Green building evaluation from a life-cycle perspective in Australia: a critical review

Abstract

The last decades have witnessed a rapid development of green building developments at a global scale, as a measure to deal with various challenges related to climate change especially environmental issues. Australia is no exception. It is not unusual that extra resources such as cost are required for developing green buildings compared to conventional buildings. To justify extra upfront resources required for green building developments, a variety of tools have been developed such as life cycle assessment and life cycle costing. These two tools have been used in some projects in order to evaluate the cost and benefits of green buildings from a life cycle perspective. However, the uptake of life cycle assessment and life cycle costing are generally slow in the construction industry. This paper presents a critical review of green building evaluation from life cycle perspective. In particular, the use of life cycle assessment and life cycle costing in green building evaluation in Australia is reviewed. Knowledge gap is presented and future research agenda is proposed.