Defining the reference for environmental performance

Publisher Summary Sustainability has become an important new performance factor in the overall quality of building design. The assessment of government offices shows the environmental performance of common offices is far behind the target to achieve Factor 20 environmental improvements in 2040. The most important part of a building comparison based on environmental indices is the definition of the reference, of which there are three different types—design reference, gfs reference, and fte reference. This chapter presents the case study showing that the choice of a reference is stipulating for the results and their interpretation. All index types retrieved from application of the different references are useful in environmental assessments of buildings. As a follow-up of the government office buildings assessment the average environmental load per m 2 or per fte can be deducted and applied as a reference performance demand in the nearby future. This performance per employee enables an easy fixation of the reference environmental load of a whole office organization, apart from the chosen office concept, building design, and applied technology. The principal and architect can use it for improving the environmental quality of their project and society can deduct the achieved factor of improvement towards sustainability.