildings are compared with the actual energy performance to
ensure energy efficiency.
3.To enhance energy efficiency and indoor thermal comfort, passive [42]
building technology such as DSFs is proposed.
4.Propose and analyze the multigeneration system for residential [136]
applications for determining the energy efficiencies of green
buildings.
5.Build a model to describe the Craiglockhart Primary School energy [52]
profile and exploring many solutions to improve the building’s
efficiency.
6.In Singapore, apply the Green Mark rating system assessment to non- [115]
residential buildings such as Academic Block North.
7.In green buildings, developing a bottom-up model determines the [36]
optimal investment amount and reduces the EEG.
8.Identify the hindrances, needs, and benefits of applying BESO to [46]
passive building design for building energy efficiency designers.
9.For energy-efficient buildings, the energy efficiency maturity matrix [75]
as a dialogue tool is developed for supporting sourcing processes.
10.Designing a model toward a net-zero energy home in sub-zero [54]
temperature areas to perform parametric optimization indicates the
main factors for achieving maximum efficiency.
11.To improve buildings’ energy efficiency in Kuala Lumpur and [48]
Darwin, practical lessons are extracted from utilizing energy-efficient
building façades.
12.For a comprehensive assessment of the buildings’ quality, utilize the [50]
Active House standard methodology.
13.To evaluate energy efficiency projects, China provides significant [44]
guidance for other developing countries to evaluate and revise their
building energy efficiency policies.
14.Indicate energy efficiency in LEED certificates through a critical [2]
analysis of scientific literature on the LEED system.
[65]
(continued on next page)

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F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Table 8 Table 8 (continued )

Challenges according to knowledge tools. 15.Achieving energy efficiency homes in the larger context of green
5.1.1.1. Lack of awareness Reference building standards.
1.Energy-unaware activities. [47] 16.Energetic studies have not been comprehensively performed. [41]
2.Architectural design energy-saving potential. [89] 17.In humid and hot climates, the thermal performance and building [48]
3.Advantages of clean technologies. [135] façade energy depend on the different techniques and design
configurations.
5.1.1.2. Lack of understanding Reference 18.For the occupants of the green office building in Malaysia, energy- [117]
1.Relationship between LEED additional cost and life cycle savings. [127] efficient practices.
2.In humid and hot climates, the impacts of building façade design. [48] 19.Covering great technologies such as renewable energy [92]
3.Economic valuation tools are complex and challenging. [135] systems—passive and active—considering Korean building
4.How technical and cost issues of constructing an NZEB can be [138] characteristics and climate.
associated with existing built environments. 20.In China, the energy supply chain model of the green building [51]
5.In Indonesia, the theory and practical green building rating system [132] industry.
implementation. 21.Prohibiting standard beta pricing because of landlord capital [135]
6.The use of building information modeling for evaluating energy [83] intensity.
efficiency in digitalizing GBI credit is still unwarranted. 22.Understanding the theory and practical implementation of the green [132]
building rating in Indonesia.
5.1.1.3. Lack of experience Reference 23.Minergie buildings with no assessment of indoor air quality from the [118]
1.Numerical simulation with rating systems is the real reason for [86] occupants’ perspective.
rebound effects. 24.Few studies reported the actual measured net-zero energy buildings’ [66]
2.LEED certification in Turkey [124] efficiency and performance for office buildings.
3.DSF’s behavior in operation toward optimizing the total performance. [42] 25.The current traditional residential building with sustainability in [74]
4.Actual performance of green building technology. [39] Abu Dhabi.
5.Adequate technical experience and background in the green building [101] 26.Investigating renewable energy assessment methods in GBRSs. [10]
certification process. 27.No study has been conducted to investigate the suitability of [60]
6.For professionals, they are taking green building certification. [132] applying and developing the ETTV method for extreme solar
radiation in hot and windy Australian climate conditions. In addition,
5.1.1.4. Lack of information Reference the lack of comprehensive literature, limited data, and the use of
1.The individual building-level marginal costs related to energy [23] developed ETTV formulations and equations for different real
efficiency investments. buildings for validating them in Australian or similar climate
2.Dealing with multidisciplinary and contrasting objectives. [108] conditions.
3.The post-occupancy performance of the green building. [86] 28.How does an existing high-rise office building become a zero-energy [103]
4.An information system on GHG reduction technologies. [87] one?
5.LEED certification in Turkey. [124] 29.A quantitative study has yet to be conducted for guiding Bangladeshi [69]
6.The power generation performance of wind turbines. [16] designers with respect to the window-to-wall ratio and envelopes of
7.Lack of information to apply green building practices with [130] energy-efficient buildings. In addition, in the context of the climate of
technologies. Bangladesh, a significant research gap exists when it comes to
8.For residential buildings in the UAE, specific indoor comfort [32] establishing building rules and regulations for energy efficiency.
conditions. 30.Lack of studies on eco-efficiency applications and technologies in [134]
9.DSF’s behavior in operation toward optimizing the total performance. [42] green building manufacturing.
10.Lack of proper education in green building practices with its [100] 31.Recent progress in implementing residential NZEBs. [43]
benefits. 32.Limited studies in developing GBRSs with region-specific needs, [77]
11.Creating a municipal energy efficiency maturity model. [75] especially in the Indian tropical climate, to assess and prioritize
12.Limited knowledge of sustainable practices. [132] sustainability dimensions focusing on residential buildings.
13.Lack of knowledge on rules and practices that should be in [67] 33.Difficulties in understanding and recognizing global sustainable [63]
consideration for designing sustainable office buildings. development concepts, such as sustainable buildings, sustainable
design, and green buildings, to minimize negative impacts for the first
5.1.1.5. Lack of findings Reference eco-friendly mosque in Cambridge, United Kingdom, to achieve
BREEM certification requirements.
1.Green building attributes have difficulty generalizing the findings of [27]
individual case studies to a broader discussion.

5.1.1.6. Lack of studies or evidence Reference

1.Quantifying occupant health and productivity from green buildings. [105]

2.Studies on consumers’ cognition. [86]
3.Quantifying energy efficiency drives actual effects in different [89]
climates based on computational possibilities.
4.Weaknesses and strengths of the policies implemented and envisaged [125]
in Chinese buildings.
5.To quantify and optimize the impact of construction decisions and [126]
housing design on the overall sustainability of housing units.
6.In Malaysia, assessing the indoor air quality of the office in green [109]
buildings.
7.Life cycle social assessment. [3]
8.The status of GHG emissions in green buildings presented in a case [8]
study.
9.Building energy-efficiency design optimization for designing [12]
buildings.
10.In green buildings, user perception and satisfaction with IEQ. [27]
11.Assessing the energy consumption and efficiency of residential [111]
buildings by using green building standards.
12.Contemporary ideas about green buildings until the end of the [129]
1990s, and after the 2000s, the Chinese government started funding
the Chinese green building system.
13.Implementing green building practices with technologies. [130] Fig. 5. Challenges according to development and evaluation.
14.For midrise multi-family buildings, comparing the sustainability [73]
metrics in specific countries.
[39]

17
F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Table 9
Challenges according to development and evaluation.
5.1.2.1. Lack of parameters/indicators Reference
1.Lack of general views by remediation practitioners about sustainable [120]
practices, especially in social and economic spectra.
2.Establishing a scheme criterion in Estonia. [122]
3.The economic evaluation in green buildings. [37]
4.GHG emission performance. [8]
5.Programs that are more effective than green building programs to [98]
promote healthy indoor air quality to address the health and well-
being of occupants.
6.The social dimension in Middle Eastern countries. [25]
7.In Malaysia, occupants’ behavioral discrepancies. [117]
8.Qualitative parameters such as social, cultural, and environmental [50]
for defining building sustainability.
9.Limitation in implementing green building applications in [82]
developing properties in South Africa.

