Environmental Impact Assessment Regulations

Print   

23 Mar 2015 04 Dec 2017

Disclaimer:
This essay has been written and submitted by students and is not an example of our work. Please click this link to view samples of our professional work witten by our professional essay writers. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of EssayCompany.

Introduction

This chapter will provide a review of the development process of Environmental Impact Assessment Programs (EIAP) for buildings for different countries and different regions of the world as a reflection on the continuing evolution of building environmental assessment tools. This chapter includes two sections: the first section will present the initial structure and types for EIAP and will also compare some programs on their categories and weighting systems to anticipate the directions of future developments for building environmental assessment programs. Understanding how EIAP for buildings developed over the past 20 years is the main outcome of this chapter as it will provide evidence for the research hypothesis and justifications for the methodologies undertaken in this research.

Objectives

The main aim of this chapter is to review the development process of EIAP for buildings; its categories, weighting systems and methodologies used in developing these programs. It will serve as a starting point in developing an evaluation tool especially designed for the Egyptian environment. To achieve this aim some objectives have been adopted:

  • Review and compare different types of EIAP for buildings from variety of regions, emphasizing on their categories of assessment, weighting systems and their latest developments.
  • Investigate the future development direction for EIAP for buildings.

The development of EIAP for buildings

Building sector contribute significantly to energy consumption all over the world. It is responsible for 38% of the world primary energy consumption and the CO2 emission resulting from these huge levels of consumption, as shown in Figure 2-1 (BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2008, International Energy Agency (IEA) Statistics Division, 2008). A lot of experts believe that the building sector in the world could help reducing 1.8 billion tones of CO2 before Kyoto target in 2012 (World Business Council for Sustainable Development 2009 report). According to the UNEP 2007:

"...significant gains can be made in efforts to combat global warming by reducing energy use and improving energy efficiency in buildings."

There are number of ways that a building could affect its surrounding environment on its life time. During different stages; row materials, construction, operation and demolition, also, through different components, buildings could have a huge impact on the environment (UNEP 2007). For example: soil pollution, emissions into the air, water spills, waste generation, resource consumption, local impacts, impacts associated with transportation and effects on biodiversity (Gangolells M, et al., 2009). In addition to the previous environmental impacts, buildings affect people's health directly. As (Theodore 1996--- ) reported, there are a lot of health problems that could be linked to buildings directly especially to poor indoor quality i.e. the sick building syndrome.

According to (UNEP 2007) it has long been established that to achieve an energy-efficient world, governments, businesses and individuals must transform the building sector. One of the approaches that have been adopted to address the building sector effects on the environment were developing programs to assess buildings performance. Environmental impact assessment programs (EIAP) for buildings were originally conceived as guidance to recognize best practice, promote green buildings and to provide a unified and coherent base for buildings to be compared on. Recent studies showed that EIAP have been a key factor in improving buildings design as well (pennenvironment pdf). This movement towards sustainable and green buildings has been growing rabidly since the second half of the 80s leading to the development of various methods for evaluating the environmental performance of buildings (Cole, Yudelson and Fedrizzi, 2008). The number of EIAP for buildings has increased significantly in the past two decades, as shown in Figure 2-2. From 4 programs in the 80s to more than 25 program now actively used worldwide. This increase in the number of EIAP for buildings or the revolution as Yudelson describe it, will likely continue over the next few years (Cole, ---, Yudelson).

In countries all over the world -especially the developed countries- there is a growing interest in understanding how to reduce the building sector impacts on the environment. This is partially manifested in continues development of EIAP for buildings, either by introducing new assessment tools, or by developing and refining the existing ones. In recent years, the market for evaluating building performance was increasing, with clients demanding buildings that meet the highest efficiency standards and have minimum effects on the environment (U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), 2005).

The time line progress for the environmental programs

Environmental buildings or green buildings from the market point of view could potentially save money on energy bills, cut global warming pollution and help to secure future energy. Therefore there are growing demands for building classified as green or environmentally friendly. Another aspect that confirm the current success of EIAP for building is that a lot of conferences have been and still are held for the environmental impacts of buildings and the best way to develop and assess it (Cole, ----, Yudelson). EIAP are now considered a driving force to develop buildings industry.

EIAP were first conceived as a mean to quantify the success of a building in achieving reduced impacts on the environment during its life time. They were also developed to comply with standards from organizations like ANSI, ISO, ASHARE, ASTM and CEN. The structure and components of EIAP are always changing to cope with the latest editions in building standards. These changes include; categories of assessment, credits weighting, impacts calculation, cost efficiency and simulation techniques. EIAP assess buildings either on performance bases on prescriptive bases. They were initially developed as voluntary (cole,---) but with the higher demands from the market some programs are mandatory in some parts of the world now for example----. Some organizations and local authorities now demand a certain qualification to be attained by the building in order to be authorized. For example --

EIAP were first designed to assess certain aspects of buildings mostly energy, water and material use. They were also firstly designed for certain types of buildings. New developments to EIAP for buildings included expanding the assessment categories to include every stage and component of a building during its life time. The new generations of programs are moving towards a more comprehensive view of assessment rather than it being for only one type of buildings or one aspect of building elements. New additions to BREAM 2008 and LEED 2009 included the introduction of new versions to assess new types of building (ref for Leed and bream websites). EIAP also assess buildings in different stages; designing, construction, operation and demolish. With number of these programs being in use for several years spotting the developments directions for EIAP for buildings could be recognized and analyzed.

