Development of a Greenlandic sustainable index for residential buildings

Globally, there has been a rising focus on improving the sustainability of buildings. Reaching zero net greenhouse gas emissions or producing excess renewable energy throughout the entire lifetime of a building is now clearly possible and certainly worth aiming for. However, in remote Nordic regions like Greenland, current building practices are so far away from these targets that setting intermediary goals is the only option for moving forward in the construction industry. Besides, remote Nordic regions are facing different challenges that are not considered into current building certification schemes, making some practices that can be highly sustainable in some regions inapplicable or even detrimental there. It would be highly desirable to have a certification scheme more accessible for improving current building practices in remote Nordic regions. For a sustainability index to be widely adopted in such a context, it should be relatively simple and straightforward to implement. This contribution presents the Greenlandic Sustainable Index (GSI) for residential buildings, which was developed with the goal to be simple to implement while being ambitious in terms of level of performance. This index is composed of three main categories: Economical, Social and Environmental sustainability. (paper)