In the heart of China’s bustling construction industry, a groundbreaking study led by Chi Zhang from the School of Civil Engineering and Architecture at Wuhan Institute of Technology is set to redefine how we evaluate green buildings. Published in the journal *Buildings* (which translates to “Buildings” in English), this research tackles the pressing need for a more comprehensive and dynamic green building evaluation system, one that truly reflects the smart technologies shaping our future.
The current green building assessment systems, while robust in areas like energy conservation and environmental protection, often fall short in integrating smart technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Building Information Modeling (BIM). This gap is particularly evident in non-civilian building fields, where domestic standards lag behind international counterparts like LEED and BREEAM. Chi Zhang and his team aimed to bridge this divide, focusing on the quantitative assessment of smart technologies within China’s green building evaluation standards.
“Our goal was to create a system that not only evaluates traditional green aspects but also captures the essence of smart technologies,” Zhang explained. “We wanted to ensure that the evaluation system is dynamic, adaptable, and truly reflective of the technological advancements in the construction industry.”
The research team employed the Delphi method to determine the basic framework of the evaluation indicator system, drawing on international experiences and contextualizing them within China’s standards. They systematically integrated secondary indicators such as “smart security,” “smart energy,” “smart design,” and “smart services,” constructing dual-drive evaluation dimensions of “greenization + smartization.” This approach elevated the proportion of the smartization dimension to 35%, addressing a significant gap in domestic standards.
To balance subjective and objective weights and reduce biases, the team used a combined weighting method that incorporated the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the entropy weight method. “By integrating the grey clustering model with the whitening weight function, we were able to handle fuzzy information more effectively,” Zhang noted. “This allowed us to categorize evaluations into four grey levels (D/C/B/A), enhancing the dynamic adaptability of the system.”
The case study of Project A demonstrated the effectiveness of the new evaluation system. Project A achieved a comprehensive evaluation score of 5.223, with a grade of B. Notably, smart-related indicators such as “smart energy” (37.17%) and “smart design” (37.93%) scored significantly higher than traditional indicators, verifying that the system successfully captured the project’s high performance in smart indicators.
The implications of this research are profound for the energy sector and the construction industry at large. As the world grapples with energy shortages and carbon emissions, the efficient utilization of resources has become a core goal of green buildings. The evaluation system constructed in this study provides theoretical guidance and technical support for the promotion, industrial upgrading, and sustainable development of green buildings, including non-civilian buildings, under the dual-carbon goals.
“Our system’s characteristic of ‘dynamic monitoring + smart integration’ forms a differentiated complementarity with international standards,” Zhang said. “It is more aligned with the needs of China’s intelligent transformation of buildings.”
As the construction industry continues to evolve, this research paves the way for a more holistic and adaptive approach to evaluating green buildings. By integrating smart technologies and dynamic monitoring, the system not only supports the energy sector’s goals but also sets a new standard for sustainable and intelligent construction practices worldwide.