In the first generation of EIAP like --- and ---, assessments were usually made by a qualified third party. In recent years web based assessment have been introduced, for example in ---- and LEED V3 2009 (ref for Leed and bream websites). This came as a reaction to the market demand for an easy to use initial assessment. EIAP outcomes are a certificate grade (--,--), a report (---) or a ----- to acknowledge the grade of a building in achieving its environmental targets. Recent additions to EIAP for building included the introduction of an outstanding rate for outstanding innovations in green building as in --- in LEED and ----in BREAM (ref for Leed and bream websites). This comes as a result of the current need on the market for green buildings to achieve the highest--- the huge competition.

The success of EIAP in reshaping the building industry is undeniable. In recent years, EIAP have been playing a big role in moving the building industry into a more environment conscious directions, as presented in (Cole, 2003):

".....There is little doubt that building environmental assessment methods have contributed enormously to furthering the promotion of higher environmental expectations, and are directly and indirectly influencing the performance of buildings...."

This current success of EIAP for buildings is considered one of the ----in the world (usgreen building council). This success derives from the ability of these programs to offers a common ground for designers, governments and buildings owners, to assess building performance and be recognized for good practice.

This chapter will focus on certification programs that deal with evaluation and assessment of buildings to serve as a starting point in developing a specific program aimed at the Egyptian environment needs. From the author view

Types of Building Assessment Methods

EIAP for buildings could be divided to two types according to what they assess in a building. The first type assesses one or more of the building aspects to find out how it will affect the environment and how well the building's elements will score against environmental standards, for example on energy efficiency or materials choice. Programs like R-2000 and ENERGY STAR assess mainly building energy efficiency (R-2000, 2007, ENERGY STAR, 2009). These types of assessment methods sometimes are specifically designed for a certain type of buildings like P-mark for prefabricated houses and GreenCalc for Dutch office buildings (Technical Research Institute of Sweden, 2009, GreenCalc, 2009). Also for some programs the assessment is done to only one stage of a building, for example ATHENA for design stage only and NovoClimat for after operation stage only (ATHENA, 2009, Natural Resources Canada, 2009). The assessed buildings either pass the assessment and given a certificate or a qualification grade, or fail to qualify and be given guidance on how to improve the assessed element of their building.

The second type of EIAP assesses building as a whole against a set of categories to find out the building total impacts on the environment. These types of programs always include a wide range of categories of assessment ranging from site design and energy efficiency to water usage and recycling management. They also cover different building types with specific consideration for each type, for example in BREEAM, LEEDS and HK-BEAM there are specific versions to assess homes, schools, retail and healthcare. These programs assess a building on different stages; design, construction, operation, maintenance and demolition stage in some programs. Usually a certificate or a qualification grade is awarded to the assessed building to define its standard. Table 2-1 presents EIAP that will be reviewed in this study.

Developed in Canada in 1982 the R-2000 is a voluntary program encouraging builders to build energy-efficient houses that are environmentally friendly and healthy. It includes an energy efficiency standard for new houses that is continuously updated. It also includes comprehensive training and education courses for builders. The R-2000 standard assesses energy consumption performance for a house through a series of technical requirements: (minimum envelope requirements, ventilation system requirements, combustion system requirements, energy performance target, lights and appliances, indoor air quality and environmental features/eco-management) (Natural resources Canada, 2009, R-2000, 2007). During the first few years of application the R-2000 program didn't attract the anticipated Canadian building practice (Horvat et al., 2005, Adair, 1996), this was due to:

  • Copying R-2000 homes by uncertified builders that lead to a failure of real application of the program standards.
  • Being more expensive (6-10%) to build R-2000 home in comparison to regular building.

Being flexible is what helped the R-2000 (2005 edition) program stay in the current market and being able to be applied to any type of homes. Another advantage is producing homes with 30%-40% energy savings (R-2000, 2007, Horvat et al., 2005).

P-mark system (Sweden, 1989)

P-mark came as a reaction to the manufacturers of prefabricated houses in Sweden need for an assessment program that assures the market of the quality of their houses. P-mark is a voluntary program. It was developed for design and after construction stages. P-mark authorities use the method of unannounced inspections to assure quality control procedures after operation. 5% of the finished houses is inspected and measured annually. The inspections are on performance bases for the finished homes on air-tightness of the building envelope, air exchange rates, air-tightness of ducts, sound pressure levels and heat requirement, to verify compliance with P-mark requirements P-mark certificate is considered a form of quality assurance in Sweden (Technical Research Institute of Sweden, 2009, Horvat et al., 2005, Swedish Institute for Technical Approval in Construction SITAC, 2007, website)

One advantage to the application P-mark was that it has helped the Sweden market in reducing complaints from people about the failure of prefabricated homes (Anneling, 1998). The upgrades that have been made to the P-mark in recent years involved improving the assessment categories to include: 1) Testing for ventilation, air-tightness of houses and ventilation ducts, 2) Inspection for HVAC performance, water-tightness of the kitchen or toilet (Technical Research Institute of Sweden, 2009).