5.1.2.2. Lack of adopting systems Reference

Application
1.Adoption of office equipment, appliances, centralized air [14] Fig. 6. Other challenges.
conditioning, ventilation and heating systems, cost-effective energy
savings, and carbon reduction through non-technical measures.
2.BESO. [46]
Table 11 (continued )
3.On-site renewable energy. [74,101] 16.Evaluate office building net-zero energy performance by using [66]
Tools measured data.
1.Adopting life cycle measurements. [8] 17.Improve the energy efficiency of industrial buildings to achieve [56]
2.Net energy metering or residential feed-in tariff in Thailand. [65] sustainable buildings by using Pareto Optimization.
3.In Nigeria, an assessment tool to evaluate the principles of reaching [93]
sustainable development. 5.2.1.3 Motivations according to reducing GHG and carbon Reference
4.In Portugal, no specific tool sustainability assessment exists for [133] emissions
requalifying school 1.Developing and applying the best, most efficient technology and [87]
Buildings. establishing an information system for sustainable building
Technologies technologies, including GHG reduction, are needed.
1.Evaluation tool includes many complexities of commercial buildings. [105] 2.Improve green building rating tools by adopting and applying a life [8]
2.In Korea, developing advanced various technologies. [92] cycle measure for assessing GHG emission reduction performance.
3.No comprehensive building management scheme is available for [6] 3.In Malaysia, identify GHG emission reduction using green rating [18]
ensuring efficiency and sustainability. tools.
4.Adopting assessment tools in the Iranian context, such as BREEAM [7] 4.Retrofitting older residential villas in Dubai has the potential to [32]
and LEED. reduce CO2 equivalent emissions.
Systems 5.Analyze the energy of an experimental green building by [33]
1.Although many certifications to evaluate the environmental impact [128] implementing energy-efficient measures and technologies for
for residential buildings have been created, none of these reducing CO2 in the built environment.
certifications can help owners and users. 6.Utilize renewable energy applications for low-carbon buildings in [34]
2.Reducing the dependency on fossil fuels in NZEBs by reducing [85] Shanghai.
heating needs remains a vital priority. 7.Select the appropriate energy-saving technologies for developing [92]
5.1.2.3. Lack of adopting models Reference high-performance buildings to reduce GHG emissions in the Korean
climate.
1.No building energy simulation models are immune to influencing [90] 8.Review different government’ initiatives in India such as policies, [45]
uncertainties. codes, and incentives to implement more energy efficiency programs
2.Implementing models for regenerative energies in Algeria. [114] and reduce CO2 emissions in residential buildings.
3.A domain-specific maturity model is not developed by municipal- [75] 9.Enhance GHG emissions by critically analyzing the scientific [2]
level FM organizations. literature on the LEED system.
5.1.2.4. Lack of using methods Reference 5.2.1.4 Motivations according to improving energy and building Reference
1.In China, construction methods. [121] performance
2.In the field of climatology, finding a widely accepted classification [86] 1.To identify and improve the main key energy performance issues in [105]
method is not easy. buildings, a tool was developed for stakeholders in an existing
3.Adopting a suitable technique for designing energy efficiency in [12] commercial building.
buildings. 2.Analyze the building energy efficiency policy portfolio improves [125]
4.Optimizing green building envelopes. [55] energy performance in China’s new and existing buildings.
5.Developing a method for assessing and improving water efficiency [30] 3.To enhance the overall performance of an existing residential [4]
and energy efficiency for achieving the UN SDGs. building, the whole-building hygrothermal model (HAM Fit Plus)
6.Using MCDM in LCA to select the best design strategies. [5] was used to evaluate many retrofit design parameters used.
7.Limitation in the use of mathematical optimization modeling and [102] 4.A multi-objective optimization model is used to optimize [126]
LCA with BIM for optimizing the energy performance and construction decisions and housing design for optimal trade-off
environmental impacts to enhance sustainability. between three sustainability objectives: maximizing the housing
8.The stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) technique [94] unit’s operational environmental performance, improving the social
has not been used for weighting the categories and indicators of a life quality of the residents, and minimizing the life cycle cost.
multi-criteria assessment framework of whole-building 5.Propose smart design criteria for developing and improving the [112]
sustainability. energy performance of buildings.
6.In the Iranian context, many solutions, such as assessing cost-optimal [38]
solutions using the global cost approach, were proposed to improve
Table 11 (continued ) the multi-family building performance.
15.In Thailand, analyze four various energy supply scenarios for the 7.For new buildings in Italy, to increase energy performances, the real [22]
designed sustainable office buildings for evaluating methods to estate market current condition, expenditures in retrofit existing
reduce the grid electricity demand. buildings, and the economic advantages of investing in energy were
investigated.
(continued on next column)

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F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Table 10 Table 10 (continued )

