The development of environmental labelling of buildings: a case study of sustainability applications in UK, Iceland and Egypt.

Abstract

International and governmental pressures to promote concepts of sustainable development globally and within build environment sector are rapidly evolving. This is resulting in innovative and increasingly smart systems being used to bring down CO2 levels, and associated environmental impacts of buildings. In addition, methods to measure and minimise environmental impacts are being used and applied rapidly to ensure buildings are more energy efficient and can adapt to ever changing climatic conditions. Sustainability research within the architecture and built environment has been driven by environmental labelling schemes for buildings e.g BREEAM, LEED, , Estidama. The basis of the schemes is a rating certificate awarded to individual buildings, which outlines the performance of building against a defined environmental criteria. The application of such systems has particular relevance to the Middle East where there is environmental pressures on water resource and fragile ecosystems. This paper describes processes involved from planning and implementation of sustainability labelling scheme with designers, researchers , architects and planners to, selection of the suitable and country specific indicators, and the development of country specific scheme. It is not possible to have a scheme that addresses each and every country’s environmental issues, so the points and indicators have to be correlated to address specific issues within each country. The paper concludes that local environmental conditions are increasingly important in the selection of an appropriate system and the promotion of sustainable development within the build environment, and not one labelling scheme offers an overall solution to environmental problems