The Building Environmental Performance Assessment Criteria (BEPAC) is a voluntary EIAP specifically for commercial buildings. It assesses the building on five categories: energy use, indoor environment, ozone protection, resource conservation, and transportation. BEPAC was Canada's first non-residential environmental assessment tool and has influenced a lot of the programs that followed for example: BREEAM Canada, GBTool, C-2000 and GreenGlobes. On its first version it used an experienced third party to undertake the assessment. As a reaction to concerns regarding the costs of using an expensive third party to carry out the assessment in BEPAC; the self-assessment version of BEPAC was developed. It allows facility staff to evaluate their own buildings. It contains a program for user training. This new addition has been criticized as the facility staff might be not experienced enough to carry out an assessment. BEBAC label consistency has been questioned and this led to the assessment not being used much in the Canadian market (SDIC, 2009, Marshall, 2008, DEH, 2000, Bond, 1999).

Eco-profile (Norway, 1995)

Eco-Profile is a simple environmental assessment method which was developed to be easy to use to encourage the uptake of the scheme. It assesses life cycle effects of a building on external environment, resources and indoor climate (Boonstra and Pettersen, 2003, Strand and Fossdal, 2003). The program uses 82 parameters to assess the building performance and then given a grade. The grading scale is: 1 for Low environmental impact, 2 for Medium impacts and 3 for Greater impact (Strand and Fossdal, 2003). Eco-Profile is not currently used in the Norwegian market. It has not been marketed since 2002 due to funding limitations with the Norwegian Building Research Institute. Even though more than 60 commercial buildings have been assessed by this program in 2000-2001 it is not considered a successful one as it didn't continue, as presented in (Boonstra and Pettersen, 2003):

"...so far Eco-profile cannot be said to have been a success..."

Some of the suggested improvement for the program included simplifying the program by presenting one index instead of three and reducing the number of the assessed parameters. Another direction for improvement will have to include updating the weighting of parameters. (Boonstra and Pettersen, 2003, Strand and Fossdal, 2003)

(Andresen, 2005, Krishnan Gowri, 2004., Hasegawa, 2003, G. Assefa et al., 2007).

GreenCalc (The Netherlands, 1997)

GreenCalc is an assessment program for Dutch buildings especially commercial and industrial. It uses computer tool to calculate the building's environmental load in terms of cost. It is divided into four modules: 1) material module: choice of materials, quantities and insulating values. 2) Energy module: energy consumption in operation phase (use of building, air-conditioning, ventilation and lighting. 3) Water usage: water consumption in the operation phase (facilities, sanitary facilities and rainwater). 4) Mobility: accessibility from home to work place; location, public transport and own transport. Assessment is performed in comparison to a benchmark building designed to 1990's standards. The benchmark for environmental index for 1990's building is 100 and current building is 150-300. The program predicts that buildings in 2050 will achieve environmental index of 2000 (Seo et al., 2005, GreenCalc, 2009).

The latest version of the program GreenCalc+ has tried to cope with the highly developed market of green buildings. It included expanded simulation modeling with the designer being able to evaluate the effects of better insulation, glazing, efficient lighting systems, and solar energy systems as design options. It updated its energy consumption prediction method to be able to calculate the Energy Performance Norm option (GreenCalc, 2009).

ENERGY STAR (US, 2000)

ENERGY STAR is a program to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. It is operated by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy. It assesses products as well as buildings, for example; lighting fixtures, home electronics, office equipment, heating and cooling equipment. The building certificate is for residential (single/multi-family and renovated houses) and commercial buildings (ENERGY STAR, 2009, Horvat et al, 2005). Criticisms to ENERGY STAR buildings came from it being more expensive than other conventional buildings especially on design and material aspects. Studies proved that these costs are accepted because the building save on running costs (i.e., the HVAC system) (Tanmay Tathagat 2007, Horvat et al, 2005).

In recent development to the program and as a reaction to meet the escalating demands for energy savings, modifications have been applied to its minimum energy saving requirements. Initially in 2000 the ENERGY STAR label required a building to be at least 30% more energy efficient (heating, cooling and water heating) than a comparable one built to the 1993 Model Energy Code. Also the building should be 15% more efficient than the state energy code. New modification in 2007 demanded that a building must be at least 15% more energy efficient than homes built to the 2004 International Residential Code IRC (ENERGY STAR, 2009).

(Roosa, 2007, Greg K and Capital E, 2003).

(Yudelson and Fedrizzi, 2008b, Greg K and Capital E, 2003, ENERGY STAR, 2009).

2.5.1.7 NovoClimat (Canada, Québec, 2000)

NovoClimat was initially conceived to allow Quebec builders to increase the energy efficiency of their homes. It was developed by the Quebec Agency for Energy Efficiency (Natural Resources Canada, 2009, Horvat et al., 2005). The assessment is done to the building in construction stage and after completion. A typical Novoclimat home will score EnerGuide rating of between 78 and 80 (http://www.ottawasnewesthomes.com/novoclimat-for-gatineau-new-homes.php, http://www.aee.gouv.qc.ca/en/my-home/novoclimat/). It is a voluntary program inspired by Canada's National Model Energy Code. What makes this program different is the fact that it connects energy efficiency and air-tightness to the durability of the building envelope. The new Novoclimat 2007 aimed directly to quantify the effects it makes to a building, by setting a goal to improve a building's energy performance by a minimum of 25% (Efficient Energy Agency, 2008, Natural Resources Canada, 2009).

http://www.ottawasnewesthomes.com/novoclimat-for-gatineau-new-homes.php

http://www.aee.gouv.qc.ca/en/my-home/novoclimat/

(Salomon and Nigel, 2006, Robert C, 2003, Natural Resources Canada, 2009, Horvat et al., 2005).