Other challenges. 14.Buildings in the European Union account for around 40% of energy
5.1.3.1. Challenges according to environmental impacts consumption and 36% of CO2-equivalent emissions.
1.Challenges according to lowering energy efficiency Reference 15.Buildings play a major role in increasing energy consumption, bulk [104]
atmospheric emissions, and global warming.
1.Increasing energy consumption, energy in use with higher growth [14]
rate, and lower energy efficiency because the U-value is half. 4. Challenges according to lack of using natural resources Reference
2.Rising energy demand of the building. [47]
1.In Switzerland, solar energy production is not widespread, [113]
3.Rising energy demand in Egypt. [91]
representing 2% of the total electricity supply for buildings with less
4.Buildings in Switzerland are less energy efficient and consume up to [113]
energy efficiency and consuming up to seven times more energy.
seven times more energy than new buildings.
2.Domestic energy resources in Korea are coal, oil, and natural gas. [11]
5.In many countries, developing energy-efficient and conserving [46]
energy in designing buildings has become a concern for researchers. 5. Challenges according to using renewable energy resources Reference
6.The most significant challenges in building multi-energy systems are [24]
1.The production of solar energy serves 2% of the total electricity [113]
low efficiency and energy imbalance.
supply and is still not widespread in Switzerland.
7.Different climate conditions in different places affect the deficiency [76]
2.Using solar and wind as a renewable energy system is not a suitable [35]
of the building’s performance, energy consumption, and carbon
option in developing a standalone green building because they
emission, resulting in unfair evaluations between two buildings
cannot provide power supply continuously due to periodic variations
under two different climate conditions.
and seasonality.
8.In Jordan, overdependence on importing energy with rising energy [79]
3.In the application (renewable energy) of LEED v4, using a low-impact [64]
demand.
electricity mix can reduce undesirable side effects.
2. Challenges according to increasing energy consumption Reference 4.Korea is limited to domestic energy resources. [11]
5.Buildings consume 30%–40% of the total energy resources. Thus, [2]
1.One of the key concerns in a building is energy consumption. In Hong [13]
natural resources are depleted and humankind faces the threat of
Kong, the energy use in high-rise buildings accounts for about 92.7%
climate change.
of all electricity consumption.
6.In Indonesia, many green buildings have failed for taking credit to on- [62]
2.In GCC countries, buildings have adverse implications such as energy [9]
site renewable energy because using non-renewable energy such as
consumption and environmental emissions.
fossil fuel leads to negative environmental impacts.
3.Buildings in the US consume (39%) of the total US energy with 72% [53]
7.Energy storage in high-performance buildings is a key element in [70]
of electricity, which causes increasing energy use, resource
increasing the consumption of on-site renewable energy and have
depletion, economic difficulties, and GHG emissions.
extra embedded burdens, which are difficult to pay during the
4.Primary energy consumption, building owners’ economic capability, [99]
operation phase.
and initial investment cost.
5. In office buildings, 50%–60% of the total energy consumption is due [15] 6. Challenges according to materials and equipment Reference
to the air conditioning system with internal loads, such as electrical
1.On construction sites, buildings produce waste such as packaging, [20]
equipment, lighting system, and occupancy, and external loads, such
plastic pipes, and clippings from insulation materials, which are
as heat.
difficult to dispose or recycle.
6.In the Iranian residential sector, the average energy consumption is [38]
2.The Craiglockhart Primary School is an energy-demanding building [52]
2.5 times above the European average, with an average annual rate
that experiences thermal loss and has outdated technology because
of about 8%.
of high ceilings. Its single-glazed windows and incomplete insulation
7.Energy consumption for buildings in Korea accounts for 24.8% of the [92]
make the building energy wasteful and inefficient.
total energy consumption and is expected to rise to 40%.
3.In Algeria, residential buildings consume energy in large quantities; [114]
8.Fifty-eight percent of local electricity consumption in Jordan is based [79]
these buildings use double hollow brick cavities such as external
on import dependence and escalating demand.
walls and single-glazed windows, and they are not thermally
9.Around 7% of the India’s electricity consumption is by buildings. [84]
insulated.
10.Buildings in the European Union account for around 40% of energy [56]
4.The best building design cannot reach 100% energy even with [131]
consumption and 36% of CO2-equivalent emissions, which needs to
suitable materials.
be solved.
5.In the construction industry, buildings design, unavailability and lack [74]
11.Buildings play a major role in increasing energy consumption, bulk [104]
of approved materials, and the documentation process are barriers
atmospheric emissions, and global warming.
and obstacles to sustainability.
3. Challenges to reduce CO2 and GHG emissions Reference
5.1.3.2. Challenges according to social impacts Reference
1.Concern is increasing among governments, scientists, policymakers, [47]
1.Building energy efficiency has a multifaceted problem, such as [47]
and researchers in developed and developing countries over
limited indoor-comfort index satisfaction and energy-unaware
changing climate conditions (energy security, adverse environmental
activities by occupants.
effects, and the consumption of the ozone layer with global
2.Construction workers experience six times more accidents per hour [28]
warming).
worked and two times more injuries than manufacturing industry
2.Buildings generate waste and potentially harmful atmospheric [95]
workers.
emissions, with 40%.
3.In green schools, daylighting issues are due to external obstructions [106]
3.In the UK, the housing sector accounted for 27% of carbon emissions. [108]
and lowered shadings, 50% spatial daylight autonomy, low window-
4.Using air conditioners increases the environmental impact in terms of [109]
to-floor area ratio that limits and restricts the incoming daylight
carbon emission.
especially when rolling shutters are manually pulled down, and
5.As stated by the Green Building Council of Australia, 8% of GHG [88]
inadequate maintenance and building management.
emissions is produced by commercial buildings.
4.Facility managers and administrators face many challenges in [107]
6.In 2012, CO2 emissions from fossil fuels peaked, leading to many [136]
achieving energy efficiency on campus because of continuously
environmental problems.
changing occupants, such as different building types with different
7.CO2 emission in Malaysia. [18]
requirements for temperature, indoor air quality, humidity, and
8.Achieving zero carbon emissions and avoiding average global [33]
ventilation.
warming of greater than 2 ◦ C from the commercial sector.
5.Mediterranean region; no policies are in place to propose sustainable [112]
9.In 2012, the ninth largest GHG emitter in the world was Iran. [38]
building methodologies.
10.Mitigating CO2 emissions through energy-efficient buildings has [31]
6.The factors of indoor environment quality are influenced by tenant [26]
become a pressing concern.
equipment and behavior, building characteristics, and maintenance
11.For Building’s account for up to 30% of the total CO2 emissions. [44]
practices.
12.India committed to reducing CO2 to 35% by 2030 at a 2015 UN [45]
7.Meeting IEQ requirements in an energy-efficient building is difficult [116]
conference.
because of low infiltration and high insulation.
13.Buildings play a significant role in GHG emissions, which are [54]
involved in global warming and ozone depletion phenomena. 5.1.3.3. Challenges according to economic impacts Reference
[56]
[121]
(continued on next page)

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F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Table 10 (continued ) Table 12 (continued )

1.In China, sustainability issues for residential buildings are financial
problems, significant city density, construction methods, and high-
performance limitation.
2.Project owners face difficulties in renting their buildings to tenants [21]
who are looking for low operational costs and rent.
3.Energy costs and growing environmental concerns are motivations [78]
for implementing sustainable buildings, which have a low
environmental impact.
4.No financial incentive for academic departments on campuses to save [127]
energy
5.In Egypt, the government is concerned about the corresponding [91]
budget burden from energy subsidies.
6.High cost with a lack of information in applying GB technologies with [130]
practices.
7.Issues of green buildings are exaggerated, such as higher construction [100]
costs and carless the building owners in future costs with benefit.
8.The green building certification process has many barriers, such as [101]
higher energy efficiency and sophisticated technological tools, which
are economic challenges because they require upfront costs for
project owners.
9.Issues of green buildings are exaggerated, such as higher construction [100]
costs and carless the building owners in future costs with benefit.
10.Refurbishment of existing buildings requires extensive investments. [49]
11.In Indonesia, implementing the concept of sustainable practice due [132]
to higher cost and limited knowledge.
12.In tropical regions, examining and identifying sustainable building [67]
practices in the design stage, especially office buildings.
13.High energy and cost overruns for old buildings. [6]
14.Refurbishment of existing buildings can cost a lot and making the [22]
operation uneconomical.
Motivations according to economic impacts Reference
2.Use multi-objective optimization model to optimize construction
decisions and housing design for optimal trade-offs within three
sustainability objectives: to maximize housing units’ operational
environmental performance, minimize the life cycle cost, and
maximize the quality of social life for the residents.
3.Propose and analyze a multigeneration system for residential [136]
applications to perform the overall system economic assessment to
level electricity cost and net present cost for green building.
4.Propose a novel approach for optimizing renewable energy mix [99]
systems to minimize the primary cooling and heating systems
investment cost in the building.
5.Apply optimization models such as mixed-integer linear programming [35]
to minimize the total required cost for designing and operating the
energy supply systems.
6.Identify the actual home energy performance by comparing the [39]
energy use from observations and computational energy modelling
for substantial financial savings.
7.Develop a mathematical model for determining the optimal retrofit [49]
plan to achieve maximum possible financial benefits.
8.To decrease construction costs, renewable energy systems such as [131]
photovoltaic systems are used.
9.In Malaysian green buildings, empirical evidence for economic [100]
benefits gained through energy saving.
10.To minimize the total life cycle cost, the design optimization of [24]
hybrid renewable energy systems based on energy hub was
established.
11.Evaluate the extra cost of the certification process and changes [61]
needed in the building design to achieve the points required by LEED.

