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This paper explores the patterns of the current needs of users' social characteristics in post occupancy evaluation (POE) associated with the environmental performance of green buildings using systematic literature review (SLR). This paper aims to establish a conceptual nexus between environmental performance mandates and the current needs of the users' social characteristics.

This paper adopts a SLR approach designed using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses for 21 articles that were selected as qualitative synthesis in this study. The search parameter for the selected articles in this review was limited to publications in three databases, Scopus, Web of Science and Emerald, between January 2016 and January 2023, with the help of qualitative software ATLAS.ti 9© in the presentation of the network codes. The initial literature search has retrieved 99 papers which sequentially excluded 42 papers due to exclusion criteria, and the researcher was left with 57 papers. Out of 57, 14 papers were then removed due to duplication of records found in the Scopus and Web of Science databases, and 43 articles were further screened for qualitative synthesis. A thorough critical appraisal was applied to ensure that only selected papers were included, consensus was achieved among the authors and 22 papers were excluded. The qualitative synthesis has finalized 21 studies, and they are selected as confirmative findings.

Using network codes presentation of ATLAS.ti 9©, the result shows that the social characteristics are influenced by the evaluated building category and the users' category – the stakeholders (owners, designers) and the occupants. New-fangled elements in environmental performance mandates are legitimacy and accessibility. The users’ social characteristics are derived from the category of users, where the stakeholders (designers, owners) are relatively a novel benchmark in meeting the POE objectives towards environmental performance. The least attention on the users’ social characteristics based on the findings shows that image, experiential (conjoint), happiness, interactive behaviour, morale and values are depicted as the social current needs in the environmental performance using POE. However, all stakeholders and the building occupants’ social characteristics must have a confirmative relation to the performance mandates, especially for newly performance mandates elements: legitimacy and accessibility.

The research limits the literature search between the recent January 2016 and January 2023 in Scopus, Web of Science and Emerald databases. Limiting the year of publication to the recent years is important to select and rank relevant scientific papers which encompass the reviewed subject. Other limitations include the selection of papers focusing on the POE approach and environmental performance as the main subject of evaluation. Other evaluation purposes that are not related to environmental objectives are excluded in this study.

The characteristics of the social elements become a challenging subject in meeting the environmental performance needs as they lean more towards intangible elements. The novelty of the findings is drawn from the new pattern and current needs of users' social characteristics in POE for environmental performance.

Whole building life cycle assessment (WBLCA) is a key methodology to reduce the environmental impacts in the building sector. Research studies usually face challenges in presenting comprehensive LCA results due to the complexity of assessments at the building level. There is a dearth of methods for the systematic evaluation and optimization of the WBLCA performance at the design stage. The study aims to develop a design optimization framework based on the proposed WBLCA method to evaluate and improve the environmental performance at the building level.

The WBLCA development method is proposed with detailed processes based on the EN 15978 standard. The environmental product declaration (EPD) methods were adopted to ensure the WBLCA is comprehensive and reliable. Building information modeling (BIM) was used to ensure the building materials and assembly contributions are accurate and provide dynamic material updates for the design optimization framework. Furthermore, the interactive BIM-LCA calculation processes were demonstrated for measuring the environmental impacts of design upgrades. The TOPSIS-based LCA results normalization was selected to conduct the comparisons of various building design upgrades.

The case study conducted for a residential building showed that the material embodied impacts and the operational energy use impacts are the two critical factors that contribute 60–90% of the total environmental impacts and resource uses. Concrete and wood are the main material types accounting for an average of 65% of the material embodied impacts. The air and water heating for the house are the main energy factors, as these account for over 80% of the operational energy use. Based on the original WBLCA results, two scenarios were established to improve building performance through the design optimization framework.

The LCA results show that the two upgraded building designs create an average of 5% reduction compared with the original building design and improving the thermal performance of the house with more insulation materials does not always reduce the WBLCA results. The proposed WBLCA method can be used to compare the building-level environmental performances with the similar building types. The proposed framework can be used to support building designers to effectively improve the WBLCA performance.

The survival of hotel business in maintaining market competitiveness depends on the constant improvement of the quality of hotel facilities and services. The key to sustain hotel business is lean on the adaptability of the hotel management team towards current lifestyle trends and its surrounding context in fulfilling customer satisfaction. Because of hotel operating service complexity, the hotel contributes a higher impact on environmental degradation in performing their daily activities. Therefore, hoteliers need to determine sustainable strategies to minimize environmental impact and at the same time be able to provide satisfaction to their customers. However, green initiatives require a proactive action by the organizational management engaging both employees and guests in the environmental management process. Thus, this paper aims to review the concept of green practices, the implementation of green practices from the stakeholders’ perspectives (manager, employee and customers) in the hotel industry, the performance impact from the green practices on the sustainability pillars and to further develop a conceptual green practice to sustainable hotel operations and performance impact.

