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GREENCALC+
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the website about GreenCalc+. GreenCalc+ is the successor
of the GreenCalc software, which was first introduced in 1997. It has
been
thoroughly renewed. It is now possible to evaluate not only office
buildings,
but also schools, health centers, stores and even entire urban
development
projects.
In
the GreenCalc+
methodology buildings and urban developments can be assessed with
respect to
four sustainability aspects: material use, energy use, water use and
mobility.
For each aspect GreenCalc+ calculates the environmental damage caused
by the
building during its life-span, based on life cycle analysis (LCA). The
environmental impacts of each aspect can then be combined into a total
environmental impact of the building.
Environmental-index
Successively,
the total
environmental impact of the building can be compared with the impact of
a
reference building. This reference uses materials and installations
which were
common in 1990. The result of this comparison is the so called
environmental
index. Thus, a building from 1990 has an index of 100. A
‘sustainable’
building nowadays has an environmental index of between 150 and 300.
The higher
the figure, the more sustainable the building is. There is a
distinction made between two indices:
Environmental-
index management (in Dutch: Milieu-Index Bedrijfsvoering
(MIB)):
comparison
of the designed building (including "factual" use of the building) with
an automatically generated reference-building. This gives the quality
of the building including user.
Environmental-
index building (in Dutch= Milieu-Index Gebouw (MIG)):
comparison of the designed building (with standard use of the
building) with an automatically generated reference-building. This
gives the quality of the building independent of the user.
Design and
decision support tool
The
environmental index
can be used to define the environmental ambitions of a project in one
single
figure, as part of the building specifications. This gives a high
degree of
freedom of design for the architect to choose different solutions. This
is a significant
improvement, as compared to previous approaches in The Netherlands,
where architects
only had a choice from long lists of previously defined measures.
During the
design stage and the construction phase, for each decision it can
easily be
evaluated whether or not the project still meets the initial
environmental
ambitions.
It
is also possible to
compare different versions of one building during the design stage.
GreenCalc+
works as a decision support tool, as it becomes clear which types of
solutions
have the highest impact on the total sustainability level of the
building.
Apart
from the
environmental index of the entire building, the results can also be
viewed for
each separate aspect, e.g. energy or materials. All environmental
impacts are
calculated, like ozone layer depletion, acidification, CO2-emissions
etc. It is possible to export the results to Excel, so the can be
further
processed.
In order to simplify the input of the building information, GreenCalc+
includes a Wizard. Using this Wizard, a complete building can be
introduced in five easy steps within a few minutes. This leads to a
significant reduction of the costs of data input.
GreenCalc+ uses
generally accepted standards for its calculations, thus avoiding
discussions about the outcomes of the calculations.
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