Need for a holistic approach to assessing sustainable, green, and healthy buildings

Abstract

With the rising global population, economic development, and urbanization, building stock is bound to grow, warranting measures for optimizing their embodied and operational energy and resource consumption. Further, a building’s indoor environment quality significantly affects occupants’ health, productivity, and well-being since people spend almost 90% of their time indoors. Buildings safeguard occupant’s well-being by shielding them from the outdoor air pollution and increasing climate extremes. However, buildings can also lead to acute and chronic exposure to pollutants trapped inside. The recent pandemic has demonstrated that indoor environments can prevent and promote airborne disease transmission depending on buildings’ design and operation. The current segregated rating systems and regulations to gauge buildings’ sustainability, health and safety, and energy efficiency have led to a fragmented approach hampering sustainable and healthy buildings’ design, construction, and operations. This work discusses the environmental sustainability of buildings, their impacts on occupants’ health and productivity, and if and how the existing global policies and frameworks regulate and promote the same. Developing a holistic and comprehensive framework is critical to ensure buildings’ sustainability, occupants’ health, and energy efficiency.