As Canada's first C-2000 office building, Green on the Grand was designed to be energy-efficient and environmentally responsible. Computer simulations and detailed calculations compared the energy consumption of Green on the Grand with that of a similar office building built to contemporary energyefficiency standards (ASH RAE 90.1 ).
Life-Cycle-Assessment (LCA) becomes more and more an important tool for industry to choose the adequate material or technique leading to an expected product quality from environmental point of view. As the environmental aspects are just one part of the decision making process, economical aspects have to be implemented as well. Sustainable construction is a major driving force of building and construction technology. The building sector uses extensive quantities of natural resources, raw materials and energy.
In the Danish building sector, environmental management is currently being introduced in three areas: design, construction and operation of buildings. This innovation is based on development programmes, some of which are in progress, while others have been completed in the last few years. Dissemination and incorporation of the results of these programmes are being closely monitored. Common to all the development programmes is a requirement that employers and companies formulate an environmental policy describing attitudes, goals, priorities and organisation.
Annex 31 is a multinational project to support researchers engaged in determining how to measure the effects of buildings on their immediate, regional and global environments. Fourteen member countries of the International Energy Agency's (lEA) Implementing Agreement on Energy Conservation in Buildings and Community Systems are involved in the work, divided into 8 tasks.
Environmental assessment of building elements and buildings requires environmental data related to the entire life cycle of the materials, inventory tools and assessment models for environmental impacts important to buildings. For that reason environmental data have been collected for a number of building materials in a project linked to a major Danish project on Environmental Management in Building Design.
The goal of sustainable development will be impossible to achieve without realignment of value creation by business arid the public sector. The environmental impacts of building activities are serious. There is a need for new competencies, better information about the environmental attributes of buildings, and suitable tools with which to achieve better eco-efficiency in practice. An aggressive commitment to developing and spreading the use of the Eco Profile method will provide a cost-efficient and attitude-changing environmental policy tool.
Escalating global environmental deterioration is due in significant part to buildings' share of total environmental burdens - ranging from 15 to 45% of the eight major environmental stressor categories. Therefore, improved building environmental performance could substantially reduce harmful anthropogenic environmental impacts. Previous efforts to address buildings' environmental impacts often lack a science-based approach and claims of "sustainability" or "green design" are often unsupported.
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