Energy analysis of the built environment—A review and outlook

The built environment is responsible for significant use of final energy (62%) and is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions (55%). Achieving environmental goals, including climate change mitigation, requires comprehensive methodologies to accurately assess the impacts from this sector. Research to date focuses on either individual buildings or on the urban level (e.g., metropolitan regions). Robust and accurate methodologies have been developed to quantify environmental impacts at both scales. While methodologies overlap between the building and urban levels, assessment remains largely confined within each scale. At the building level, research focuses on materials, architectural design, operational systems, structural systems, construction, and analysis methods. At the urban scale, urban form, density, transportation, infrastructure, consumption, and analysis methods are the main research focuses. The paper presents the major findings at each scale. The work then argues for an expanded analysis framework to account for the interplay between the building and city level captured through a new impact category: induced impacts. This new framework is necessary to address actual patterns of construction (new buildings or retrofits within existing cities) and to quantify currently missing impacts. Based on the findings, a new methodology to capture induced impacts in the built environment is outlined. Finally, practical and policy implications are discussed. Inclusion of induced impacts is critical to achieve environmental objectives within the building sector and beyond.