CESARE'24

Water efficiency, consumption and management in environmental performance assessment methods for existing buildings in use (CB-11)

Not scheduled

20m

Speaker

Christina Giarma (Laboratory of Building Construction and Building Physics, Department of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)

Description

One of the major motivations behind the effort for the transition from linear models to circular ones in the building sector is related to the need for the minimization of resources depletion. Water holds a prominent position among those resources, with the urgency for the adoption of measures aiming at its efficient and effective use being magnified by the advancing climatic change. The building sector (operation, etc.) is responsible for appreciable water consumption and, hence, represents an important field for improvements. While in the case of new buildings several options are available for the selection and the formation of relevant systems and strategies, when existing buildings are considered, the limitations are multiplied in the context of decisions already made and materialized. However, the already existing building stock is in fact a massive contributor to the total impact of the built environment and must be considered as well. In this work, three buildings’ environmental performance assessment methods (BREEAM, DGNB, LEED) are examined regarding the way water-related parameters are implemented in the evaluation that they perform, with the study being focused on their versions for existing buildings in use (residential and non-residential). The factors reviewed are the ones associated with water regarded as a resource (water consumption, (re-)use of rainwater, management issues etc.) and not the ones referring to flood risks and to energy demand (hot water). Initially, main features of the studied methods will be presented (assessment structure, scoring process, ranking categories, etc.). The main focus of the analysis lies on the criteria used by each method, on the main strategies highlighted as advantageous and on other issues related to the integration of those evaluation axes into the structure of each method. Among others, differences and similarities in the adopted approaches (three assessment methods, residential and non-residential uses) are highlighted and discussed.