Emerging trends in building environmental assessment methods

The building environmental assessment field is reviewed since it first came into prominence in the early 1990s. Key limitations of existing building environmental assessment methods are identified and the emerging importance of issues such as sustainability, life-cycle assessment, globalization and standardization are discussed. The author provides a constructive direction for emerging 'second generation' building environmental assessment methods and protocols. This includes a standardization of environmental assessment methodologies; a common, generalized framework which allows for adaptation of specific and changing explicit criteria and an increased emphasis on building performance over time.