Towards sustainability‐oriented decision making : model development and its validation via a comparative case study on building construction methods

Abstract

In order to facilitate the shift towards sustainability in the building industry, development of building‐specific sustainability assessment tools that evaluate and integrate related environmental and socioeconomic impacts is needed. Existing assessment tools mainly focus on environmental and economic issues and give limited consideration on social sustainability. This study fills this gap through proposing an integrated building‐specific sustainability assessment model. This model was developed based on a conceptual model of life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA), which is theoretically a combination of environmental life cycle assessment, life cycle cost analysis, and social life cycle assessment. An integrated AHP‐ELECTRE approach was adopted to provide a logical backbone for the model. This LCSA model is demonstrated through a case study to choose the best alternative regarding sustainability from three structural designs, that is, modular construction‐based, semiprefabricated, and conventional designs. Results show that semiprefabricated design is the best option in the context of this study.