On the role of sustainable buildings in achieving the 2030 UN sustainable development goals

Built environment plays a series of key roles in the society and in everyday life and it is also worldwide recognised to be one of the main contributors to the global energy demand and to the emission of greenhouse gases. Achieving sustainability in the building and construction industry is, therefore, crucial to contribute the global transition to a sustainable carbon-neutral built environment: in this regard, the adoption of the 2030 Agenda and the related SDGs would play a strategic role. This paper was set and developed with the aim of identifying the multiple key interactions between buildings and SDGs and, consequently, drawing considerations and points-of-view on a possible, preliminary approach to assess the role of buildings in the achievement of SDGs and their targets. A quantitative evaluation approach focussed on the environmental dimension of sustainability and based on Life Cycle Assessment on the building scale was proposed by the authors. The approach could represent the potential basis for the development of a comprehensive and scientifically-based method for large-scale applications aimed at determining and improving the way buildings affect SDGs. According to this paper's authors' proposal, after the selection of a comprehensive set of indicators and their linkage to the various SDGs, the assessment should be carried out considering reference values for the indicators, specific targets coherent with SDGs (and their targets) for each indicator and key statistical parameters for the built environment, such as the yearly built area.