Research Paper: Sustainability and resiliency objectives in performance building regulations

Building regulatory agencies worldwide are grappling with how to define and implement appropriate mandatory and voluntary measures for new and existing buildings that address societal and political demands for increased environmental and resource sustainability and resiliency to the effects of climate change without lessening the historical building regulatory focus on health, safety and welfare of building occupants. It can be argued that a transition from prescriptive to performance-based building regulatory regimes, coupled with the introduction of new policy objectives for sustainability and resiliency, in a rather short period of time, without full assessment of how they interact with existing building regulatory objectives, and without broadly agreed holistic solutions, has led to the introduction of new objectives that have the potential to result in increased hazards and risks to occupants. To explore the current situation and future needs associated with performance building regulatory regimes and the inclusion of sustainability and resiliency objectives for new and existing buildings, the literature was reviewed and a survey of building regulatory bodies and institutions in 12 countries was conducted to obtain perspectives on whether and how sustainability and resiliency objectives are being incorporated into their building regulations and if any challenges have been identified.