2.5.1.8 ATHENA (Canada, 2000)

Athena is North American software for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for buildings. It assesses industrial, institutional, office, multi-unit/single family residential homes and also assesses both new buildings and renovations to existing buildings. It is for design stage only to help in deciding which materials to use as it recognizes more than 90 materials and simulates over 1,200 different assembly combinations (structural and envelope). According to ATHENA institute 2009, this software takes into account the environmental effects of: material manufacturing, (including resource extraction and recycled content), related transportation, on-site construction, regional variation in energy use and other factors, building type and assumed lifespan, maintenance, repair and replacement effects, demolition and disposal, operating energy emissions and pre-combustion effects, embodied primary energy use, global warming potential, solid waste emissions, pollutants to air, pollutants to water and natural resource use. ATHENA (4) Impact Estimator, is the newest version of the program and was released in 2009. As most of the new generation of EIAP, ATHENA (4) newest edition included improving simulation modeling. The software will help designers choose a design from up to five design scenarios. It is also more flexible in handling data flows with more impact measures. Another new feature is the ability to choose new regions to assess (ATHENA, 2009).

Eco-Quantum (The Netherlands, 1998)

Eco-Quantum is a LCA based computer tool. It starts by entering building data, then the calculation section and finally the output results. It has two versions; one for offices and the other for domestic buildings. It calculates the environmental effects during the entire life span of a building. This includes the impact of energy, the maintenance during the use phase and the differences in the durability of parts of the construction related to the life span of the building. The program has an advantage of being easy to use. As a reaction to the evolving market for environmental assessment, Eco-Quantum V3 latest additives included improving assessment categories. Not only it assess materials and energy flow, it now also takes into account the possibility for selective demolition, recycling, ozone depletion, human toxicity and product reuse ((Kortman, 1999, Breedveld, 2007 Forsberga & Malmborgc , 2004, ISPRA, 2009). MAK refernce

BEAT (Denmark, 2001)

The Building Environmental Assessment Tool (BEAT) is a LCA based tool. BEAT is a relation database designed using Microsoft Access. The user must supply: type of building, estimated lifetime of the building, geometry of the building, number of floors above/below ground, roof pitch, number of windows in the building, % of facade area covered by windows and natural or mechanical ventilation. BEAT assessment is for design stage only. It can be used both for supporting the general design choices early in the design phase, and later for supporting the more detailed design choices. The total environmental effects are the sum of multiplying the environmental effect by a weighting factor.

Motivated by both the increased requirements to the energy performance of buildings and the recent developments for simulation tools for building assessment, the Danish Building Research Institute (SBi) is studying a project to develop BEAT. It is studying how to facilitate the use of BEAT by integrating it into new simulation software called BSim. This will allows both energy and environmental assessments to be performed in one operation. The new program is expected to be flexible in respect to the anticipated Canadian Environment Network (CEN) requirements. Early signs of the anticipated merge suggest that it is useful to support decision during design phase (Pedersen, F., Hansen, K., Wittchen, K. B., Grau, K., & Johnsen, K. (2008). Combining building thermal simulation methods and LCA methods. In C. Rode, Proceedings of the 8th Symposium on Building Physics in the Nordic Countries: Nordic Symposium on Building Physics 2008, NSB2008, Copenhagen, June 16-18, 2008, Vol. 2 (pp. 605-611). Lyngby: DTU.(The Danish Building Research Institute, 2007).

LCAid (Australia, 2001)

LCAid is the Environmental Life Cycle Assessment Design Aid software package developed by department of public works and services categories. It is to identify the largest impacts over the building life cycle. It is user friendly decision making tool used to evaluate the environmental performance of design options over its life span. The program inputs are: raw materials, building product manufacture, energy, and water. Outputs include: resource extraction, emissions to air, water, land and waste, demolition reuse, recycling and disposal. The software outputs identify the areas that have the greatest impact on the environment so it could be reduced by other solutions. LCAid improvements included to separates the environmental impacts within each indicator into four stages; construction, operation, maintenance and demolition (Eldridge, 2002, Graham, P. 2000).

Green Globes (Canada, 2000)

Green Globes is a system to manage the assessment of environmental designs. It is an online assessment for green buildings. The system requires the client (i.e. property manager, owners of commercial and multi-residential buildings) to complete an online confidential questionnaire at design stage. Another stage of the assessment is an online report from a third-party at the construction stage. The categories of assessment for green Globes are: site, energy, water, emissions and indoor environment. It was developed based on BREEAM/Green Leaf as their upgrade or as their web-based tool. It was much anticipated and there was an immediate uptake to it with more than 100 users registered for existing building assessments only in 2002. One of the reasons for the huge uptake could have been that the program was filling the gap for an online assessment method that is related to BREEAM. To be certified a building will have to achieve at least 35% of the total number of 1,000 points. New edition of Green Globes are in the line of developing the program to consider the building surrounding environment and not only the building itself. The new tool for Continual Improvement of Existing Buildings (CIEB) will look at aspects such as resident transportation opportunities (ECD, 2009, Boonstra & Pettersen, 2003, Green Globes (2009).