5.2.3. Motivations according to social impacts

Table 13
5.2.2. Motivations according to economic impacts
Motivations according to social impacts.

Table 12
Motivations according to economic impacts. Motivations according to social impacts Reference

1.Review the optimization of control systems to comfort management [47]

Motivations according to economic impacts Reference and energy in sustainable and intelligent buildings to understand the
building research communities better.
1.Evaluate certified buildings using the LEED system to determine the [21] 2.To provide a healthy social basis for green building development, [86]
financial effectiveness in investing resources according to the social problems such as humanistic and social needs, public
environmental and operational benefits in the construction stage. behaviors, consumers’ intentions for purchasing, and the rebound
[126] effects of post-occupancy are analyzed.
(continued on next column) (continued on next page)

Fig. 7. Motivations of the authors to conduct their studies.

20
F.S. Hafez et al.
Table 13 (continued )
Motivations according to social impacts
3.Use multi-objective optimization model to optimize construction
decisions and housing design for optimal trade-offs among three
sustainability objectives: maximizing the operational environmental
performance of housing units, minimizing the life cycle cost, and
improving the residents’ quality of social life.
4.Use CBC to examine occupants’ experiences in green buildings and
identify the relative importance of experiential (non-visual aesthetics,
social territories, and visual aesthetics) and environmental (indoor
environmental quality, water efficiency, and energy savings) design
categories.
5.To measure the IEQ factors by utilizing the new National Australian
Built Environment Rating System tool. It compares their performance
against a set of industry standards of office buildings, which can help
evaluate performance and recognize market achievements in
occupant comfort and well-being.
6.Explore IEQ challenges and green buildings to help increase the
importance of IEQ, which can improve health, well-being,
profitability, and productivity in green buildings.
7.In Korea, maintain buildings’ social requirements by ensuring
sustainable development of buildings that meet the social needs and
health and well-being of people for environment protection.
5.2.4. Motivations according to information
Table 14
Motivations according to information.
Motivations according to information
1.To obtain detailed and comprehensive information about energy-
efficient envelope configurations, multi-objective search genetic
algorithms are used in the early stages of building design.
2.Evaluating the performance of wind turbines provides valuable and
sufficient information for sustainable tall building design.
3.An empirical study is conducted to provide quantifiable information
on energy consumption plus energy efficiency of residential buildings
and its interaction with resident behaviors.
4.Develop a user-friendly tool for residential buildings’ users to give
information about the sustainability of home they want to own and
buy or rent.
5.To enrich the body of knowledge of green building, identify the main
drivers of implementing green building technologies from the
perceptions of international green building experts.
5.2.5. Motivations according to a better understanding of each aspect in this
field
Table 15
Motivations according to a better understanding of each aspect in this field.
Motivations according to a better understanding
1.Estonia compares current practice building regulations with LEED and
BREEAM requirements to help stakeholders understand a building’s
sustainability aspects.
2.In intelligent and sustainable buildings, reviewing the optimization of
control systems for building comfort management and energy
provides a better understanding of building a research community.
3.Analyze the green building certification process for six projects
completed in Turkey to understand the critical success factors of
certification and green process.
4.The selected criteria are defined and analyzed for understanding the
evaluation of building energy-efficient design optimization
techniques.
5.In the US, for 1500 silver-, gold-, and platinum-certified buildings,
analyze the practitioners’ performance to achieve points in the Energy
and Atmosphere category of LEED-NC 2009 to better understand the
credit practices to make decisions in building design.
6.The importance of analyzing renewable energy assessment methods
helps decision-makers and investors understand GBRSs.
(continued on next column)
Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013
Table 15 (continued )
Reference Motivations according to a better understanding Reference
[126] 7.In GBRSs, a comprehensive review of evaluating and analyzing the [118]
renewable energy assessment gives a full understanding of developing
green buildings by giving some suggestions.
[27]
5.2.6. Motivations according to applying a scheme
Table 16
[26] Motivations according to applying a scheme.
Motivations according to applying a scheme Reference
1.In Estonia, comparing current practice building regulations with LEED [122]
[98] and BREEAM requirements focuses on the transport, indoor climate,
and energy categories of the sustainability assessment schemes to the
five best-practice buildings to help stakeholders propose sustainable
[11] assessment scheme indicators.
2.For green building, propose and analyze a multigeneration system for [136]
residential applications for developing a new hybrid multigeneration
system and optimizing the overall system.
3.To develop a green building assessment system of an office building, a [7]
new set of comprehensive factors is proposed.
4.Critical analysis for evaluating and assessing three distinct climate [71]
zones—the hot arid climate of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the mildly hot
mountainous climate of Al-Baha, and the hot humid climate of
Jeddah—by reviewing international assessment methods and using
building simulation tool IES-VE.
5.Examine the international LEED-NC 2009 application by comparing [80]
two climate-related parts of two European regions with two
Reference
representative countries to help experts improve the LEED schemes.
[17] 6.Examine the potential influence of GBRSs such as LEED in America, [81]
Green Star in Australia, and ASGB in China on the design to seek the
best green building assessment method.
[16] 7.In Malaysia, identify and rank the sustainability indicators to assess [134]
the green building manufacturing by utilizing the GBI system for
[111] greener economy and lower carbon emission.
8.Develop a new sustainability assessment system for prioritizing [77]
sustainability attributes to evaluate the sustainability of Indian
[128] residential buildings in a tropical climate region.
9.Evaluation and assessment of sustainable buildings concepts using [63]
BREEM certification requirements for the first eco-friendly mosque in
[130] Cambridge, United Kingdom.
5.2.7. Motivations according to using methods
Table 17
Motivations according to using methods.
Motivations according to using methods Reference
1.In smart sustainable buildings, review the optimization of control [47]
systems for comfort management and energy building for better
Reference understanding the building research community.
[122] 2.Compare current practice building regulations in Estonia with LEED [122]
and BREEAM requirements to help stakeholders understand building
sustainability aspects.
[47] 3.Analyze the green building certification process for six projects [124]
completed in Turkey to gain a full understanding of the critical
success factors of the certification and greening process.
[124] 4.A set of selection criteria is defined and analyzed to understand the [12]
evaluation of the building energy-efficiency design optimization
technique.
[12] 5.In the US, analyze practitioners’ performance to achieve points in the [101]
Energy and Atmosphere category of LEED-NC 2009 for 1500 silver-,
gold-, and platinum-certified buildings for a better understanding of
[101] the credit practices to make decisions in building design.
6.The importance of analyzing renewable energy assessment methods to [10]
help decision-makers and investors understand GBRSs.
7.Utilize mathematical optimization programming, LCA, and BIM to [102]
[10] improve building performance, sustainable designs, reduce
environmental impacts and operating energy consumption, and
(continued on next page)
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F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Table 17 (continued ) Table 19 (continued )

