Environmental assessment of buildings

Since the building sector started to recognise the impact of their activities on the environment in the 1990s, environmentally related issues have been an extremely popular research area. However, the research has partly been incoherent and inconsistent; researchers have excessively been focusing on their own topics neglecting possible collaboration, including the collaboration in interdisciplinary fields. The field of building environmental assessment tools is vast. The use of the tools is diverse. They are almost taken as a given; their contents have not been critically analysed. How the definitions of the assessment tool affect the results has been neglected. The interest lies excessively with the end results, without further clarification. The aim of this study is to clarify the field of building environmental assessment tools by analysing the current situation and future challenges. The relationship between environmental assessment and service life planning is critically analysed. Many building environmental assessment tools require an estimation of the building's lifetime. The service life of a building, however, has not been emphasised within the tools; rather it is taken as a given without further analysis. Therefore, the service life planning needs to be included in the environmental assessment of buildings. The existing methods and tools should not be underestimated. However, they should not be considered the sole possibilities. New ideas and interdisciplinary discoveries should also be welcomed in order to keep up-to-date; something worth researching may appear. If the new aspects are neglected, there is a possibility that "the high quality building" of today will be "the low quality building" of the future. The results of this doctoral thesis improve the understanding of the environmental assessment of buildings, the service life planning, their relationship, and also the factors affecting them. The results can be utilised in the development of the environmental assessment of buildings and service life planning. Furthermore, the results are beneficial for standardisation work, and research in the interdisciplinary fields