Comprehensiveness and adequacy of tools for the environmental improvement of buildings

Buildings are products with special environmental characteristics. They are unique in having an indoor environment and uncommon because of the importance of siting and orientation and the usual long life-span of major components. There is a wide variety of instruments for environmental improvement of buildings. Requirement type instruments usually have only a limited scope, though there are some exceptions in Denmark, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Guidance type instruments tend to be more comprehensive. Scoring instruments are relatively comprehensive but also rather superficial and ad hoc. They require a more solid basis. Instruments based on life cycle analysis (LCA) are as yet deficient with respect to indoor environment, siting and user behaviour, leaving substantial scope for instrument improvement.