http://www2.fau.usp.br/cursos/graduacao/arq_urbanismo/disciplinas/aut0221/Material_de_Apoio/Certificacoes/Haapio_2008_Assessement_Tools.pdf

A critical review of building environmental assessment tools

In the last few decades, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) has received increasing attention from the international scientific community, political institutions, and environmental governances for improving the comfort, health, and wellbeing of building occupants.[...].

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/14/11/1286/pdf

Indoor Air Quality and Health

The energy conservation through energy efficiency in the building has acquired prime importance all over the world. The four main aspects for energy efficiency in a building include first and foremost the nearly zero energy passive building design before actual construction, secondly the usage of low energy building materials during its construction, thirdly use of energy efficient equipments for low operational energy requirement and lastly integration of renewable energy technologies for various applications. These aspects have been discussed along with their economics and environmental impacts briefly in this paper. The first aspect is related to the prior design before construction of a solar passive building techniques adapted all over the world not only for passive heating/cooling but also for daylighting the building. Second is utilizing the low embodied energy building materials for building construction. The third aspect deals with the operational energy conservation using energy efficient equipments in the building. Lastly, the building has to include utility of integrated renewable systems for hot water heating, solar photovoltaic electrification, etc.

Renewable energy technologies for sustainable development of energy efficient building

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/1810/260832/1/Pomponi_et_al-2016-Journal_of_Environmental_Management-AM.pdf

Embodied carbon mitigation and reduction in the built environment - What does the evidence say?

Sulphuric acid (H2SO4) was utilized as an activator for the preparation of activated carbon from a biomass solid waste, coconut leaves. The sulphuric acid-treated activated carbon (SAC) was used as low-cost adsorbent for the removal of methylene blue (MB) cationic dye from aqueous solution. Adsorption of MB using SAC from aqueous solution under equilibrium and kinetic conditions in batch mode was evaluated by varying adsorbent dose (0.2–2.5 g/L), solution pH (3–11), initial dye concentration (30–400 mg/L), contact time (0–180 min) and temperature (303–323 K). The Langmuir isotherm model showed better fit to the equilibrium data than the Freundlich model. The adsorption capacity (qm) of SAC increased with temperature where qm varied as follows: 126.9 (303 K), 137.0 (313 K) and 149.3 mg/g (323 K). The kinetic uptake results were well described by the pseudo-second-order (PSO) kinetic for each temperatures. The thermodynamic adsorption parameters (∆G°, ∆H° and ∆S°) were driven by favourable entropic ...

Adsorption of methylene blue onto activated carbon developed from biomass waste by H2SO4 activation: kinetic, equilibrium and thermodynamic studies

In the construction process of modern residential buildings the aim is to achieve maximum comfort within minimum energy consumption. One of the ways to achieve this requirement is the accurate determination of the volumetric air flow rate necessary to ensure the required indoor air quality. The aim of the paper is to present a methodology for determination the volumetric air flow rate on the basis of the results obtained from experimental measurements of carbon dioxide concentrations, which were carried out inside an apartment house lived by a standard family. Based on the measured values, the mass flow rate release of carbon dioxide was calculated. Consequently, the volumetric air flow rate was calculated in two situations, during the day and during the night. The main goal of the paper is to determine the required fresh air flow rate in an occupied room, based on carbon dioxide concentration measurement, in order to maintain a comfortable level of indoor air quality. The calculated air flow rate should optimize a future investment in ventilation equipment in order to choose the proper air handling unit with low operating costs. The aim is not only to improve the energy efficiency of the ventilation system, but also to ensure a healthy indoor environment. Based on the presented research it can be stated that during the sleeping of four family members there is necessary to ensure the fresh air flow rate of 104 m 3 per hour. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/enviro.2017.262

Determining the ventilation rate inside an apartment house on the basis of measured carbon dioxide concentrations – case study

Building industry is responsible for 1/3 of total CO2 emissions and consumes 40% of primal energy in the industry. This paper presents the results of environmental impact assessment of building materials in three houses based on Life Cycle Assessment of the whole life cycle. Building materials were evaluated by special tool by Createrra. CO2 emissions related to life cycle of building materials vary from 0,176 kg CO2eq/kg − 0,305 kg CO2eq/kg, SO2 emissions range form 0,836 g SO2eq/kg − 1,656 g SO2eq/kg and primal energy intensity reached values from 2,347 MJ/kg to 2,534 MJ/kg.

Comparison of environmental impact of building materials of three residential buildings

Analyzing Embodied Energy, Global Warming and Acidification Potentials of Materials in Residential Buildings

Sustainable Building Assessment Tool in Slovakia

Degradation of environment is currently at huge risk because of factors related to population growth, resource consumption, industrial activity, etc. This situation is causing serious environmental problems which called for new building developments to bridge the gap between this need for reduction of environmental impacts and ever increasing requirements on living. The developments were generally directed at the reduction of the energy consumption during occupation. But this increase of savings in operational energy is reflected on higher embodied energy and associated emissions from material production. The case study is focused around some issues of environmental performance pertaining to embodied energy, embodied emissions CO2-eq. and SO2-eq. from building structures. The optimization of material compositions of structures with passive energy standard are aimed at using materials from biomass in order to create green design. The plant materials serve as a long-term carbon store and use solar energy for production of raw material. The designed passive house from optimized compositions of alternatives achieves low embodied energy (2357.374 MJ per useful area), high negative balance of embodied CO2-eq. (-356.764 kg CO2-eq. per useful area) within construction phase of LCA. One of possible ways of reduction of carbon footprint of building is introduced in the paper.

Silvia Vilčeková

Papers

Determining the ventilation rate inside an apartment house on the basis of measured carbon dioxide concentrations – case study

Comparison of environmental impact of building materials of three residential buildings

Analyzing Embodied Energy, Global Warming and Acidification Potentials of Materials in Residential Buildings

Sustainable Building Assessment Tool in Slovakia

Reduction of Carbon Footprint of Building Structures