A more rigorous methodology for assessing building sustainability with a focus on life cycle activities

No other term has defined the past few years like ‘sustainability’. In general, sustainability is understood to imply an environmental, economic, social and trend-setting approach, and to have a specific significance with regard to real estate. After all, a major share of the energy consumed in Germany is used to build and operate buildings, with Germans spending an average 90 per cent of their lifetime indoors. Unlike what would be expected, however, it has not become standard practice to secure the environmental, economic and social sustainability of buildings into the long term, meaning across the entire real estate life cycle and through the stages of planning, construction and use. While systems and valuation standards do exist that make the sustainability of a given building quantifiable, these too treat its useful life as if it was of secondary importance. So the question presents itself as to the significance of service life for the sustainability of buildings. During this stage, no one has more influence on sustainability than facility managers because they are, after all, responsible for a building's ongoing operation. Accordingly, they are the ones who have to implement the statutory requirements concerning energy efficiency of buildings on the ground, and who bring more experience than anyone else to the job. It is important to define general sustainability criteria and to clarify whether these may be influenced through professional facility management. To this end, individual work processes need to be matched with certain criteria in order to render the service provider's sustainability impact quantifiable. This has been done only to a certain degree so far. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the valuation options available to facility management with regard to sustainability while illustrating the importance of taking a holistic view.