The Current Status, Challenges, and Future Directions of Sustainability Assessment of Buildings in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Buildings are currently responsible for 39% of global energy-related carbon emissions; 28% from operational emissions, and 11% from materials and constructions. Sustainability assessments of buildings to estimate the impacts become important for Sri Lanka to meet the national target of achieving socially inclusive, environmentally sustainable, and carbon-neutral housing by 2050. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a powerful tool, which can be used to assess building sustainability. Hence a study was conducted to identify the current status, the challenges faced, and future suggestions for the sustainability assessments of buildings in Sri Lanka. A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data among building construction professionals in Sri Lanka where 55%, 17.5%, 10%, 9.2%, and 8.3% were civil engineers, engineering consultants, quantity surveyors, academics, and architects out of 120 total respondents. More than half of the respondents, 52% have more than 15 years of building construction experience, and the rest 48% have experienced less than 15 years. The questionnaire consisted of 45 questions with three main segments to capture the respondents' experience in building sustainable assessment, its application, and the challenges faced in the attempt. According to the analysis, it was evident that there was a lack of performing sustainability assessments in Sri Lanka as only 15.8% of total respondents have experience in performing sustainability assessments of buildings, although more than 65% have moderate to expert knowledge in LCA. The reasons such as lack of policies and regulations and lack of knowledge and experience were the main causes for sustainability assessment not being popular within the industry. Sustainability assessment is important in benchmarking projects, reducing the emissions from the building sector while achieving nationally determined contributions by 2050.