Analyzing LEED Scoring System Based on the Priorities in Urban Housing Sustainability Literature

Abstract

There are several tools developed to evaluate the sustainability of buildings, some of which are used internationally. However, their efficiency has been questioned. Several research studies these Sustainability Assessment Tools (SAT) from various perspectives. Nevertheless, only a few have studied the prioritization of SAT indicators based on the recent literature. Paying special attention to urban housing, this research follows the method and data from two previous investigations (parts of the same project) to evaluate the prioritization of credits used in LEED v4 for Homes Design and Construction, one of the most advanced and internationally adopted certificates for urban housing, to see to what extent its scoring system (i.e., the points that are assigned to its credits) is aligned with the priorities existing in the recent literature related to urban housing sustainability. The data from a systematic review of 118 Scopus-indexed papers are used. The results highlight significant differences in the prioritization of factors between the LEED evaluation system and the recent literature. It is suggested to complement this evaluation with the priorities existing in other world-scale urban housing assessment methods (e.g., lifecycle assessments) to have a comprehensive overview of the optimal prioritization of indicators for international SATs.

Keywords

• sustainable urban housing
• sustainability assessment tools
• green building rating system
• leed certificate