Modeling the Effect of Building Stakeholder Interactions on Value Perception of Sustainable Retrofits

AbstractAlignment among building stakeholders is necessary to ensure that sustainable retrofits achieve the purpose of maximizing economic, environmental, and social value of the building. However, dynamic stakeholder opinions and value maximization perceptions result in conflicting requirements that hinder the adoption of truly sustainable retrofit decision. This paper uses an agent-based model to understand how social network interactions can help stakeholders with different characteristics prioritize their values on cost awareness, energy saving, and organizational performance to ultimately come up with an optimal retrofit decision for a commercial office building. Experimental analysis is used to qualitatively validate the model against results from other studies in literature. The results indicate that highly connected network structures can facilitate the interaction between the stakeholders to achieve alignment. In addition, networks with highly confident stakeholders typically hinder agreement, wh...

[1]  Stefan Olander,et al.  Evaluation of stakeholder influence in the implementation of construction projects , 2005 .

[2]  K. Williams,et al.  What is stopping sustainable building in England? Barriers experienced by stakeholders in delivering sustainable developments , 2007 .

[3]  Carol C. Menassa,et al.  Impact of Social Network Type and Structure on Modeling Normative Energy Use Behavior Interventions , 2014, J. Comput. Civ. Eng..

[4]  E. Sacchi,et al.  Air Quality Monitoring at Historic Sites: Redefining an Environmental Classification System for Gaseous Pollution , 2005 .

[5]  Emmanuel Rey,et al.  Office building retrofitting strategies: multicriteria approach of an architectural and technical issue , 2004 .

[6]  Hazhir Rahmandad,et al.  Heterogeneity and Network Structure in the Dynamics of Diffusion: Comparing Agent-Based and Differential Equation Models , 2004, Manag. Sci..

[7]  Annie R. Pearce,et al.  Sustainability in Public Facilities: Analysis of Guidance Documents , 2003 .

[8]  Charles J. Kibert,et al.  Sustainable Construction : Green Building Design and Delivery , 2005 .

[9]  Tadj Oreszczyn,et al.  Challenges for energy and buildings research: objectives, methods and funding mechanisms , 2010 .

[10]  Guillaume Deffuant,et al.  Mixing beliefs among interacting agents , 2000, Adv. Complex Syst..

[11]  R. Judkoff,et al.  Lessons Learned from Case Studies of Six High-Performance Buildings , 2006 .

[12]  M. C. Jensen.  Value Maximization, Stakeholder Theory, and the Corporate Objective Function* , 2001, Business Ethics Quarterly.

[13]  Elena G. Dascalaki,et al.  On the potential of retrofitting scenarios for offices , 2002 .

[14]  Grace K C Ding,et al.  Sustainable construction--the role of environmental assessment tools. , 2008, Journal of environmental management.

[15]  Elie Azar,et al.  Framework to Evaluate Energy-Saving Potential from Occupancy Interventions in Typical Commercial Buildings in the United States , 2014, J. Comput. Civ. Eng..

[16]  Kush R. Varshney.  Opinion dynamics with bounded confidence in the Bayes risk error divergence sense , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing.

[17]  Judith H. Heerwagen,et al.  Green buildings, organizational success and occupant productivity , 2000 .

[18]  M. C. Jensen.  Value Maximisation, Stakeholder Theory, and the Corporate Objective Function , 2001 .

[19]  Guillaume Deffuant,et al.  How can extremism prevail? A study based on the relative agreement interaction model , 2002, J. Artif. Soc. Soc. Simul..

[20]  Peng Gao,et al.  A hybrid decision support system for sustainable office building renovation and energy performance improvement , 2010 .

[21]  Jerry Yudelson,et al.  Greening Existing Buildings , 2009 .

[22]  Jan Lorenz,et al.  Continuous Opinion Dynamics under Bounded Confidence: A Survey , 2007, 0707.1762.

[23]  Elie Azar,et al.  Agent-Based Modeling of Occupants and Their Impact on Energy Use in Commercial Buildings , 2012, J. Comput. Civ. Eng..

[24]  Rainer Hegselmann,et al.  Opinion dynamics and bounded confidence: models, analysis and simulation , 2002, J. Artif. Soc. Soc. Simul..

[25]  César A. Hidalgo,et al.  Scale-free networks , 2008, Scholarpedia.

[26]  Andreas Uihlein,et al.  Options to reduce the environmental impacts of residential buildings in the European Union—Potential and costs , 2010 .

[27]  Ian McCulloh,et al.  Social networks and spatial configuration - How office layouts drive social interaction , 2012, Soc. Networks.

[28]  D. Watts.  Networks, Dynamics, and the Small‐World Phenomenon1 , 1999, American Journal of Sociology.

[29]  Xiao Fan Wang,et al.  Complex Networks: Topology, Dynamics and Synchronization , 2002, Int. J. Bifurc. Chaos.

[30]  Åsa Svenfelt,et al.  Decreasing energy use in buildings by 50% by 2050 — A backcasting study using stakeholder groups , 2011 .

[31]  Umberto Berardi,et al.  Stakeholders’ influence on the adoption of energy-saving technologies in Italian homes , 2013 .

[32]  Guillaume Deffuant,et al.  Meet, discuss, and segregate! , 2002, Complex..

