The main objectives of the SuPerBuildings project are as follows:
1) To develop a common understanding about the potential of sustainability
assessment and benchmarking methods in progress towards sustainable built
environment
The project will model, study and make conclusions about the usefulness and potential of sustainability assessment and benchmarking methods in different stages and tasks of building processes and study the potential of these methods with regard to different steering mechanisms. The project considers different steering mechanisms paying attention to economic incentives and regulations.
2) To develop indicators for assessing the environmental, social and economic
performance of buildings
The project will make use of the results achieved within ISO TC 59 / SC 17 and CEN TC 350 and the outcomes of recent European projects that have developed outlines for building performance such as PEBBU and LEnSE projects. However, several significant problems are still to be solved and targets to be achieved: a) to create an understanding how to indicate social and economic sustainability of buildings; b) to develop a logical
structure for the system, avoid overlapping indicators, ensure that all wanted aspects of sustainable buildings are measured and understand the meaning of all indicators; c) to develop understanding about key performance indicators; d) to develop solutions for the consideration of land use and adaptability to climate change. The project will develop indicators for the environmental, economic and social impacts of a building and describe how the indicators of environmental, social and economic performance affect these potential impacts and how the values of indicators are measured. The focus will be on the development of the data validity and reliability of the selected key indicators. The project will also produce a detailed documentation for compatibility of data definitions in
EU member countries.
3) To develop criteria for the benchmarking and labelling of sustainable buildings
The goal is to develop new information and knowledge about the needed performance levels of new and existing buildings with regard to different aspects of sustainability considering different building types and different local conditions. The goal is to consider both minimal required levels and advanced levels of sustainable building. The project will a) collect information about the performance levels of buildings with regard to key performance indicators, and study how the typical performance levels vary in different European countries, b) develop knowledge about the required levels in order to achieve minimum progress required and significant advance in building stock and built environment in terms of sustainable development, and finally, c) develop rules for normalization and aggregation and criteria for benchmarking in order to enable the comparison of design and building alternatives and enable the testing and mobilization of the developed system.
4) To develop recommendations and solutions for the use of the system in different
stages of building process and in steering and building regulation
Voluntary national SB rating systems are in use in some European countries. However, the effect on the advance of sustainable building has not been as big as desired. The big number of different systems also hinders the acceptance and mobilization of the systems in Europe. The project will improve the effective use of sustainable building benchmarking systems. The premise is that the principles of sustainable performance of buildings and the knowledge about the desired performance levels should be known in all stages of building projects and in building maintenance and refurbishment, which are extremely important stages to be considered. Effective tools should support sustainable building and consideration of different aspects of sustainable performance. The project will develop recommendations, practical guidelines and methods for the utilization of sustainability assessment and benchmarking systems in different stages of the overall building process. The project will consider the following stages: target setting, design, construction and tendering processes, building maintenance and renovation. The project will also develop solutions how to deal with variation between as planned and actual performance of buildings, because this problem often significantly weakens the true impact of SB assessment and benchmarking systems.
The project will also develop solutions for the integration of sustainability assessment systems with building information models (BIMs) in order to enable effective design for sustainable buildings and management of sustainable building information in all stages of building process. The project will describe how the integration should happen, so that sustainable building assessment and benchmarking could be included in the different stages of BIM in order to support target setting, design for sustainable building, sustainable maintenance and decision making in processes of procurements and investments. The project will also make guidelines in order to support the further development of existing BIM software.
The project will deepen the understanding about the efficiency and potential of sustainability benchmarking systems as instruments of steering. On the basis of this understanding the project will develop recommendations for the use of the systems with specific focus on steering with help of economic incentives.
5) To disseminate the results for standardisation bodies, policy makers and
construction professionals and encourage the development of new sustainable
building services
The project will cooperate with relevant standardisation bodies and existing relevant standardisation committees in order to disseminate the results of the project to be considered in the development of new standards and improvement of existing sustainable building standards.
The project will collaborate with both national and European policy makers. The project will base its work on the understanding about the policy targets and trends and find out the detailed needs and expectations with help of interviews and common workshops. The project will introduce the project outcomes that explain the potential of sustainable building benchmarking and labelling methods in sustainable building steering and regulation, listen to feedback and aim at helpful results. Finally, the project will disseminate the results for municipalities, national building authorities and representatives of the EU.
In addition, the project will collaborate with construction professionals in order to understand the current difficulties and barriers in making use sustainable building methods and in order to support the adoption of sustainable building assessment and benchmarking methods in the different stages of building process. In order to enable ffective dissemination of the project outcomes, the project will establish a NETWORK GROUP consisting of users.
Finally, the project will effectively use the following routes in order to disseminate the results: European Construction Technology Platform (ECTP), Sustainable Building Alliance (SBA), iiSBE and UNEP Sustainable Building and Construction Initiative (SBCI). The partners of the project involved in the Sustainable Building Alliance (SBA) will transfer the project results to the SBA technical committee. The overall objective of this harmonizing downstream activity is to define a standardized core of indicators that will enable comparisons of performances between the different building assessment systems currently in use in the market (BREEAM, DGNB certificate, HQE, PromisE, ITACA, etc.). This will remarkably broader the number of the beneficiaries and end