Principles of assessment and improvement of construction systems environmental sustainability in Iran (By Life cycle Numerical Parametric Measurement Approach)

Abstract Today, due to the rapid growth of population, development of the construction industry is a necessity. All around the world, new subjects such as sustainable development, environmental pollution, conservation of resources, and reduction of CO2 emission have become the most important research topics among the scientific societies. In recent years, especially after 1997, new tools were invented to assess the building environmental impacts, including total life cycle, from production to demolition. National regulation of the buildings in Iran has a complete chapter on how to calculate and control energy consumption of the buildings during their operation phase, but unfortunately, construction and demolition phases are totally neglected. Absence of a practical regulation to control unpleasant impacts of the construction and demolition phases of a building could cause unsustainable development, as a silent crisis is currently happening and is going to appear in next decades when the buildings gradually reach the final phase of their life cycles. This paper will try to draw a framework for assessment of the environmental impacts of buildings during their entire life cycle using the ISO standards for life cycle assessment (LCA). According to this framework and by defining and measuring the numerical parameters representing the building environmental sustainability, it would be possible to compile regulations to estimate the optimum limit of these parameters and to keep them in a limited range. By doing so, it would be possible to provide for the current generation's needs without compromising the ability of the future generations to provide for their needs. This is an abstract meaning of sustainability itself.