[33]  A. Wicks,et al.  Managing for Stakeholders , 2008 .

[34]  John E. Taylor,et al.  Simulating Learning Dynamics in Project Networks , 2009 .

[35]  Christopher Kennedy,et al.  Comparing life cycle implications of building retrofit and replacement options , 2005 .

[36]  Sam Kubba.  Chapter 2 – Elements of Green Design and Construction , 2010 .

[37]  John E. Taylor,et al.  Response–relapse patterns of building occupant electricity consumption following exposure to personal, contextualized and occupant peer network utilization data , 2010 .

[38]  Mark Gaterell,et al.  The impact of energy externalities on the cost effectiveness of energy efficiency measures applied to dwellings , 2005 .

[39]  Mark E. J. Newman,et al.  The Structure and Function of Complex Networks , 2003, SIAM Rev..

[40]  Eliot R. Smith,et al.  Situating Social Influence Processes: Dynamic, Multidirectional Flows of Influence Within Social Networks , 2007, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[41]  Timothy F.H. Allen,et al.  Applying the principles of ecological emergence to building design and construction , 2003 .

[42]  Theodoros Theodosiou,et al.  Feasibility of energy saving renovation measures in urban buildings. The impact of energy prices and the acceptable pay back time criterion , 2002 .

[43]  Guillaume Deffuant,et al.  Interacting Agents and Continuous Opinions Dynamics , 2001, cond-mat/0111494.

[44]  Robert G. Sargent,et al.  Verification, validation and accreditation of simulation models , 2000, 2000 Winter Simulation Conference Proceedings (Cat. No.00CH37165).

[45]  Carol C. Menassa,et al.  Evaluating sustainable retrofits in existing buildings under uncertainty , 2011 .

[46]  Laurie Buys,et al.  Retrofitting Commercial Office Buildings for Sustainability: Tenants' Perspectives , 2008 .

[47]  Ali F. Alajmi.  Energy audit of an educational building in a hot summer climate , 2012 .

[48]  Suzanne M. Carter.  The Interaction of Top Management Group, Stakeholder, and Situational Factors on Certain Corporate Reputation Management Activities , 2006 .

[49]  Chimay J. Anumba,et al.  Collaborative design of structures using intelligent agents , 2002 .

[50]  Nabil Kartam,et al.  Design--build pre-qualification and tendering approach for public projects , 2005 .

[51]  S.Robert Hastings,et al.  Breaking the “heating barrier”: Learning from the first houses without conventional heating , 2004 .

[52]  John E. Taylor,et al.  Modeling building occupant network energy consumption decision-making: The interplay between network structure and conservation , 2012 .

[53]  Jan Lorenz,et al.  Repeated Averaging and Bounded Confidence Modeling, Analysis and Simulation of Continuous Opinion Dynamics (Wiederholtes Mitteln bei beschränktem VertrauenModellierung, Analyse und Simulation von kontinuierlicher Meinungsdynamik) , 2007 .

[54]  Warren L. Paul,et al.  A comparison of occupant comfort and satisfaction between a green building and a conventional building , 2008 .

[55]  Hjh Jos Brouwers,et al.  Evaluation of energy performance indicators and financial aspects of energy saving techniques in residential real estate , 2010 .

[56]  Michael J. North,et al.  Tutorial on agent-based modelling and simulation , 2005, Proceedings of the Winter Simulation Conference, 2005..

[57]  Edward Morofsky,et al.  A screening methodology for implementing cost effective energy retrofit measures in Canadian office , 2011 .

[58]  R. Newcombe,et al.  From client to project stakeholders: a stakeholder mapping approach , 2003 .

[59]  Aubrey L. Mendelow,et al.  Environmental Scanning-The Impact of the Stakeholder Concept , 1981, ICIS.

[60]  Carol C. Menassa,et al.  A framework to assess the role of stakeholders in sustainable building retrofit decisions , 2014 .

[61]  Joseph Fiksel,et al.  The quest for sustainability: Challenges for process systems engineering , 2003 .

[62]  Richard Whittington,et al.  Exploring Corporate Strategy , 1988 .

[63]  SangHyun Lee,et al.  Effects of Workers’ Social Learning: Focusing on Absence Behavior , 2013 .

[64]  Sevastianos Mirasgedis,et al.  Mitigating CO2 emissions from energy use in the world's buildings , 2007 .

[65]  Simone de Colle,et al.  Stakeholder Theory: The State of the Art , 2010 .

[66]  John H. Scofield,et al.  Do LEED-certified buildings save energy? Not really… , 2009 .

[67]  Oscar Ortiz,et al.  Sustainability in the construction industry: A review of recent developments based on LCA , 2009 .

[68]  Arthur Christian Nelson,et al.  Leadership in a New Era: Comment on “Planning Leadership in a New Era” , 2006 .

[69]  Robert Lowe,et al.  Defining and meeting the carbon constraints of the 21st century , 2000 .

[70]  A. Borshchev,et al.  From System Dynamics and Discrete Event to Practical Agent Based Modeling : Reasons , Techniques , Tools , 2004 .

[71]  Constantinos A. Balaras,et al.  Energy performance assessment of existing dwellings , 2007 .

[72]  Maria Kolokotroni,et al.  Alternative energy technologies in buildings: Stakeholder perceptions , 2007 .