BEES (US, 2002)

Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) is a program to help making an environmental but cost effective building. BEES measures the life time effects of the building and its components. The categories of assessment are in terms of: Global warming, Acidification, Eutrophication, Resource Depletion, Indoor Air Quality, Solid Waste, First Cost and Future Cost. The software strength comes from the extensive assessment for economic performance of a building using the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standard. It produces results for environmental performance and economic performance and an overall performance as shown in Figure 2-9. All stages of buildings construction are analyzed from the row material manufacture and transportation to the waste management. The program is constantly developing by adding assessment categories and new materials to the software database in order to keep up to date with the latest editions in the green designs. BEES 4.0 function to the newest data from U.S. EPA and have more than 200 building products in its database (BEES, 2007, Lippiatt, et.al., 2002).

Programs that assess the whole building.

BREEAM (UK, 1990)

The Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), initiated as a tool for assessing the environmental performance of a building. BREEAM assessment is divided into 9 categories: Management, Health & Comfort, Energy, Transport, Water, Materials, Land Use, Ecology and Pollution. It was initially started as a questionnaire based tool. These questionnaires were designed for each stage of a building from design to post-operation. The actual credits were given to a building only on two stages: concept design stage and the preparation of construction stage. One criticism for BREEAM was that finished buildings sometimes differ from the design. This has been addressed in the latest version of BREEAM (2008) by introducing a post construction assessment. This assessment will ensure that all the specifications stated in the design are carried out in the actual building (BREEAM, 2009, BERR, 2008, Howe, 2008). Another criticism for BREEAM was that design teams used to copy whole paragraphs of the checklists provided by BREEAM and put it in the design specification to get the credits from the assessor. Also a lot of credits could have been obtained from number of very small additives to the design (for example parking sheds). These credits will help buildings in getting a high rating without necessarily being green as a whole. In BREEAM 2008 mandatory credits was introduced to address this problem. These credits will ensure a minimum application of a holistic view of green concept in the rated buildings. Also by making the Code for Sustainable Homes and BREEAM or equivalent mandatory in April 2008, this will secure sustainable measures in larger developments (BREEAM, 2009, BERR, 2008, Howe, 2008, Glasson et al., 2005).

BREEAM initially didn't include benchmarks for number of criteria; it used to make reference to them. This was designed to help BREEAM being flexible. In BREEAM 2008 a lot of credits have been expanded especially setting benchmarks for CO2 emissions to align with the new Environmental Performance Certificate (EPC). BREEAM assess new and existing building for deferent types of buildings: Courts, homes, Industrial buildings, Multi-Residential, Prisons, Offices, Retail and Education. Latest developments in BREEAM 2008 included expanding the assessed building types to include BREEAM Healthcare and BREEAM Further Education. As a reaction to the evolving market of green buildings and the urge to use the highest environmental developments in buildings industry; a new rating level (BREEAM outstanding) has been introduced in 2008. This will enable innovative designs to be recognized for being leaders in their domain (BREEAM, 2009).

HK-BEAM ( Hong Kong, 1996)

The Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method (HK-BEAM) is a voluntary environmental assessment program for buildings. It was originally developed by Real Estate Development Agency but it is owned now by BEAM Society. The program main assessment categories are: site, materials, energy, water, indoor environment and innovative aspects and its award classifications are Platinum, Gold, Silver, and Bronze. It was the first program to finalize its assessment only when the building is completed. HK-BEAM is updating periodically to keep up with the industry standards and regulations. New versions were released on 1999, 2003 and 2005. The latest version HK-BEAM 4/04 has a lot of modifications to respond to the developing market of green buildings. BEAM 2004 highlighted the increasing importance of Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ); by making it necessary to obtain minimum credit for it in order to be eligible for a grade. The grade awarded is based on percentage of applicable credits gained both for IEQ and overall assessment. BEAM is considered a very successful assessment tool. Though being voluntary program, in 2003, over 100 buildings have been submitted for voluntary assessment which account for 25% of commercial space, and approximately 10% of dwellings. This indicates a high market acceptance to the scheme. This could be owed to the fact that the industry has been an active partner in developing BEAM. As a reaction to the increased importance of web-based tools in environmental assessment, HK-BEAM is currently undergoing studies for the development of a tool for preliminary self-assessments on the web. (HK-BEAM, 2009, Huang et al., 2000, WBCSD, 2007, Burnett, 2004, Edmunds & Chan, 2004).

HQAL (Japan, 2000)

The Housing Quality Assurance Law (HQAL) is an EIAP for all types of residential unites. It assesses buildings on: Structural stability, Fire safety, Reduction of deterioration, Thermal environment, Air quality, Lighting-a visual environment, Sound environment and Consideration for senior citizens/special needs. As shown from its assessment categories, it was initiated to improve the Japanese housing market and make it more durable, and to address the "sick house" problem in Japan. It has three grades, 1 meaning minimum requirements for building codes and regulations have been met and 3 meaning special quality standards have been applied. HQAL verify- at its first stage of assessment- how satisfactory are the standards used in the building. If the building meets the requirements, it will be awarded a grade. If the building didn't meet the requirements, it will be given directions for improvement. These directions could include; changing the type of wood used in the structure, treatments applied for decay resistance, adequate waterproofing, and insulation

LEED (US, 2000)

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a voluntary rating program. It evaluates the environmental performance of almost all types of buildings (new construction, existing buildings -operations and maintenance- commercial interiors, core and shell, schools, retail, healthcare, homes and neighborhood development). It was developed by U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC's) to give the building market worldwide a unified tool to assess green buildings on, so they would be easier to compare (USGBC, 2009, Kibert, 2008).

