Systematic evaluation and assessment of building environmental performance (SEABEP).

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. Building design professionals set de facto environmental priorities by addressing a sub-set of environmental issues without articulating environmental goals and priorities. Optimizing total building environmental performance requires weighting environmental concerns to inform decisions. An approach to "systematic evaluation and assessment of building environmental performance" (SEABEP) is proposed. SEABEP includes characterizing the magnitude of buildings' contribution to environmental problems, weighting the most important environmental problems, and establishing sustainability criteria. SEABEP can be used alone or with existing methods to improve building environmental performance