SBToolPT – adaptation of the global sbtool to the portuguese context

Abstract

Building sustainability assessment involves various relations between built, natural and social systems. Therefore it comprises hundreds of parameters, most of them interrelated and partly contradictory. To cope with this complexity and to support the sustainable building design, a systematic, holistic and practical approach is proposed in this paper. The main objective of a systematic methodology is to support building design that achieves the most appropriate balance between the different sustainability dimensions, and that is at the same time practical, transparent and flexible enough to be easily adapted to different kinds of buildings and to technology. This paper aims to present a novel approach to develop building sustainability assessment and rating and contributes to the evolution of generic methodology and international understanding by introducing an approach to take the different dimensions of sustainability into account. This methodology is based in the adaptation of the international Sustainable Building Tool (SBTool) to the Portuguese’s environmental, societal and economy contexts. The scope of the methodology that is going to be presented (SBToolPT) is to assess the sustainability of existing, new and renovated buildings in the urban areas and especially in the Portuguese context. This new methodology is intended to foster the awareness of the Portuguese construction market stakeholders and to allow adequate policy implementation on sustainable construction.