Motivations according to using methods Reference Other Motivations Reference

empower the decision-making process and sustainability toward
achieving energy-efficient buildings
8.A comprehensive review on evaluating and analyzing the renewable
energy assessment gives a full understanding of developing green
buildings by giving some suggestions.
9.Adopt an existing assessment tool with maintaining and modifying
some indicators for developing the methodology to conduct a
sustainability assessment of high school buildings in Portugal to
improve sustainability in the design phase of new school buildings or
rehabilitate existing school buildings.
10.Allocate weights to categories and indicators by using the SWARA
technique of the sustainability assessment framework of Kazakhstan
buildings.
11.Explore and propose a methodology to evaluate the energy storage
system viability limits when installed in a building by using indicators
such as greenhouse primary energy, gas emissions, and costs.
5.2.8. Motivations according to promoting green and sustainable buildings
Table 18
Motivations according to promoting green and sustainable buildings.
Motivations according to promoting green and sustainable buildings
1.In China, for the healthy development of green and sustainable
buildings, it is essential to build a theoretical method system such as
cost–benefit analysis on energy-efficient technology application of
green buildings.
2.In Italy, two rating systems—the Italian green building assessment
tool and LEED—are compared in two residential buildings for
evaluating sustainability.
3.To achieve higher-performance buildings, a comparative evaluation
for optimal design features based on energy and life cycle cost analysis
for office buildings is presented.
4.The relation between energy efficiency measures with sustainability is
becoming increasingly critical and urgent for raising public awareness
of the importance of energy-efficiency buildings.
5.Utilize renewable energy applications for achieving green buildings in
Shanghai
5.To increase sustainable building market acceptance in South Asian
countries, the benefits of BIPV applications are identified, such as
reducing the cost of PV system net installation and building
construction.
8.To promote sustainable villas in UAE, the resource energy credit
points of the Estidama Pearl rating system were used to examine an
existing old Emirati house.
9.Analyzing the renewable energy assessment methods helps decision-
makers and investors promote the development of green buildings.
10.In Indonesia, stakeholders’ knowledge about the green rating system
building concept is evaluated for promoting the green building
concept.
6.To implement better residential NZEBs around the world toward a
sustainable future.
7.The concept of sustainable buildings is the subject of growing interest
in urban areas to solve economic development issues linked with
environmental protection by using natural resources in the best way,
reducing energy consumption, and fully depending on RESs.
5.2.9. Other motivations
Table 19
Other motivations.
Other Motivations
1.The economic returns from investing in energy-efficiency buildings
are essential for sustainable development.
2.The sustainable remediation concept is critical in the remediation
field, where it is reshaped, and new standards are established for the
(continued on next column)
stakeholders to follow in targeting and achieving sustainable
development.
[118] 3.In Saudi Arabia, investigating the sustainable-energy buildings’ [95]
prospects among professionals will highlight the opportunities and
challenges for promoting it.
[133] 4.In China, a framework to integrate sustainable strategies based on [121]
Solar Decathlon is used in the design and the construction of a net-
zero house.
5.In Australia, to mitigate the environmental impact of climate change [88]
and achieve sustainable energy usage, many options such as
[94] distributed generation, carbon capture storage, post-combustion
capture, and building design with BIM are discussed for managing the
use of energy sources in power generation.
[70] 6.Learn if occupants recognize green practices in their daily activities or [97]
the practice serves as a formality only.
7.Develop a green audit methodology in existing school facilities to [123]
facilitate their transformation to sustainable school facilities.
8.Give insight into the practices and policies in the KSA and the UAE [9]
toward sustainable buildings to lead the region in mega-construction
projects.
9.Discussing the energy-efficiency principles and their performance and [25]
green building’s challenges within different rating systems in the
UAE’s new and existing sustainable buildings can raise the
effectiveness of the public’s role in the design process.
10.Answer what factors can promote green building development in [129]
Reference rural areas in China to assist the local governments in forming more
effective green incentives.
[37] 11.Suggest efficient integrated solutions in the existing buildings for [113]
solar energy to balance energy production and the building quality
accurately
12.In Jordan, assess and evaluate the contributions of water efficiency [30]
[78] and energy efficiency in green buildings for achieving and targeting
the United Nations SDGs.
13.Utilize intelligent techniques in a newly constructed hospital [84]
[40] building to analyze the strategy used and if electrical energy
consumption is reduced, and strengthen the efficiency by maximizing
the utilization of natural resources, thus maximizing the percentage of
[31] energy saving.
14.In Jordan, help regulatory authorities and practitioners increase the [79]
contribution of LEED 2009-certified green buildings to achieve the
[34] United Nations SDGs.
15.To develop the Nigeria National Building Code, adopt LEED [93]
[41] assessment criteria as a reference for evaluating the Code’s
advantages and disadvantages for sustainable development
compliance.
16.Investigate the impact of passive design elements such as façade [61]
[74] treatments, architectural design aspects, selected materials, and
orientation on the energy efficiency level of the existing building Bayt
Al-Suhaymi, Historic Cairo.
[10] 17.Propose a building in Universitas Ciputra, which has potential for on- [62]
site renewable energy such as solar energy with BIPV, to observe the
[132] results of comparing the optimizing electrical energy generated from
RES with Greenship standards.
18.Construct a five-star green-rated NZEB by producing the energy [68]
[43] required through on-site solar power in India.
19.Utilize building energy modeling and BIM tools for investing two [69]
[63] passive design strategies—the window-to-wall ratio and envelope of
an efficient building—in a subtropical monsoon climate.
20.Identify the key green building principles estimated by property [82]
developers, determine the barriers, and establish the benefits of
implementing it.
21.Use BIM tools to assess the energy efficiency credit in the GBI [83]
evaluation process and promote the digitization assessment method to
evaluate sustainable building systems by using BIM applications.
22.Double-reverse glazing and double low-E glazing for wall with glass [104]
infill are preferred in commercial buildings to reduce environmental
and economic impacts.
23.In the Mediterranean context, analyzing the performance of multi- [85]
integrated renewable energy systems, such as solar thermal collector,
Reference earth–air heat exchanger, and underground tank, to meet the heating
needs of nearly NZEBs.
[23]
[120]

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F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Fig. 8. Categories of recommendations.

