TY - JOUR

T1 - Comparison of eco-effectiveness and eco-efficiency based criteria for the construction of single-family homes

AU - Lindner, Sara

AU - Braungart, Michael

AU - Essig, Natalie

N1 - This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 642384.

PY - 2019/2/25

Y1 - 2019/2/25

N2 - The built environment faces diverse sustainability challenges concerning the ecological, the economic and the sociocultural dimension. However, common construction practices mainly focus on the reduction of environmental impacts, especially the energy consumption in the usage phase. Despite their long tradition of implementation, these eco-efficiency based strategies can only be regarded as a useful and groundwork lying step and opportunity to reduce the ecological impact in the short-term, but are insufficient for addressing the need for fundamental redesign of buildings in the long-term. In contrast, the cradle to cradle concept offers a model for fundamental redesign of buildings allowing positive interaction with the ecosystem based on the eco-effectiveness approach. The paper will analyse and compare eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness based criteria for the construction of single-family homes with the help of guidelines and assessment methods for buildings and materials. The analysis serves the aim of identifying learnings from the long-term experience in the field of eco-efficiency and benefitting from it for the future implementation of eco-effectiveness based strategies. Single-family homes are chosen as typology as they represent the most popular housing type in Germany, but show numerous disadvantages regarding the ecological, economic and socio-cultural dimension compared to other forms of housing. Representing the smallest but worst typology from a sustainability point of view, they offer an ideal starting point. In a next step, the results can be transferred and expanded to other typologies.

AB - The built environment faces diverse sustainability challenges concerning the ecological, the economic and the sociocultural dimension. However, common construction practices mainly focus on the reduction of environmental impacts, especially the energy consumption in the usage phase. Despite their long tradition of implementation, these eco-efficiency based strategies can only be regarded as a useful and groundwork lying step and opportunity to reduce the ecological impact in the short-term, but are insufficient for addressing the need for fundamental redesign of buildings in the long-term. In contrast, the cradle to cradle concept offers a model for fundamental redesign of buildings allowing positive interaction with the ecosystem based on the eco-effectiveness approach. The paper will analyse and compare eco-efficiency and eco-effectiveness based criteria for the construction of single-family homes with the help of guidelines and assessment methods for buildings and materials. The analysis serves the aim of identifying learnings from the long-term experience in the field of eco-efficiency and benefitting from it for the future implementation of eco-effectiveness based strategies. Single-family homes are chosen as typology as they represent the most popular housing type in Germany, but show numerous disadvantages regarding the ecological, economic and socio-cultural dimension compared to other forms of housing. Representing the smallest but worst typology from a sustainability point of view, they offer an ideal starting point. In a next step, the results can be transferred and expanded to other typologies.

KW - Ecosystems Research

KW - Sustainability Science

KW - Sustainability sciences, Communication

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85063389289&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1088/1755-1315/225/1/012041

DO - 10.1088/1755-1315/225/1/012041

M3 - Conference article in journal

AN - SCOPUS:85063389289

VL - 225

JO - IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science

JF - IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science

SN - 1755-1307

IS - 1

M1 - 012041

T2 - BAMB-CIRCPATH: Buildings as Material Banks - SBE 2019 Brussels

Y2 - 5 February 2019 through 7 February 2019

ER -