Identifying and evaluating green building attributes by environment, social, and economic pillars of sustainability

ABSTRACT Green building (GB) rating systems are developed to measure the level of extent or sustainability of buildings. It is very important to focus on the attributes that require more cost and are contributing more to decreasing the negative impact of construction on the environment or nature. This analysis presents an idea-based conceptual model for prioritising the GB attributes by considering the environmental, social, and economic pillars of sustainable construction or monetary mainstays of manageable development. To analyse the environmentally and socially essential attributes, an analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and an entropy method were used. For the economic analysis, a data envelopment analysis (DEA) was applied. If the decision makers give more importance to the environmental and social pillars of sustainability then they can consider the attributes such as occupants’ health, safety and comfort, climatic conditions, the cost of investment, operation and maintenance cost, and indoor air quality. If the construction stakeholder wishes to achieve more green points with limited funds then the important attributes are: operation and maintenance cost, material recycle, low-impact construction site techniques, locally available materials, and soil pollution. The proposed approach can advance GB construction practices that are not liable to result from conventional practices.