5.3. Recommendations Table 20 (continued )

Recommendations to researchers Reference
This section provides recommendations to mitigate the challenges. 7.Extract advantages of geographical and climate conditions
The recommendations for researchers are mentioned in Table 20, those considering comfort and environmental conditions to design more
for stakeholders such as designers, professionals, consultants, owners, sustainable buildings.
investors, marketers, developers, practitioners, clients, and users, are 8.Passive design strategy parameters such as environmental quality and [112]
energy use.
presented in Table 21, and those for government and policymakers are
9.Use different types of buildings with more advanced cooling and [73]
given in Table 22 These recommendations were categorized based on heating equipment to investigate the true improvement in the energy
their importance in Fig. 8. performance.
10.Re-analyze the results of NABERS IE ratings of a building’s IEQ. [26]
5.3.1. Recommendations to researchers 11.Understand the gaps in the current assessment of the building. [33]
12.Compare experts’ view by observing market-specific differences in [130]
developing and developed countries to implement GBTs.
Table 20 13.The methodology can be replicated in other developing countries. [91]
Recommendations to researchers. 14.Interaction between the indoor and envelope systems. [49]
15.Non-renewable energy of the green building. [51]
Recommendations to researchers Reference 16.Use CREST as a green building rating tool in green office buildings. [117]
17.In Malaysia, the study should be expanded to other states to establish [117]
1.Need enough data for future research and analysis. [47] a guide for green office buildings.
2.The effect of preferential tax policies and economic subsidies on [13] 18.Use the CSDI in countries other than Jordan. [79,92]
market behaviors. 19.Energy-saving rates with related costs by combining several [92]
3.Disaggregate energy consumption data, calibrate energy models, [127] technologies.
airtightness, and construction quality of building envelopes related to 20.Energy efficiency project in rural China. [44]
thermal properties. 21.More studies on post-occupancy evaluation and LCA of LEED- [2]
4.User behaviors with attention paid to energy and the environment. [109] certified buildings.
5.Define the methodology by considering social, environmental, and [3] 22.Have a similar database in a different part of the world. [2]
economic impacts and corporate life cycle sustainability assessment. 23.Comparison studies between energy storage systems in LCAs in [65]
6.Develop design optimizations, such as improving the post-processing [12] different environments.
capability of the current techniques and the best for different energy- 24.Consider geographical regions in future studies in tropical regions to [67]
efficient design optimization problems. examine the components of sustainable design practices.
[112] [67]
(continued on next column) (continued on next page)

23
F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Table 20 (continued ) Table 21 (continued )

Recommendations to researchers Reference Recommendation to stakeholders Reference

25.Consider sustainable design practices for residential, industrial, and 16.Consider the component interactions in the techniques, such as a
educational buildings in the future. reduction in required heat pump capacity enabled by utilizing
26.Sustainable construction, waste management, green building, [93] recovery ventilators.
sustainable development, and an energy-efficient system are needed
2- For Professionals
to improve the building code.
27.Future research can focus on exploring other regions for generalizing [102] 1.At the beginning of the design, building scientists and mechanical [111].
study results. engineers should consider the residents’ behaviors to maximize the
28.Consider the building’s entire life span and not just the construction [102] technology’s effectiveness and outcomes.
phase to obtain authentic and reliable results. 2.Use passive systems to have sustainable buildings, provide energy, [112]
29.Consider climate data and geographical sources in assembling the [102] and minimize energy demand.
building envelope to cover more regions worldwide. 3.The assessors of the sustainable buildings should undergo [71]
30. Revise protocols and current standards for certification and energy [118] comprehensive training to have a strong background in the
regulation. assessment process, which reflects on the reliable real performance of
31.Compare the stakeholders’ level of knowledge, the green building [132] the development of a built environment in Saudi Arabia.
project, and practitioners who take green building certification. 4.In the Saudi context, initially, the SEAM should not have prerequisite [71]
32.Expand this research on a large scale such as an urban area with [62] criteria for promoting the initial operation. After being employed
Greenship parameters applied for neighborhoods by taking city extensively, professionals should eventually agree on prerequisite
mapping which should cover energy demand and buildings’ criteria.
character. 5.At the beginning of building design, it should be a collaboration [48]
33.More research with large cases on green building costs, energy [82] between the architects and the sustainable design experts for a
efficiency, and water efficiency compared with the conventional one decision to be made.
with reliable benchmarking data for green building principles and 6.Verify the gaps between the intents of the design and the owner’s [101]
assessments. requirements through professional consultancy.
34.Make stakeholders and the general public aware about regarding [82]
3-For Consultants
green buildings by using benchmarking data.
35.Compare the SWARA results with the AHP method for the same [94] 1.Calculate the costs and benefits of implementing sustainability goals [30]
research and implementing building information technique for most cost-effectively by project owners, managers, and LEED
automating the green building certification process. consultants.
36.Researchers, local authorities, academicians, and practitioners could [77] 2.Knowledge sharing should increase between stakeholders and [41]
use the sustainability assessment system tool to compare the design technology developers.
options for Indian residential buildings, which can help giving the 3.Organize seminars, workshops, and courses and for consultants [67]
correct decisions during finalizing the designs. through continuous professional development.
4.Give more information on implementing environmentally sustainable [67]
building design practices and prioritizing it to solve issues such as cost
efficiency and well-being.
5.3.2. Recommendations to stakeholders 4-For Homeowners

1. Regulate energy consumption-related habits. [111]

Table 21
Recommendations to stakeholders. 5-For Investors

1.Decision-makers can use the minimum and lowest investment cost, [95]
Recommendation to stakeholders Reference primary energy demand, and global cost according to their economic
availability, needs, and priorities.
1.Use parametric models that have a minimum window area as a [17]
2.Take advantage of sustainable remediation movement by academia, [120]
constraint.
government, and industry.
2.For all classrooms, redesign shading device systems. [106]
3.Construct sustainable buildings and develop a new technique. [86]
3.Utilize the available building simulation platforms for aiding designs. [108]
4.Stakeholders can earn more LEED points in the new or renovation and [52]
4.Define the objectives of design in the optimization process. [12]
upgrade of their construction.
5.Consider certain design modifications in the envelope in the early [60]
5.Make investments in green building programs to ensure healthful [98]
design stage to ensure lower ETTV values.
indoor air quality.
6.In tropical regions, adopt environmentally sustainable building design [67]
6.Be informed about the advantages and benefits of investing in energy- [79]
practices when designing office buildings for sustainability.
efficient green and sustainable buildings.
7.Utilize the elements of sustainable design for office buildings in [67]
geographical regions. 6-For Marketers
8.Utilize other components that are applicable for residential, [67]
1. Practical innovations may open a window to the market. [121]
industrial, and educational buildings.
9.Adopt sustainable practices in operations and construction stage of [67] 7-For Developers
the building envelope.
1.Capture more benefits for green investments and seek other channels [23]
10.Adopt environmentally sustainable building design practices in the [67]
to maximize the benefits from energy-efficient investments.
design stage to preserve the environment and resources.
2.Use local energy, local materials, local water savings, and recycled [78]
11.Adopt and explore sustainable practices in the building envelope [67]
material to enhance the developer’s investment decision in green
construction and operation stages.
buildings.
12.Ensure sustainable concepts in the design stage for corporate [67]
3.The SEAM scheme should be developed for schools and hospitals. [71]
organizations’ building projects.
4.Revise and update the SEAM either annually or every two years like [71]
13.Target the design of more NZEBs that have on-site renewable energy [62]
other well-known building assessment method.
generation to cover the annual energy load.
14.This study serves as a reference for some countries with similar [69] 8-For Practitioners
subtropical climate.
1.Consider cost, technical feasibility, adaptive management, and [120]
15.To achieve sustainability in historic buildings, preservationists [61]
institutional learning to adopt sustainability in remediation practices.
should adopt and develop LEED standards such as the embodied
2.Researchers, local authorities, academicians, and practitioners could [77]
energy in existing buildings, the used materials’ LCA, and the
use the sustainability assessment system tool to compare the design
adaptability criteria of historic buildings for different uses to provide
options for Indian residential buildings, which can help give the
economic cost advantages, raise property values, reduce energy
correct decisions when finalizing the designs.
demand, and minimize health problems for a green building.
[43] 9- For Clients

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F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Table 21 (continued ) Table 23

Recommendation to stakeholders Reference Pathways for future work.

