Hospital Building Sustainability: The Experience in using Qualitative Tools and Steps Towards the Life Cycle Approach

With the rising worldwide sustainability trends, the healthcare industry is encouraged for philosophical, societal and economic reasons to implement the “greening movement” in its practice. Consequently, this move has resulted in the development of several sustainability certification tools focusing on healthcare settings. Among the best known ones are BREEAM, LEED and Green Guide for Healthcare. Their ease of use, holistic approach and possibility of implementation from the early-design phase, have made them very attractive among different building practitioners. Yet, their subjectivity in the assessment approach, leaves a doubt whether the use of these schemes leads to truly sustainable buildings. This has led to an increased awareness among building practitioners that the qualitative tools to assess the sustainability of their projects are not sufficient. The same questions on the sustainability of hospitals arose in the Flemish healthcare sector as well. On-going development of the Duurzaamheidsmeter zorg, a qualitative tool adapted for the Flemish context, aims at helping building practitioners in assessing the sustainability of their hospital projects. However, urban planners and architects who had the opportunity of using it, reported some disadvantages and shortcomings. A need is identified to develop a more reliable sustainability assessment method based on a quantitative approach. This paper elaborates the first step in the research, analyzing the building professionals' experiences in using sustainability assessment tools on hospital facilities in Flanders. Their feedback is translated into a SWOT analysis which identifies the professionals' expectations of an assessment method. The results are seen as valuable directions to consider when developing an evaluation method from a life cycle thinking perspective.