Social sustainability of buildings: Evaluating the assessment of social sustainability in building certification systems and developing a framework for assessment of the fulfillment of social intents.
During the last decade, sustainability has become a focus in the Danish construction industry. Sustainability has primarily been assessed based on existing certification systems, which themselves have defined what a sustainable building or solution encompasses. From this perspective, Anna's master thesis comprises two sections, which have been developed partially independently of each other.
The first section evaluates the similarities and differences between how the building certification systems, BREEAM, LEED, WELL building standard, and the Danish version of DGNB, assess social sustainability at the scale of the building user. It is concluded that there are significant similarities between the four certification systems, with the most considerable differences resulting from the different geographical origins of the certification systems.
The second section proposes a qualitative framework, which can be utilized for assessing the fulfilment of the social intentions in a building. The framework focuses on evaluating if and how the social intentions from the planning and design phases have been fulfilled in the final building, post occupancy, while qualitatively assessing the environmental-, and economic impact of the actions used to promote the social intent.
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