Sustainability and fire safety decisions in the design process : Overview and two Swedish building projects
Wetterqvist, Cecilia LU ; Meacham, Brian LU
and McNamee, Margaret
LU
(2026)
In Fire Safety Journal
162.
- Abstract
The world faces a shared challenge in slowing climate change and mitigating its effects. As part of addressing this challenge, innovation is driving regulatory and non-regulatory building development, product advancement and research aimed at delivering a more sustainable built environment. However, the built environment also needs to be resilient to a wide range of hazards. Sustainability and resilience objectives can unintentionally be in conflict. The problem is exacerbated when sustainability and resilience decisions are made at different stages in the building planning and design process, which could result in costly changes at the end of a project, or in unintended hazards and risks being present in the final product. This paper... (More)
The world faces a shared challenge in slowing climate change and mitigating its effects. As part of addressing this challenge, innovation is driving regulatory and non-regulatory building development, product advancement and research aimed at delivering a more sustainable built environment. However, the built environment also needs to be resilient to a wide range of hazards. Sustainability and resilience objectives can unintentionally be in conflict. The problem is exacerbated when sustainability and resilience decisions are made at different stages in the building planning and design process, which could result in costly changes at the end of a project, or in unintended hazards and risks being present in the final product. This paper illustrates how decisions arising from climate-related objectives could affect fire safety design and how these challenges are addressed during different design phases in the building design process. It shows how many challenges can be resolved by applying a more holistic, interconnected approach to sustainable and fire resilient design of buildings, as envisioned by the SAFR-B framework. Stakeholder influences, regulatory and private sector constraints are overviewed from a Swedish perspective, and two building projects are used to illustrate unintended outcomes that result from the existing lack of a holistic approach.
(Less)
- author
- Wetterqvist, Cecilia
LU
; Meacham, Brian
LU
and McNamee, Margaret
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2026-07
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Bio-based materials, Building design, Decision-making, Fire safety, Life cycle thinking, Mass timber, Sustainability
- in
- Fire Safety Journal
- volume
- 162
- article number
- 104667
- publisher
- Elsevier
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105032507748
- ISSN
- 0379-7112
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.firesaf.2026.104667
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2026. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
- id
- 72dac93d-c865-47a1-ab1c-ac89ed8cf670
- date added to LUP
- 2026-05-04 16:03:05
- date last changed
- 2026-05-04 16:04:15
@article{72dac93d-c865-47a1-ab1c-ac89ed8cf670,
abstract = {{<p>The world faces a shared challenge in slowing climate change and mitigating its effects. As part of addressing this challenge, innovation is driving regulatory and non-regulatory building development, product advancement and research aimed at delivering a more sustainable built environment. However, the built environment also needs to be resilient to a wide range of hazards. Sustainability and resilience objectives can unintentionally be in conflict. The problem is exacerbated when sustainability and resilience decisions are made at different stages in the building planning and design process, which could result in costly changes at the end of a project, or in unintended hazards and risks being present in the final product. This paper illustrates how decisions arising from climate-related objectives could affect fire safety design and how these challenges are addressed during different design phases in the building design process. It shows how many challenges can be resolved by applying a more holistic, interconnected approach to sustainable and fire resilient design of buildings, as envisioned by the SAFR-B framework. Stakeholder influences, regulatory and private sector constraints are overviewed from a Swedish perspective, and two building projects are used to illustrate unintended outcomes that result from the existing lack of a holistic approach.</p>}},
author = {{Wetterqvist, Cecilia and Meacham, Brian and McNamee, Margaret}},
issn = {{0379-7112}},
keywords = {{Bio-based materials; Building design; Decision-making; Fire safety; Life cycle thinking; Mass timber; Sustainability}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{Elsevier}},
series = {{Fire Safety Journal}},
title = {{Sustainability and fire safety decisions in the design process : Overview and two Swedish building projects}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.firesaf.2026.104667}},
doi = {{10.1016/j.firesaf.2026.104667}},
volume = {{162}},
year = {{2026}},
}