Development of Benchmarks for Operating Costs and Resources Consumption to be Used in Healthcare Building Sustainability Assessment Methods

Maria De Fátima Castro, Ricardo Mateus, Francisco Serôdio and Luís Bragança
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Maria De Fátima Castro: Territory, Environmental and Construction Research Centre (CTAC), University of Minho, Campus de Azurém, 4800-048 Guimarães, Portugal
Ricardo Mateus: Territory, Environmental and Construction Research Centre (CTAC), University of Minho, Campus de Azurém, 4800-048 Guimarães, Portugal
Francisco Serôdio: Territory, Environmental and Construction Research Centre (CTAC), University of Minho, Campus de Azurém, 4800-048 Guimarães, Portugal
Luís Bragança: Territory, Environmental and Construction Research Centre (CTAC), University of Minho, Campus de Azurém, 4800-048 Guimarães, Portugal

Sustainability, 2015, vol. 7, issue 10, 1-27

Abstract: Since the last decade of the twentieth century, the healthcare industry is paying attention to the environmental impact of their buildings and therefore new regulations, policy goals, and Building Sustainability Assessment (HBSA) methods are being developed and implemented. At the present, healthcare is one of the most regulated industries and it is also one of the largest consumers of energy per net floor area. To assess the sustainability of healthcare buildings it is necessary to establish a set of benchmarks related with their life-cycle performance. They are both essential to rate the sustainability of a project and to support designers and other stakeholders in the process of designing and operating a sustainable building, by allowing the comparison to be made between a project and the conventional and best market practices. This research is focused on the methodology to set the benchmarks for resources consumption, waste production, operation costs and potential environmental impacts related to the operational phase of healthcare buildings. It aims at contributing to the reduction of the subjectivity found in the definition of the benchmarks used in Building Sustainability Assessment (BSA) methods, and it is applied in the Portuguese context. These benchmarks will be used in the development of a Portuguese HBSA method.

Keywords: benchmarking; healthcare buildings; sustainability; Healthcare Buildings Sustainability Assessment (HBSA) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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