1. Introduction
A building project can be regarded as sustainable only when all the various dimensions of
sustainability (environmental, economic, social, and cultural) are dealt with. The various sustainability
issues are interwoven, and the interaction of a building with its surroundings is also important. The
environmental issues share, in common, concerns which involve the reduction of the use of
non-renewable materials and water, and the reduction of emissions, wastes, and pollutants. The
following goals can be found in several building sustainability assessment methods: optimization of
site potential, preservation of regional and cultural identity, minimization of energy consumption, protection
and conservation of water resources, use of environmentally friendly materials and products, a healthy and
convenient indoor climate, and optimized operational and maintenance practices.
The purpose of sustainability assessments is to gather and report information for decision-making
during different phases of the construction, design, and use of a building. The sustainability scores or
profiles, based on indicators, result from a process in which the relevant phenomena are identified,
analyzed, and valued. Two extreme trends can be recognized at the moment: on one hand, the
complexity and diversity of indicators from different operators, and on the other hand, the evolution
towards better usability through a common understanding and simplicity.
The development of assessment methods and respective tools are a challenge both for in academia
and in practice. A major issue is that of managing the flows of information and knowledge between the
various levels of indicator systems. A variety of sustainability assessment tools are available on the
construction market, and they are widely used in environmental product declarations (e.g., BREEAM
in the U.K. and LEED in the U.S.) [1]. There are also Life-cycle assessment (LCA)-based tools
available that are especially developed to address the building as whole, e.g., Eco-Quantum
(Netherlands), EcoEffect (Sweden), ENVEST (U.K.), BEES (U.S.), ATHENA (Canada) and LCA
House (Finland). A comparison of the contextual and methodological aspects of tools has been made
before by other authors [2]. The majority of the tools, even though they are designed to consider the
whole building, including energy demand, etc., are developed based on a bottom-up approach, i.e., a
combination of building materials and components sums up to a building [3]. Tools to support
decision-making, in accordance with the principles of performance-based design, have also been
developed (mainly in research communities).
The assessment tools, either environmental or performance-based, are under a constant evolution in
order to overcome their various limitations. The main goal, at the moment, is to develop and
implement a systematic methodology that supports the design process of a building. This methodology
should contribute to the most appropriate balance between the different sustainability dimensions,
while being at the same time practical, transparent, and flexible enough. The method should be easily
adaptable to different building types and to constant technological development.
In this paper, approaches to incorporating the three sustainability dimensions within a building
project are presented and discussed, based on a state of the art feasibility study. In a more thorough
way, sustainability deals with the concepts of eco-efficiency and cost-efficiency, which result from a
holistic building performance analysis. After this, the potential to introduce the economic and social
impacts (“soft indicators”) in the original environmental LCA methodology is studied, and the newdevelopments and perspectives for the Building Sustainability Assessment (BSA), using global
indicators, are presented.