1.To renovate a project, adequate capabilities should be sourced. [75] 5.4.1 Adopt technologies Reference

10- For Users 1.Use artificial intelligence techniques: fish swarm algorithms, [47]
differential evolution, fuzzy set modeling, and various hybrid
1.Select low GHG reduction technologies that have high GHG reduction [87] techniques.
efficiency. 2.Implement passive building technologies, phase change materials [11]
2.The occupant could make a big difference in using energy at home. [108] in building envelope insulation, and renewable energy
3.Increase environmental awareness in society to improve their self- [124] technologies.
regulation and corporate image. 3.Adopt BIM technology to automate the green building certification [94]
4.Increase awareness among building designers and residents. [9] process in Kazakhstan for validating the methodology.
5.Calculate the costs and benefits of implementing sustainability goals [30]
most cost-effectively by project owners, managers, and LEED 5.4.2 Adopt non-technical measures Reference
consultants. 1.Energy management and behavioral change. [14]
6.Knowledge sharing should increase between stakeholders and [41] 2.Improve daylighting systems through window cleaning, proper [106]
technology developers. operation of movable shading devices, and painting of interior
7.Occupants should know how the facilities in their building work most [2] surfaces with a light color to increase the diffuse reflectance of
efficiently. light.
3. Mechanical ventilation to improve thermal comfort. [109]
4.Ventilation to exposure reduction of pollution and control of indoor [98]
air quality.
5.3.3. Recommendations to governments and policymakers 5.Natural ventilation for building designs, maximizing the daylight to [11]
associate with the passive energy-saving and using heat recovery
Table 22 ventilators as part of the standards for high-rise buildings.

Recommendations to governments and policymakers. 5.4.3 Adopt systems Reference

1.Improve the energy efficiency of HVAC and lighting systems. [21]

Recommendations to governments and policymakers Reference 2.Stimulate the application of sustainable energy buildings. [95]
1.For Governments 3.The building life cycle of greenhouse gas assessment technology [87]
1.To promote sustainable buildings, supportive government policies [9] and the environmental labeling certification pertinent to the
should be implemented. system.
2.Improve the scoring scheme of future LEED versions and revise [73] 4. Use a national certification system (LEED rating system). [124]
national energy standards. 5. Radiant slab cooling system. [109]
3.Adapt resource energy for domestic use such as wind energy and solar [91] 6.Adopt innovative technological solutions. [33]
water heating. 7.Use hybrid system. [52]
4.Inform about the advantages in investing in water and energy [30] 8.Include the proposed rating system in an already established [91]
efficiency measures of green buildings. system (EGPRS or TARSHEED).
5.Implement policies on technological development. [92] 9.BIPV materials and technologies. [41]
6.Use green building regulations by the UAE government under the [54] 10.The energy-saving potential of free cooling and demand-based [11]
TARSHEED program. ventilation with a chilled beam system.
7.Strengthen the policy and regulation of green buildings. [22] 11. Heating and cooling systems to sustain occupants’ thermal [131]
8.Governments can impose a carbon tax or provide incentives to [2] comfort.
implement policies. 12. Utilize the findings of this study as a foundation to develop new [134]
9.Develop baseline data for pre-certified green buildings and existing [45] GBRSs.
buildings.
5.4.4 Adopt strategy Reference
10.Concerted efforts for mapping a sustainable energy plan to all cities [45]
that addresses the challenges of implementing energy conservation 1.New policies for Egypt’s energy, such as energy subsidies, tax [91]
building codes. reduction, or financing facilities.
11.Models at different levels as pilot demonstration buildings to bring [45] 2.Design guidelines, such as mandatory thermal regulations. [114]
awareness to reduce CO2 emissions by 2030. 3. Demand control ventilation. [11]
12.To overcome challenges through united efforts to enforce regulatory [45] 4. Long-term building renovation strategies to decarbonize the [31]
policies, collaborate on technological fronts, undertake national housing stock and policies to use intelligent information
training, and develop market-based instruments and capacity building technologies.
programs. 5.Adopt appropriate strategies for green building certifications to [101]
13.Implement green buildings in the country. [132] satisfy project owners’ expectations.
14.The South Africa Green Building Council should encourage urgent [82]
government positive incentives to apply green building principles for 5.4.5 Adopt resources Reference
developers. 1.Renewable energy sources. [2,8,93,
15.Understand the benefits and barriers of adopting green building [85] 113]
principals’ applications in guiding programs and policies of the 2.On-site renewable energy technology such as wind turbine. [16,74,122]
government and green building councils toward green buildings. 3.Integrated BIPV with high- and low-rise public buildings such as [62]
2. For Policymakers commercial spaces, offices, and hospitals, producing electrical
energy.
1.Create effective policies supported by scientific institutions. [86]
2.The policies need to be supported by defining procedures, standards, [127] 5.4.6 Adopt parameters/indicators Reference
and guidelines that provide enough details to guide project planning, Parameters
design, and construction. 1.Occupants’ attitudes, smart appliances, integration of safety, [47]
3.Implement different intervention policies to reduce the carbon [33] security, and monitoring for future technologies.
footprint of buildings. 2.Value of occupants. [105]
4.Higher levels of knowledge among policymakers to assess and evaluate [31] 3.Public attitude. [86]
the impacts of policies for monitoring the progress toward SDGs 4. Employee satisfaction. [124]
achievement at regular intervals. 5.Stakeholders’ preference. [91]
5.Formulate beneficial policies that support the comprehensive [34] 6.Process management in the green building rating system. [81]
utilization of renewable energy for buildings in Shanghai. 7.Comfort level related to the indoor temperature and humidity and [92]
6.Investigate observed variables and how they impact the residential [39] the control logic for each system.
energy efficiency. 8.Age and size of the building, type of use, climate zone, and [2]
7.Open the carbon trade market at national and provincial levels. [44] occupants’ behavior.
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F.S. Hafez et al. Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013

Table 23 (continued ) Table 23 (continued )