LEED have been criticized for having the same weight for all of its assessment categories. In the latest version LEED 2009 or V3, a development have been made to address these concerns by having different weightings for credits depending on their ability to impact the environmental and health. It also award more points for energy efficiency and CO2 reductions ( USGBC, 2009, Yudelson and Fedrizzi, 2008, Ashley M and Josette M. P, 2006). As all of the new generations of EIAP, LEED 2009 will include an online tool intended for quick and easy assessment (USGBC, 2009).

GBTool (International 2002)

GBTool is an EIAP that was initially to evaluate; commercial, institutional and residential buildings both new and existing. From 2005 and due to the growing market for green buildings, new building types have been added; hospital, hotel or motel, industrial office, public institutional, public assembly, restaurant or food service, retail, school or university, supermarket and mixed-use project (GBC, 2008, Kibert, 2008). GBTool was initially for design stage assessment, but from 2005 the assessment could be carried out for all stages of building, provided that benchmark model information is available. This came as reaction to the growing demand for the program in recent years and as a reaction to questionnaires on how to improve the program. One more additive to the program in 2005 was that it now allows comparisons to be made with LEED and Green Globes (GBC, 2008).

GBTool have always been criticized for being a frame work tool and the user are expected to use other simulation programs to calculate and predict different categories impacts for example energy efficiency and air quality. The assessment is done in seven general performance categories as shown in Figure 2-8. The categories scores are weighed according to predetermined weighting system to provide uniformity and comparability ( GBC, 2008, Yang et al., 2005).

Another raised issue about the program is the amount of information it require to perform an assessment. The program compares the assessed building against a benchmark one (regionally defined) to find out the percentage of environmental achievements. It requires not only the data provided from the design team about the assessed building, but also, data for the benchmark building from a national team of experts (GBC, 2008, Kibert, 2008, Yang et al., 2005).

NABERS ( Australia, 2004)

National Australian Buildings Environmental Rating System (NABERS) is a voluntary EIAP for existing buildings; office buildings and homes. It rates a building according to its actual measured performance during operation. Its main categories are: refrigerant use, water use, storm water runoff and pollution, sewage outfall volume, transport, landscape diversity, toxic materials, waste, Indoor air quality and occupant satisfaction, shown in Figure 2-10 (Droege, 2007, NABERS, 2009, Kaatz E. et al., 2004).

As the new direction for the new generation of assessment tools to be more comprehensive, in 2008 NABERS incorporated the Australian Building Greenhouse Rating (ABGR). It has been re-named NABERS Energy for offices. One of the Latest additives to NABERS also was that it now incorporates a web-based planning tool. BASIX certificate (the web tool) will be mandatory for any development approval (NABERS, 2009).

CASBEE (Japan, 2004)

Comparative Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE) is an EIAP specially designed for the Japanese culture. It assesses energy consumption, resource productivity, local environments and indoor environment as shown on Figure 2-11. CASBEE assess all stages of building form design to post-operation. In 2006 a number of local authorities introduced CASBEE into their building administration; therefore, its assessment is now carried out in many buildings in Japan (Kibert, 2008a, Hanaki, 2008). CASBEE like all EIAP are constantly evolving and its latest edition released in 2008 included and the introduction of CASBEE-H specified for detached houses. Another additive is the introduction of a brief web-based version that make a provisional assessment of a building in two hours (CASBEE, 2008).

CEPAS (Hong Kong 2005)

In August 2005, the Hong Kong Government's Building Department launched the Comprehensive Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme (CEPAS), a new buildings' rating system. CEPAS is a holistic assessment tool for various building types with clear demarcation of the entire building life-cycle, which covers the pre-design, design, construction & demolition and operation stages with results for each stage as shown in Figure 2-12. It is voluntary, rating buildings on a "five-star" grading system. CEPAS is devised to provide a measure to evaluate the environmental performance for all building types in Hong Kong. The certificate will be valid for five years (Buildings Department HKSAR Government, 2006, Kevin F, 2005). The system main concept is to; address both physical and human-related issues amongst the core aspects of sustainability plus energy, indoor air quality, and the maintenance of building services installations. It also considers other social-economic factors, such as impacts on surroundings, communal interactions, building economics, transportation, heritage conservation (Mithraratne et al., 2007, Buildings Department HKSAR Government, 2006, DCW Ho et al., 2005).

CEPAS introduces and organizes performance criteria that make a clear distinction between "human" and "physical" performance issues as well as "building" and their "surroundings." These manifests as eight performance categories: Resource Use; Loadings; Site Impacts; Neighborhood Impacts; Indoor Environmental Quality; Building Amenities; Site Amenities and Neighborhood Amenities.

Having considered Hong Kong two schemes HK-BEAM and CEPAS, in December 2006, the Provisional Construction Industry Co-ordination Board recommended the adoption of HK-BEAM as the integrated model for Hong Kong, subject to BEAM society agreeing to incorporate the desirable features of CEPAS into BEAM to create a more comprehensive scheme (Council for Sustainable Development, 2008).

