Environmental indicators for buildings:A search for common language. Ph.D. thesis

Whenever we shop, the products we consider buying are labelled with the economical price we have to pay if we want to purchase them - an important parameter in our decisions as purchasers. The increrasing awareness for environmental limits and backlashes of human activities also in the building sector have fostered the wish to define 'the ecological price' of a building as a help for environmental conscious decision-making. In a social constructivist approach this Ph.D. thesis looks across and beyond the manifold existing approaches for environmental indicators for buildings. It acknowledges that among the relevant actors in the building sector the scientific view is only one perspective among others. This study combines natural-scientific knowledge with social-scientific knowledge, obtained in a close co-operation with actors in the building sector in Denmark and a research period in the Netherlands. It identifies lines of conflict and areas of consent betweeen the relevant actors and elaborates scenarios for a possible closure of ongoing debate about environmental indicators for buildings.