Eco-costs evaluation for the optimal design of buildings with lower environmental impact

At present, most products and processes are optimised according only to their economic performance and disregarding environmental aspects. To promote a more sustainable economy, however, the environmental performance should be accounted for in the analysis. The prevalent method to include the environmental impact as a key aspect in decision-making relies on the use of multi-objective optimisation. Following this approach, the environmental and the economic performance are quantified separately as two different objectives, and the final result is given by a set of Pareto optimal solutions. In this study, we resort to eco-costs, a method that translates the environmental impact of a product or activity into monetary units, which can then be incorporated explicitly into the economic performance assessment. Hence, a unique optimal solution is attained, thereby avoiding the task of deciding among different optimal alternatives. The approach presented is illustrated through a case study where we test the eco-costs capabilities in the building sector. The objective is to optimise the thermal insulation of a building envelope in different climate zones. Our approach identifies building solutions that improve significantly the environmental performance at a marginal increase in cost. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.