Sustainable Solutions for Dutch Housing

Delft Centre for Sustainable Urban Areas carries out research in the field of the built environment and is one of the multidisciplinary research centers at TU Delft. The Delft Research Centres bundle TU Delft's excellent research and provide integrated solutions for today's and tomorrow's problems in society. OTB Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies and the Faculties of Architecture, Technology, Policy and Management and Civil Engineering and Geosciences participate in this Delft Research Center. Sustainable housing and management has, to date, been primarily based on an intuitive approach. Numerous measures have been formulated to promote sustainable construction and to reduce the environmental impacts of the built environment. However, little is yet known about the extent of the environmental benefits thereof. Moreover, methods and tools are mainly directed to new construction. This thesis makes clear that short-term environmental benefits in sustainable housing construction are rather limited. Renewal of the post-war housing stock offers excellent changes for improvement of the environmental performance of housing. With a newly developed method it is proven that renovation causes les environmental impacts than demolition followed by new construction. However, at the same time the usefulness of Life Cycle Assessment for buildings is doubted. This thesis is particularly interesting for scientists in the field of methods and tools for sustainable construction and management.