Sustainability

The analysis of the sustainability of buildings involves a holistic view that includes the entire life cycle of the building (production, use, decommissioning) according to the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) approach.  

The software tools used for this kind of analysis typically make use of eco-labels of building materials and products available on the market, according to the International Standard of the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), with the possibility of considering alternative scenarios for the recovery and reuse of waste materials that are specific to the site where the building is located.

Multi-criteria and analytical scoring tools are also used, typical of the most common environmental certification schemes such as LEED (https://www.usgbc.org/leed), BREEAM (https://kb.breeam.com/) and WELL, capable of assigning a score according to sustainability criteria such as the consumption of embodied energy, drinking water and land use.

The most commonly used tools to simulate environmental comfort and calculate the most relevant comfort indicators are listed and described at the following link:
http://www.ibpsa-italy.org/en/software-en/sustainability.html