First experiences in the development of slovenian sustainable building indicators

The construction sector is recognised as having a key impact on the life on Earth. Consequently, the EU has set clear environmental goals for 2030 and 2050, and is developing policies and tools to achieve them. One of the tools for achieving these goals is to establish a system for the evaluation of the environmental performance of buildings, with the priorities of reducing GHG emissions, saving with natural resources and preserving the environment, while maintaining sustainable development and ensuring a healthy living environment. Slovenia has joined in achieving this goal with a study on the state-of-play, commissioned a few years ago by the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning, as the starting point for the development of sustainable building indicators (SBIs). The research, which included an analysis of the Slovenian legislation, commercial certification systems for sustainable buildings and development in the field of green public procurement, exposed complementary but rather different goals and views. It further showed that the Level(s), which provides a common EU approach in assessing the environmental performance of buildings, seems to be the most appropriate framework and the basis for the development of the Slovenian system of SBIs. The development of the Slovenian SBIs is currently underway within the project LIFE IP CARE4CLIMATE with the preparation of guidelines, data sources and procedures for determining the value of individual indicators for the assessment of buildings. Initial research with key construction stakeholders has shown that the solution must be linked to the national building legislation, computational methods and software tools, and also to the established planning procedures. The analyses have also shown that, parallel to developing such a system, it is essential to provide a functional supporting environment and a specific, purposely designed information platform to connect the stakeholders with the developers of the sustainable building indicators system

Multicriterial sustainability assessment of residential buildings

A simple method for the assessment of sustainability of a residential building is proposed. The method consists of two steps. First, areas that influence sustainability level of the building (e.g. building architecture, design, in‐built materials) are identified. For each area, several elements and corresponding indicators are determined. Depending on their nature, the indicators are expressed either in quantitative or qualitative terms. The impact areas and their corresponding elements influence all three aspects of sustainability. In the second step, the indicators are aggregated according to their influence on individual sustainability aspects. Special attention is placed to the determination of weights assigned to the indicators in order to make the assessment method relevant in the local context. Initially, the consensus‐based method within the research team was used as a technique for aggregated indicators’ weighting. Later, the open discourses among the developers and stakeholders, as well as surveys, were employed to determine the aggregated indicators’ weights. The proposed method is applied to a selected sample building, and the analysis of the results is carried out. The results obtained show that the completeness and reliability of the input data is crucial for the reliability of the proposed assessment method. Subjectivity in evaluators’ judgments required to score some indicators needs to be reduced by introducing adequate training of the assessors. The feedback from the potential users shows that the method has a potential for wider future implementation in practice. Santrauka Straipsnyje siūlomas paprastas gyvenamųjų namų darnos vertinimo metodas. Šiuo metodu skaičiuojama dviem etapais. Pirmuoju etapu nustatomi kriterijai, darantys įtaką pastato darnos lygiui (pavyzdžiui, pastato architektūra, konstrukcija, medžiagos). Nustatomi keli kiekvieną kriterijų apibūdinantys rodikliai. Priklausomai nuo pobūdžio jie gali būti kiekybiniai arba kokybiniai ir gali apibūdinti visus tris darnos aspektus. Antruoju etapu rodikliai sugrupuojami pagal jų įtaką atskiriems darnos aspektams. Ypatingas dėmesys skiriamas rodiklių reikšmingumų nustatymui. Tai vertinimo metodą daro tinkamą konkrečioms sąlygoms. Rodiklių reikšmingumai nustatomi grupės ekspertų nuomonių sutarimo metodu. Vėliau reikšmingumai tikslinami diskusijoje tarp susinteresuotų grupių narių. Pasiūlytas metodas pritaikytas pasirinktam tipiniam pastatui, atlikta gautų rezultatų analizė. Rezultatai atskleidė, jog pradinių duomenų išsamumas ir tikrumas daro lemiamą įtaką pasiūlyto vertinimo metodo patikimumui. Tinkamai apmokant vertintojus galima sumažinti kai kurių rodiklių vertinimo subjektyvumą. Potencialių vartotojų reakcija rodo, kad ateityje šis metodas gali būti plačiai taikomas. First published online: 21 Oct 2010 Reikšminiai žodžiai: gyvenamasis namas, statybos kokybė, vertinimo metodas, sprendimo priėmimo metodas, darnos rodikliai, žymėjimas

Scenario Analyses Concerning Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection in Regional and National Residential Building Stocks. Examples from Nine European Countries. - EPISCOPE Synthesis Report No. 3

This report documents methodological aspects and selected results of the scenario analyses to assess refurbishment as well as energy saving processes and project future energy consumption.. It covers scenario calculations conducted for regional residential building stocks in Salzburg/Austria, the Comunidat Valenciana/Spain, the Piedmont Region/Italy, the national non-profit housing stock in the Netherlands as well as the national residential building stocks in Germany, England, Greece, Norway, and Slovenia. Thereby, the objective of the scenario analysis is not a prediction of future energy demand in the respective building stock. Rather, the objective is to show the potential future impact of predefined assumptions. This may help respective key actors and policy makers to decide on strategies and policies for transforming building stocks towards carbon dioxide neutrality

Tracking of Energy Performance Indicators in Residential Building Stocks – Different Approaches and Common Results - EPISCOPE Synthesis Report No. 4

A central task of IEE EPISCOPE project was to carry out energy balance calculations and scenario analysis for national, regional or local residential building stocks against the background of energy saving and climate protection targets. The EPISCOPE Synthesis Report No. 4 documents the individual approaches of collecting information for the investigated residential building stocks as a foundation for building stock models and scenario calculations. Issues related to the availability of data and data quality are discussed, and concepts for a continuous monitoring (a regular data collection) are presented as a basis for a future tracking of energy performance in the observed building stocks

A Bottom-Up Building Stock Model for Tracking Regional Energy Targets—A Case Study of Kočevje

The paper addresses the development of a bottom-up building stock energy model (BuilS) for identification of the building stock renovation potential by considering energy performance of individual buildings through cross-linked data from various public available databases. The model enables integration of various EE and RES measures on the building stock to demonstrate long-term economic and environmental effects of different building stock refurbishment strategies. In the presented case study, the BuilS model was applied in the Kočevje city area and validated using the measured energy consumption of the buildings connected to the city district heating system. Three strategies for improving the building stock in Kočevje towards a more sustainable one are presented with their impact on energy use and CO2 emission projections up to 2030. It is demonstrated that the BuilS bottom-up model enables the setting of a correct baseline regarding energy use of the existing building stock and that such a model is a powerful tool for design and validation of the building stock renovation strategies. It is also shown that the accuracy of the model depends on available information on local resources and local needs, therefore acceleration of the building stock monitoring on the level of each building and continually upgrading of databases with building renovation information is of the utmost importance

Whole-life carbon emissions benchmarks for buildings in Slovenia

According to the European Green Deal decarbonisation of EU building stock is needed on the way to turning EU into the first climate neutral continent by 2050. Directive (2010/31/EU) EPBD led to significant reduction of operational energy in new buildings and renovation. By energy efficiency first principle and by increasing renewable energy sources it contributed to reduction of primary energy and operational CO2 emissions. But the orientation towards lifecycle thinking and circularity in the building sector revealed the need to tackle the whole-life carbon emissions, where the operational and embodied carbon contribute significantly. In the absence of benchmarks for embodied carbon emissions in this contribution the operational and embodied carbon indicators from recent studies are compared with the available corresponding data in Slovenian energy performance certificates