Energy Performance Evaluation and Building Energy Code Implementation of Multi-unit Residential Buildings: A Review

Rapid climate change is creating negative environmental and social impacts throughout the world. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have been identified as the primary contributor to climate change. Excess energy consumption is the main reason for the increased atmospheric GHG level. Buildings are accountable for a major fraction of global energy use and GHG emissions. Therefore, building energy conservation initiatives and advanced building design concepts have attracted much attention to reduce energy consumption and associated emissions. Under the building sector, multi-unit residential building (MURB) energy demand is expected to increase by 179% by 2050 compared to the 2010 demand due to rapid population growth. Building energy codes and green building standards are available globally to improve the energy efficiency of MURBs. However, due to the complexity and the requirement of significant capital cost, the energy efficiency improvements of MURBs remain a challenge. This reviewaims to identify the existing building energy performance status of MURBs, currently available building energy codes and standards, key challenges and barriers thatMURBsare facing while implementing energy efficiency standards. Moreover, the adaptation of lifecycle thinking to enhance the effectiveness of MURB energy efficiency was investigated from the lifecycle emissions and lifecycle cost perspectives. The findings of this study are aimed to assist the decision-making and mandate development process, building energy codes, and standards development. Moreover, it aims to open pathways to many future research directions of MURB energy performance evaluation by highlighting