It is known that the building sector consumes about 40% of earth's resources in their process of commissioning, erection and subsequent operation. As a consequence there is significant amount of CO2 emission to the a...It is known that the building sector consumes about 40% of earth's resources in their process of commissioning, erection and subsequent operation. As a consequence there is significant amount of CO2 emission to the atmosphere. Assessment of environmental performances of buildings has assumed immense significance in such backdrop and calls for assessing the "Carbon Footprint" of building systems for estimating their environmental compatibility. The present paper discusses a case specific environmental evaluation exercise by estimating the Carbon Footprint of a conventionally constructed tourist accommodation by tracking its resource consumption pattern during both the execution and operational phases in the hot and humid climatic zone of Indian sea-side. The result of the analysis is compared against the average carrying capacity of Earth to develop a method of measuring and quantifying the building's environmental performance with respect to Earth's reported threshold of tolerance and check the extent of failure or success, as the case may be. This process also leads to a tool named 'Sustainability Quotient'. The method of quantification is simple and can be adopted for environmental assessment of both new and old buildings.展开更多
文摘It is known that the building sector consumes about 40% of earth's resources in their process of commissioning, erection and subsequent operation. As a consequence there is significant amount of CO2 emission to the atmosphere. Assessment of environmental performances of buildings has assumed immense significance in such backdrop and calls for assessing the "Carbon Footprint" of building systems for estimating their environmental compatibility. The present paper discusses a case specific environmental evaluation exercise by estimating the Carbon Footprint of a conventionally constructed tourist accommodation by tracking its resource consumption pattern during both the execution and operational phases in the hot and humid climatic zone of Indian sea-side. The result of the analysis is compared against the average carrying capacity of Earth to develop a method of measuring and quantifying the building's environmental performance with respect to Earth's reported threshold of tolerance and check the extent of failure or success, as the case may be. This process also leads to a tool named 'Sustainability Quotient'. The method of quantification is simple and can be adopted for environmental assessment of both new and old buildings.