Minergie-ECO plus (Switzerland, 2006)

Minergie-ECO plus was advertised as a new, user friendly method for evaluating the sustainability of buildings, it was launched in June 2006 and it is a quality label for new and renovated buildings of almost all types. Its assessment requirements are compatible with the European Energy Performance Building Directive (EPBD) (International Energy Agency, 2007). The market in Switzerland was prepared for the launch of an assessment program for green buildings with over 7600 buildings that have been certified in the nineties. It stresses on the energy efficiency aspects of a building. It has two unique features that define this program. Firstly, that it make assessment for small buildings (less than 500m2). Secondly, that it encourages the use of renewable sources of energy (MINERGIE, 2008)

Green Building Regulatory Guidelines for Dubai ( Ras Al-Khimah, 2008)

The initiative of Dubai is under development by Rakeen. The new regulations ascertain the evolution of the Emirate into an eco-friendly and sustainable destination. As a minimum all green buildings shall conform to standards within schedule to assess performance on: site selection, building orientation, water efficiency, energy efficiency, ventilation and indoor quality, grey water recycling and building control system. This initiative has emerged now due to number of reasons; it will reduce the demand on Emirate power grid by at least 50%, reduce the carbon foot print by more than 50%, produce net construction savings, increase projects value and improve return investments (Rakeen, 2008, Puckett, 2008).

Chapter 2-Page 42

EIAP comparison

A comparison between eleven of the most commonly used EIAP is described in the next part of the research in order to collect information on the main features of EIAP and establish the most common categories and weighting methods used. E availability of the information needed to conduct a comparison was the main reason for choosing these programs. Viewing similarity and differences between EIAP will provide a starting point for anticipating future developments directions for building environmental assessment tools, how they are likely to evolve, how they will be used and how they will dovetail with other variables changes. The comparison will be on the following four points:

  • Nature, purpose and targeted building group.
  • Categories of assessment.
  • The weighing method for credits.
  • Building stage application.

The first point is the nature of assessment in EIAP and from the comparison presented in Table 2-2 it shows that all of the programs in the comparison are voluntary (the only exceptions found from the literature review was the Japanese HQAL and the Code for Sustainable Homes in the UK which became compulsory from August 2008).

The second point in the comparison is the purpose of the assessment and from the table there is a split over the purpose of an EIAP, some programs aim to label a building through life cycle based analysis and graphical results presentation giving design and materials options to achieve the best result possible like BEES, LC-Aid and CEPAS. The second type uses a rating system usually accompanied with checklists of detailed environmental categories and gives points and weight to each category aiming for the building assessment to achieve an overall score, for example BREEAM, LEED and GB-Tool. This type does not give design options; it will only assess the design produced.

The last point of comparison on Table 2-2 is the targeted building group and most of EIAP target all types of buildings or have different version for each type but still target most common types of buildings; residential and non-residential, with exception for some programs specifically designed for residential dwellings or office buildings. All of EIAP could be applied to new building and all but one program could be applied to existing ones.

Results for the most common categories assessed are presented in Table 2-3, they indicate that the most common categories that can be found in every program are: energy efficiency, material efficiency, water conservation, indoor quality and performance maintenance. The next common categories which can be found in some programs but not all include; site design and environmental loading, airborne emission, solid and liquid waste. Some programs have specific categories that only address a specific need for that program, such categories are; visual quality, noise, acoustics and system controllability.

The weighing system, i.e. the relative number of credits given for compliance with a particular environmental aspect, is a critical part of a building environmental performance assessment method, and is vital to all building assessment and labeling schemes. The purpose of a rating system is to convert the raw data into a score so that we know about the building performance for a particular area or how many credits should be given to the building factor being assessed. Every assessment and rating system implicitly includes some form of "weighting" based on how the points/credits are distributed. The question of assigning points or "weightings" is complex, constantly evolving and has produced several schools of thought. For example, BREEAM weightings are based on an extensive series of consultations, which BRE (Building Research Establishment) have conducted with 1,000 participants who were asked to assign health, social and economic values to each of the building-related activities and its environmental impacts. Weightings represent the relative importance of a building factor towards the overall goal of the assessment. They affect the degree of influence by each building factor on the overall result. The weightings for HK-BEAM are determined by the maximum credits attainable for these factors, the weightings can be changed by adding or dropping factors under the assessment scheme or adjusting the credits allocated to the factor.

Four types of EIAP weighing systems are presented in Table 2-4; the first group assesses the building factors basically in yes or no answers and the benefit of such a rating scheme is a reduction of the time used for the assessment and a minimization of the degree of subjectivity in the assessment process. The second group which is the most commonly used in EIAP uses an additive approach; simple (1 for 1), equal weights, pre-weighted credits, weighted after scoring or weighted by expert panel. The additive approach are used in HK-BEAM and CEPAS ratings for most factors are not scalar (Cole et al., 2005), a building either satisfies the requirement to receive credit or it fails to do so. The building will be awarded credit even if other criteria are substantially below par; the implication is that an excellent graded building can have several items that are substantially below average even though CEPAS obtain the weightings from a group of external experts with different backgrounds.

