Environmental sustainability assessment tools for low carbon and climate resilient low income housing settlements

Reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions throughout the building lifecycle and climate vulnerability have recently become important environmental concerns in the development of low income housing. To address these concerns, several sustainability assessment tools have been developed to evaluate new development at urban scale. To evaluate the effectiveness of such tools in addressing greenhouse gas emission reduction and disaster resilience for low income housing schemes, five rating tools that are widely applied for assessing environmental sustainability of urban projects, namely, BREEAM-Community, LEED-ND, CASBEE-UD, SBTool2012, and GBI for Township, were reviewed. The analysis shows that both issues are addressed in the five rating tools for urban development, however aspects of disaster resilience are considered less and not comprehensive. Improvements to GHG emission reduction and disaster resilience, assessment methods, financial consideration, and assessment purposes have been suggested. These improvements can contribute to the development of low income settlements that emit low emissions and are resilient to natural disasters. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.