Exergy-based index for assessing the building sustainability

Over the past decade, efforts have been made in developing the Sustainable Building (SB) assessment tools which enable all stakeholders to be aware of the consequences of various design choices and to assess the building performance. Currently, a large variety of existing SB tools, approaches, rating systems, indices and methods of assessment are available and used in the construction industry. Despite usefulness of existing assessment methods in contributing towards a more sustainable building, some limitations have led towards a scientifically-based SB assessment tool. This paper proposes an exergy-based definition of a sustainable building, the calculation method of a new Exergy-based Index of building Sustainability (ExSI), and the rating scale. Finally, the results from five case studies are presented.