5.4.1 Adopt technologies Reference 5.4.1 Adopt technologies Reference

9.Recycling building materials, education, alternative energy use, [93] 23.Utilizing other AHP, VIKOR, TOPSIS, and soft computing
improved indoor air quality, controlled waste systems awareness, techniques for future studies with the criteria of the green building
and jurisdictions. assessments and their relationships.
Indicators 24.Encourage more quantitative and qualitative studies to make [134]
1.In LEED, improved public transport access and the number of [122] green building practices more practical.
available amenities. 25.Adopt the methodology in different countries, climate zones, and [77]
2.Water consumption, air quality control, and waste management. [125] contexts to develop more sustainability assessment systems.
3.Energy consumption and other building components integrated [64]
5.4.9 Adopt materials and equipment (Cont.) Reference
into LEED v4.
4.Categories are other than Energy and Atmosphere in LEED [101] Materials
certification. 1.High-impact materials such as concrete and PTFE façade. [65]
5.Energy efficiency level in the LEED system. [93] 2.Reduce GHG emissions by using environmentally friendly building [2,20,80,
6.Modify the Energy and Atmosphere category and the Materials [2] materials. 87],
category of LEED. Equipment
1.High-energy-efficiency equipment, lamp into LED lamp. [15]
5.4.7 Using different aspects Reference
2.Building façades. [48]
1.Quantify and evaluate the energy savings according to occupants’ [47]
5.4.10 Adopt tools Reference
satisfaction.
2.Research on a green building should open user oriented. [86] 1.Passive House Planning Package. [108]
3.Analyze the economic performance aspects in depth. [123] 2.Test the SEAM method with different types and sizes of buildings [71]
4.An analysis of the ecological aspects. [20] and with different climate conditions.
5.Implementing the Iranian Green Building Assessment Tool [7] 3.POE. [2]
considering sustainable development and environmental aspects.
5.4.11 Adopt models Reference
6.Considering the economic aspects. [39]
7.Climate change in life cycle analysis; selecting design strategies in [5] 1.BIM. [88]
buildings. 2.Energy-efficient building model. [116]
8.A policy’s impact on construction costs, home builders, and the [39] 3.Establish new models that would be more helpful and useful for [130]
correlation to savings from reduced utility bills. GBT promotion.
9.For future research projects, as a practical aspect, couple a solar [43] 4.A rudimentary optimization model. [135]
thermal collector with two buried tanks in series or in parallel.
10.Use a performance-based rating such as Green Star in Australia to [81] 5.4.12 Adopt software Reference
improve design outcomes. 1.Energy Plus [20]
11.Use socioeconomic development and government policies and [22,132] 2.Design Builder [108,116]
regulations for sustainable buildings.

5.4.8 Adopt methods and analysis technique Reference

1.Include the black swan theory that was hypothesized. [21]

2.An assessment scheme for laboratory buildings. [47]
3.Passive design approaches considering building layout, building [13]
geometry envelope, and infiltration and airtightness.
4.Multidisciplinary search processes, additional statistical [17]
elaborations, and retrieve general information.
5.Other in-field measurements and subjective surveys of the [106]
perceived lighting quality.
6.Building simulation and performance evaluation considering [108]
factors such as the passive housing standard, concerns of
overheating, and energy efficiency.
7.Surveys and monitoring analyses. [40]
8.Life cycle perspective during evaluating housing. [111]
9.Experimental studies, qualitative studies, and content studies. [27]
10.LCA and energy payback period of DSFs in different regions. [42]
11.Analyze life cycle cost, carbon savings, and environmental [71]
benefits of PV installations.
12.Adopt BESO in the design phase. [46]
13.LCA for calculating GHG emissions. [2,5]
14.Active House standard methodology as a guide for a [50]
comprehensive evaluation of the building’s quality.
15.Develop a new assessment method using the new CCDI [30]
methodology.
16. Critical assessment to improve the LEED certification system. [64]
17.Categorical regression. [22]
18.For further study, the proposed ETTV method can be implemented [60]
to evaluate building thermal energy in similar Australian
subtropical weather conditions and to regulate annual commercial
buildings’ cooling energy consumption.
19.Life cycle cost analysis. [65]
20.In the future, use intelligent techniques such as solid waste [83]
Fig. 9. Pathways for future work.
generation and management plant, water treatment plant, and
sewage treatment plant.
21.Adapt the proposed SWARA framework in neighboring countries [94] Table 22 (continued )
of Kazakhstan, which have similar climate zones and conditions. 8.Adopt policies of sustainable building design by members of [67]
22.Compare the results of SWARA calculation with the AHP method [94] professional bodies in their building projects.
for the same study. 9.The results of this study will add value to energy-efficient passive [69]
[134] design strategies for the Bangladesh National Building Code rules and
regulations.
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26
F.S. Hafez et al.
Table 22 (continued )
10.Update building regulations, especially sustainable building design
practices standards.
11.The proposed framework SWARA is a useful reference to green
building policymakers.
12.Kazakhstan should implement sustainable development practices to
promote green resources.
5.4. Pathways for future work
The main goal is to improve energy efficiency as a mandatory
requirement for sustainable buildings by adopting measurements such
as utilizing renewable energy sources, purchasing energy efficiency
systems, using the materials & equipment for GHG emission reduction,
using software for designing the buildings to reach a higher energy ef­
ficiency. Adopting policies and regulations for the public to promote
sustainable buildings, adaptive techniques such as energy-saving tech­
niques for improving sustainable energy performance with reducing the
building’s energy demand for better overall performance. For achieving
this goal of sustainable buildings, there is a need to continue improving
and managing energy efficiency. There are some essential dimensions
should be considered as follows in Table 23 and Fig. 9.
6. Conclusion
Studies on improving energy efficiency to achieve sustainable
buildings are increasing in number. However, these types of studies have
several limitations that are still unaddressed. Energy efficiency in sus­
tainable buildings is an emerging and hot topic that needs further
investigation. The main contribution of this article is that it conducted
and built a systematic review and created a classification for selected
articles linked to this topic. The selected papers on the energy efficiency
of sustainable buildings are grouped into two categories: review articles,
which are divided into using rating systems, developing policies, tech­
niques, adaptive technologies, strategies, and other reviews that do not
fall under any of the previous categories; and conference proceedings
with research articles, which are divided into environmental, social, and
economic impacts, and others that do not fall under the previous cate­
gories. The selected articles were comprehensively analyzed by high­
lighting the motivations, challenges, recommendations, and pathways
of work related to targeting energy efficiency to achieve building sus­
tainability. The recommendations need to be followed by researchers,
governments, policymakers, and stakeholders such as professionals,
designers, investors, developers, practitioners, and clients for mitigating
carbon emissions, limiting energy use, improving the energy perfor­
mance of buildings, and reducing energy consumption in buildings to
achieve sustainability. The pathways for future work provide recom­
mendations that guide future researchers in adopting systems, tech­
niques, strategies, methods, analysis techniques, tools, parameters,
software, and models to overcome the challenges related to improving
the energy efficiency of buildings. Most of these challenges include lack
of knowledge, understanding, evidence of findings, parameters, natural
resources, policies, systems, techniques, methods, and other challenges.
Addressing these energy efficiency challenges will enable buildings to
achieve sustainability and energy efficiency, thus contributing to
achieving the United Nations’ SDGs 11 and 13. This comprehensive
review also summarizes the methodical aspects of selected articles, such
as the country of the authors, software used, data collection, type of
journals, research methods, journals, and impact factors, to provide a
valuable reference for future researchers. With these aspects in mind,
topics related to emerging energy efficiency in sustainable buildings
need to be updated.
Energy Strategy Reviews 45 (2023) 101013
Funding
[69]
This work is supported by the Universiti Tenaga Nasional grant no.
[94] IC6-BOLDREFRESH2025 (HCR) under the BOLD2025 Program
[94]
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
No data was used for the research described in the article.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Prof. Aws Alaa Zaidan, Dr. Bilal
Bahaa Zaidan, and Dr. Abdullah Hussein Abdullah Al-Amoodi for
their assistance and guidance in teaching the concept of a systematic
review, the design of the search strategy, and the screening process. The
authors are also grateful to several anonymous reviewers for their
valuable suggestions and comments to improve the manuscript quality.
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