An Architect's Guide to Designing for Sustainability - Part One
To better understand the concepts that are included in this document, some key terminology most often found is included below.
Ecological deficit – the amount by which the Ecological Footprint of a population exceeds the biological capacity of the space available to that population. The national ecological deficit measures the amount by which the country’s footprint (plus the country’s share of biodiversity responsibility) exceeds the ecological capacity of that nation.
Ecological footprint – a measure of how much productive land and water an individual, a city, a country, or humanity requires to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb all the waste it generates, using prevailing technology. This land could be anywhere in the world. The Ecological Footprint is measured in ‘global acres [hectares]’.
Embodied energy – the energy used during its entire life cycle for manufacturing, transporting, using and disposing.
Environmental responsibility – as outlined in Agenda 21 is: “the responsible and ethical management of products and processes from the point of view of health, safety and environmental aspects. Towards this end, business and industry should increase self-regulation, guided by appropriate codes, charters and initiatives integrated into all elements of business planning and decision-making, and fostering openness and dialogue with employees and the public.”
Overshoot – the situation when human demand exceeds nature’s supply at the local, national or global scale. According to William Catton, it is “growth beyond an area’s carrying capacity, leading to crash.”
Precautionary approach – the essence of the precautionary approach is given in Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration, which states; “where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”
Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) – is “a structured, proactive process to strengthen the role of environmental issues in strategic decision making” (Tonk and Verheem, 1998). SEA aims to integrate environmental (biophysical, social and economic) considerations into the earliest stages of policy, plan and programme development (Sadler, 1995). It is therefore a process of integrating the concept of sustainability into strategic decision-making.
Waste factor – the ratio between the quantity of prime resource compared to the quantity of output.
Whole building – represents a method of siting, designing, equipment and material selection, financing, construction and long-term operation that takes into account the complex nature of buildings and user requirements, and treats the overall building as an integrated system of interacting components.[19]
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