This paper identified relevant empirical research that published in the recent 10 years from January 2012 to December 2021. The articles are searched through reputable databases such as Emerald, Elsevier and Taylor and Francis. The obtained data were screened preliminarily from 108 research papers. The post-screening process has finalized a total of 57 articles as the findings for this paper, where the themes were delineated to the attributes that need to implemented by the stakeholder in hotels industry, that is, manager’s perspectives, employee’s perspectives and customer’s perspectives.

The findings of this paper revealed that there are 27 attributes of green practices and initiatives for sustainable hotel operations from the manager perspectives (10 attributes – Green Marketing Strategy, Green Managerial Attitude, Eco-Innovation Investment, Marketing and Sustainability, Environmental Management Strategy, Green Supply Chain, Green Managerial Awareness, Green Procurement, Green Human Resources and Green Technology), employee perspectives (5 attributes – Employee Green Awareness, Employee Green Training and Educating, Employee Environmental Behaviour, Employee Green Performance and Employee Green Reward) and customer’s perspectives (12 attributes – Customer Perception, Customer Loyalty, Customer Awareness, Customer Behaviour, Customer Trust, Green Supply Chain, Green Value, Green Marketing Strategy, Customer Perceived Value, Service Quality, Brand Image and Hotel Design). All of the attributes are aligned to the performance effectiveness as the major concern in the hotel’s operations and impacted towards the sustainability pillars, environmental performance, economic performance and social performance. Sustainable practice in organization benefits the owners towards sustainable economic, environmental, socio-cultural and legal policy.

This review paper provides key elements of current green practices and sustainable initiatives for the hotel’s operations, as proactive measures. The novelty of the findings is to be able to convey valuable inputs to the relevant stakeholders (hotel’s owner, consultants, designers, maintenance officers, hoteliers, staffs, customers and end-users) in perceiving the elements of green practices into the preliminary planning of the hotel’s design. The review also helps to identify practices and measures to the performance impact to the hotel’s operations.

In order to establish sustainable development, there is a need to focus on solutions effectively improving environmental performance. Effectiveness is the product of significance and improvement potential. For buildings, the supporting structure is the predominant environmental load by materials, hence significant. The purpose of the studies presented in this paper is to determine the improvement potential of the supporting structure of buildings and explore other sustainable solutions effectively enhancing environmental performance.

For the same office layout, various combinations of structural components at different spans were studied. The environmental load of these variants was determined by means of an life cycle analysis (LCA)‐based model.

The studies presented in the paper demonstrated an environmental difference by a factor of 5 between the solutions performing worst and best. The optimal combination is the uncommon solution of TT‐slabs with timber beams and columns, expecting to establish an improvement factor of 4 with respect to common practice.

The findings of the studies presented suggest another way of building, with common structural components but whose combination is not common at present.

So far, sustainable building has not focused enough on effective solutions and has had little means to do so. Approaching the supporting structure of buildings rather than small, ineffective adaptations will significantly improve environmental building performance. An elaborate LCA of supporting structures had never been done before. The paper, on the one hand, rationalises sustainable building and, on the other hand, supports effective sustainable design.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate, by reference to practical examples, how leases of commercial buildings can be more responsive to environmental issues.

The paper explains how difficult it is within the structure and content of conventional leases to reduce the environmental impact of the tenanted commercial built environment. It explores the interplay between the content and structure of commercial leases and the behaviour of building owners, managers, tenants and occupants, illustrated through the experiences of a large Australian‐based commercial office building owner/operator.

With reference to practical examples it shows how conventional leases stifle innovation and illustrates the difficulties in drafting leases that enable a responsive approach to building management to be adopted. It shows how more fundamental changes that align and reward owners and tenants for working together for mutual benefit are required.

The paper presents a number of “model clauses” for encouraging best environmental practices and concludes with a suite of recommendations.

Although there have been conversations about green leases in recent years, there is little detailed evidence of their use in the marketplace. This paper remedies that deficiency by taking a case study approach that: illustrates the opportunities and difficulties in negotiating green leases; and shows how attempts to provide innovative building management can be hindered or supported by lease terms.

