Green Building Certification Schemes and their Perspectives on District Heating
(2012) MGTN04 20121Department of Business Administration
- Abstract
- Background: There has been a recent global movement toward certification of “green” buildings. The Sweden Green Building Council currently supports four sustainable building certification schemes: LEED, BREEAM, Miljöbyggnad, and GreenBuilding. These systems use widely disparate criteria to assess building sustainability and are adopted at differing rates within the nation. They are also constantly evolving. As a result, divergent perspectives on a certain technology, district heating, have emerged within each scheme. E.ON Sverige AB, a major utility company, is a provider of district heating, and whether or not popular certification schemes look favorably upon it as a sustainable technology will have consequences for the firm’s business... (More)
- Background: There has been a recent global movement toward certification of “green” buildings. The Sweden Green Building Council currently supports four sustainable building certification schemes: LEED, BREEAM, Miljöbyggnad, and GreenBuilding. These systems use widely disparate criteria to assess building sustainability and are adopted at differing rates within the nation. They are also constantly evolving. As a result, divergent perspectives on a certain technology, district heating, have emerged within each scheme. E.ON Sverige AB, a major utility company, is a provider of district heating, and whether or not popular certification schemes look favorably upon it as a sustainable technology will have consequences for the firm’s business interests.
Purpose: (1) To identify current energy-related certification criteria within each of the four schemes that affect the assessment of eligibility of district heating technology for credit toward certification. (2) To predict the evolution of those schemes’ certification criteria approximately three years into the future. (3) To explain how the evolution of the schemes affects E.ON’s district heating business interests. (4) To identify opportunities for Sweden to increase usage of certification systems which have wider perspectives conducive to district heating.
Method: Data were collected via two methods. First, expert interviews with relevant industry professionals, leaders, and researchers were conducted by project members following a semi-structured method. Second, a desktop study, or literature review, was undertaken of scholarly journals, editorial articles, numerical data, and industry publications. Conclusions were ascertained from the research by identification of relevant trends and judgments verified by the quality and plurality of sources.
Conclusions: The two schemes which are most popular in Sweden (Miljöbyggnad and GreenBuilding) certify buildings primarily upon the concept of purchased energy, which results in a narrower perspective that disincentivizes district heating. By instead widening the focus of the national paradigm toward lowering carbon dioxide emissions rather than solely judging purchased energy consumption, and by making complex schemes more accessible, Sweden may see increased adoption of certification schemes which are more favorable toward district heating (LEED and BREEAM), and E.ON Sverige may strengthen their business position. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/2607284
- author
- Ali, Waqas ; Curatolo, Marie LU ; Hidalgo, Isabel and Lanyon, Ryan
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- MGTN04 20121
- year
- 2012
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- Sustainability, Certification, LEED, BREEAM, Miljöbyggnad, GreenBuilding, District Heating, Sweden, Green Building, Energy
- language
- English
- id
- 2607284
- date added to LUP
- 2012-06-29 10:48:36
- date last changed
- 2012-06-29 10:48:36
@misc{2607284,
abstract = {{Background: There has been a recent global movement toward certification of “green” buildings. The Sweden Green Building Council currently supports four sustainable building certification schemes: LEED, BREEAM, Miljöbyggnad, and GreenBuilding. These systems use widely disparate criteria to assess building sustainability and are adopted at differing rates within the nation. They are also constantly evolving. As a result, divergent perspectives on a certain technology, district heating, have emerged within each scheme. E.ON Sverige AB, a major utility company, is a provider of district heating, and whether or not popular certification schemes look favorably upon it as a sustainable technology will have consequences for the firm’s business interests.
Purpose: (1) To identify current energy-related certification criteria within each of the four schemes that affect the assessment of eligibility of district heating technology for credit toward certification. (2) To predict the evolution of those schemes’ certification criteria approximately three years into the future. (3) To explain how the evolution of the schemes affects E.ON’s district heating business interests. (4) To identify opportunities for Sweden to increase usage of certification systems which have wider perspectives conducive to district heating.
Method: Data were collected via two methods. First, expert interviews with relevant industry professionals, leaders, and researchers were conducted by project members following a semi-structured method. Second, a desktop study, or literature review, was undertaken of scholarly journals, editorial articles, numerical data, and industry publications. Conclusions were ascertained from the research by identification of relevant trends and judgments verified by the quality and plurality of sources.
Conclusions: The two schemes which are most popular in Sweden (Miljöbyggnad and GreenBuilding) certify buildings primarily upon the concept of purchased energy, which results in a narrower perspective that disincentivizes district heating. By instead widening the focus of the national paradigm toward lowering carbon dioxide emissions rather than solely judging purchased energy consumption, and by making complex schemes more accessible, Sweden may see increased adoption of certification schemes which are more favorable toward district heating (LEED and BREEAM), and E.ON Sverige may strengthen their business position.}},
author = {{Ali, Waqas and Curatolo, Marie and Hidalgo, Isabel and Lanyon, Ryan}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Green Building Certification Schemes and their Perspectives on District Heating}},
year = {{2012}},
}