BASELINEGREEN AND GREENBALANCE: A Step Beyond Sustainability in Building Performance

摘要

BaselineGreen first examines the upstream external environmental cost and regional employment impacts of the inputs to construction of a generic baseline building modeled after a proposed building design. The upstream external environmental costs are summarized in an "external environmental cost ratio" (EECR). The upstream employment impacts are summarized in an "employment impact ratio" (EIR). Both an EECR and an EIR are assigned to all high priority inputs to construction within major architectural Uniformat Building Group Element categories of the baseline building. Second, BaselineGreen establishes a new "greener" baseline with reduced upstream environmental costs. This green baseline becomes the new benchmark for measuring the proposed building design. Following the BaselineGreen analysis, the GreenBalance assessment provides a framework to go beyond the present approach of simply minimizing environmental burdens. GreenBalance attempts to neutralize or "balance" these conditions with the objective of mitigating and, in some cases, actually counteracting external environmental costs.