The assessment of building performance in terms of environmental impact and overall sustainability approach is carried out by several methods, different in terms of structure, application and parameters involved. A review of the most frequently used tools available at the moment is presented and a comparison of the tools in terms of general characteristics and environmental parameters is undertaken. Moreover, suggestions are made with regards to a future, easy to use, sustainable building Mediterranean assessment tool.

The methods are investigated in terms general parameters such as their applicability and also in terms of their primary environmental issues of concern involved. A comparative analysis is undertaken.

The investigation showed that none of the methods seem to incorporate all the parameters involved. Especially, the economic and social factors as well as comfort, which are all significant parameters directly involved to sustainability, are assessed only by half of the tools presented. The focus of the methods seems to be on issues regarding energy, landscape‐site, resources and quality of indoor environment.

The paper encourages the development of a more complete tool, which will include as many parameters as possible and would be applicable at a macro‐regional scale (e.g. the Mediterranean region).

The paper can be used as the starting point for future research as well as a reference paper.

The purpose of this research was twofold. First, to investigate the views of occupiers in a typical UK city on the importance of various sustainability issues, their perceived impact of different sustainability drivers and willingness to pay. Second, the environmental and social performance of existing buildings in that city was examined.

The research focuses on buildings of 10,000 feet² or more that have been constructed in the Bristol city‐region in the UK over the past 50 years. The buildings in the sample are located in the city centre and in out‐of‐town business parks. A questionnaire survey investigated the views of occupiers and follow‐up interviews looked more closely at the sustainability performance of the existing stock.

The findings indicate that, as far as occupiers are concerned, the strongest drivers are consumer demand and staff demand. Green features of a building appear to rank low in the overall building selection preference structure and a willingness to pay a premium for green features was indicated. The interviews uncovered barriers to progress as well as initiatives to reduce both energy consumption and the environmental impact of office space.

The paper identifies progress and issues which could form obstacles to improving the environmental performance of office buildings. It is argued that there is a need to focus on energy efficiency.

This paper explores the linkage between the perception and use of office space by occupants and how this affects the environmental performance of this space.

Recent reports based on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) have revealed that no country is in line with achieving the targets of the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development, with the slowest progress being witnessed mainly on goals that are focused on the environment. This study examines environmental performance indicators for assessing the sustainability of building projects.

The study uses an explanatory sequential design with an initial quantitative instrument phase, followed by a qualitative data collection phase. An extensive critical comparative review of the literature resulted in the identification of ten environmental sustainability indicators. One hundred and sixty-seven questionnaire responses based upon these indicators from the Ghanaian construction industry were received. Data were coded with SPSS v22, analysed descriptively, and via inferential analysis. These data were then validated through semi-structured interviews with six interviewees who are fellows of their respective professional bodies, a senior academic (professor in construction project delivery) and a government official. Data obtained from the semi-structured validation interviews were analysed through the side-by-side comparison of the qualitative data with the quantitative data.

The findings from the study suggest that all the indicators were important in assessing building projects' environmental sustainability across the entire life cycle. Key among the identified indicators is the effects of the project on “water quality, air quality, energy use and conservation, and environmental compliance and management”. The interviewees further agreed to and confirmed the importance of these identified indicators for assessing the environmental sustainability of building projects in Ghana.

Compared to existing studies, this study adopts the exploratory sequential design to identify and examine the critical indicators in assessing the environmental sustainability across the entire lifecycle of building projects in a typical developing country setting, i.e. Ghana. It reveals areas of prime concern in the drive to place the local construction industry on a trajectory towards achieving environmental sustainability.

The aim of this study is to identify and understand the role of facility services in the environmental performance of existing office buildings.

The study observes how a facilities management (FM) service provider develops its service processes to meet environmental efficiency objectives. The environmental objectives are adopted from a commonly used green building rating system. The developed processes and services are then analysed and tested against a case facility.

The results indicate that FM service processes have both direct and indirect influence on the building environmental performance metrics. The results show that, by relatively light changes and modifications to the FM service processes, quite extensive environmental benefits can be achieved.

The study is preliminary and the results are based on the single case study. Only one service provider was assessed. Moreover, the case study represents a situation where all FM services are provided by one service provider.

FM providers readily hold a great portion of the data required for green management. It can be argued that FM services play a central role in the environmental performance of an office building and FM organizations can significantly support client organizations in their efforts to minimize their total environmental impact.

The majority of carbon dioxide emissions caused by buildings are created during the operating phase of existing buildings. In other words, the way a building is managed and maintained has a major impact on the environmental performance of the building.

The study contributes to the discussion on the role of FM in climate change.