The role of environmental performance assessment in Australian building design

There was a time when the success of a building project was judged on how well it met the time, cost and quality objectives of the client. With increasing environmental awareness, has come the desire in Australia for a building project's environmental performance to be considered as an important criterion for the success of the project. With this desire comes increasing accountability for demonstrating that the environmental performance expectation of clients, interest groups and the public have been met. Doing this requires tools and methods for assessing the environmental performance of buildings at the design phase and in use. This paper discusses the factors that affect how building environmental performance assessment is used in building design in Australia, and profiles a number of assessment tools that are commercially available in Australia. This work was commissioned for the Australian Council of Building Design Professions for the BDP Environmental Design Guide