Developing a sustainability benchmarking system : a case study of the provincial government Western Cape'simmovable asset assessment pilot project

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Building structures have a major impact on the quality of the macro-climates of the world, in particular in terms of pollution and environmental costs associated with their creation, operation and maintenance. Emerging global trends to make buildings more efficient, effective and sustainable, led to the question can one establish how sustainable existing buildings are? Building rating tools like LEED, BREEAM and Green Star, can already be used to rate and certify buildings in terms of their environmental performance and sustainability, but seem to fall short of establishing true overall building performance sustainability.As an architect, the researcher was involved in a project to develop a process for the Provincial Government Western Cape to comply with the Government Immovable Asset Management Act, Act no.19 of 2007 (GIAMA). The problem statement of this study links to the objective to comply with GIAMA, which requires that all government buildings be assessed in terms of their sustainability. This led to a number of research questions being asked. The first of these questions are what can be learnt from currently available rating systems and would it be possible to track and monitor the sustainability performance of a building over time.This triggered a series of related questions: What role can benchmarking play in establishing and tracking a building's sustainability over time? How can benchmarking help to identify which part of a building's overall sustainability is most in need of resourcing, to bring it closer to overall sustainability? How can capital and maintenance expense budgets associated with the building life-cycle be effectively utilised to bring buildings closer to overall sustainability? How can the availability of detailed information pertaining to the costs and benefits of green investments in existing buildings help building owners to identify the best initiatives to invest in?The methodology used in this study to answer the above questions is based on two research approaches. The first part made use of a literature review to establish and define the knowledge framework to be used in the second case study portion of the study. The methodology used for the case study was based on applied research, where the real life problems associated with the development of a suitability benchmarking process for the PGWC was documented and assessed.The results of the study found that there exist a missing link between theoretical knowledge of sustainability benchmarking and the legislative requirement of GIAMA and that this missing link is the standardised accurate and verifiable data required for the benchmarking process. In addition to this it was also found that the social aspects of buildings are generally neglected. A universal standard for collection of the required data is also needed. The study also highlighted that a general misperception exist that Environmental Sustainability is synonymous with the Sustainability paradigm.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University