As the aim of EIAP is to give a general appraisal of buildings, this can not be achieved by solely relying on voluntary participation from building owners. In order to reveal actual conditions, a building survey should also be carried out. Inspection will be confined to common areas of the building so that it will not be necessary to seek consent from every individual owner. The comparison in Table 2-5 indicate that most of the assessments rely on the accuracy of information supplied by designers and owners for design and construction stages. The assessment and certification processes of the BREEAM, CEPAS, HK-BEAM and CASBEE include for the validity of the assessment results, the after operation stage for the buildings, and, for CEPAS the rating only lasts for five years and afterwards the building should get a new assessment to keep or improve its certificate. Two recent assessment tools, CASBEE and CEPAS, show structural features that differentiate them from the first generation of tools. Although they still employ several of the scoring characteristics of earlier systems, they collectively suggest a transition towards a generation of tools that may enable assessment of the extent to which buildings can contribute to supporting sustainable patterns of living; CASBEE, while employing an additive weighting approach, breaks away from the simple addition of points achieved in all performance areas to derive an overall building score, which has been the dominant feature of all previous methods. It distinguishes between the environmental loading (resource use and ecological loadings) and environmental quality and performance (indoor environmental quality and amenities) scoring them separately to determine the building environmental efficiency, therefore, building assessment is not presented as a representation of the environmental characteristics of a building but rather as a measure of the environmental implications associated with it.

Therefore, from the previous comparison, a question is raised to whether current assessment methods that were conceived and created to evaluate the environmental aspects of individual buildings can be easily transformed to account for a qualitatively different role. Changes that would be required in the next generation of EIAP to assist in charting their path could include:

Expanded building forms consideration

A consideration for building size may be introduced in the new generation of EIAP as current ratings are not distinguished based on the size of a building, however, the impact differences from conservation of energy, between a 10,000 m2 and a 100,000 m2 building is huge. The effects of climate region, structural forms, construction techniques and other factors may further disrupt the life cycle impacts of the credits.

Expanded credit simulation

EIAP should seek to assign credits or weightings to assessment criteria somewhat in accordance with the significance of the environmental impact and limitations in current assessment techniques prevent an assessment of some individual credits where the environmental benefits are less quantifiable (i.e. low-emitting materials). However, it is not practical at present to assess all the issues covered in EIAP on a common scale. There is insufficient information available to provide an objective weighting for all issues, because of the difficulty in assigning an economic cost to environmental effects as the health of individuals, ozone depletion, global warming and resource depletion. For the next generation of EIAP there is also a need to balance the credits awarded against technical difficulty and cost of implementation (set against any payback, such as savings from increased energy efficiency), otherwise take-up of the scheme may be affected.

While establishing appropriate performance scales, a critical challenge for developers of EIAP will be the recognition and accounting for possible synergies between environmental performances criteria. Currently, an overall building performance score is derived from the aggregation of the points obtained within the constituent environmental credits and avoiding the possibility of duplication of credits and in practice this translates to a checklist approach where individual performance criteria of identified and pursued in the quest for a certain overall rating and to address the regional technical concerns adjustment of the point distribution based on regional consultations should be made available.

An important goal of EIAP is to provide a standard of measure, so that buildings with the same ratings are comparable. One assumes this to mean that nationally, buildings of similar ratings are environmentally equivalent. However, regionally variable inputs such as energy pricing can directly influence the requirements credits so that, depending on region, buildings with similar ratings could have different requirements. Regionalism is a necessary element in EIAP, the lack of clear integration currently undermines the actual comparability of rated buildings from programs like (BREEAM, LEED). In these respects EIAP does not fulfill its goal of providing a standard of measure. While appears to be accomplishing the goals of an eco labeling program that is as a marketing and policy tool it is not as successful at being a comprehensive methodology for assessment of environmental impacts. This is especially troubling from a consumer perspective, as the EIAP rating is intended to become the measure for environmental value, upon which future users, owners, and public agencies rely.

Expanded assessment categories and credits

For the next generation of EIAP, expanding the impact assessment categories used for qualitative measures as on: the global warming potential, eco-toxicity, human toxicity, acidification and resource depletion. These more qualitative categories were unavailable because of; limitations in project scope, limitations in current data sources and complications in current assessment techniques.

The initial concerns regarding the extent to which assessment methods support or constrain design innovation persists, but has not proven sufficiently potent to significantly affect their structure or emphasis. Since environmental assessment methods present an organized set of selected environmental criteria, by default they communicate to building owners and design teams what are understood as being the most significant environmental considerations. As such existing assessment methods are used as design tools, even though they were not specifically designed to do so. This raises a conflict in the role assessment tools. On the one hand they may potentially institutionalize a limited definition of environmentally responsible building practice at a time when exploration and innovation should be encouraged. As such, building owners may commit their designer's to achieving a high performance score on specific assessment method resulting in points chasing as an unfortunate, but understandable, consequence.

Refinement of data sources and modeling

A more developed thermal model would enable more detailed modeling of specific feature changes for the new improved EIAP. More comprehensive data on material and system properties and industry practices will be needed.

To achieve an energy-efficient world, governments, businesses and individuals must transform the building sector through a multitude of actions, which include increasing energy awareness globally. Buildings today account for 40% of the world's energy use. The resulting carbon emissions are substantially more than those in the transportation sector. New buildings that will use more energy than necessary are being built every day, and millions of today's inefficient buildings will remain standing in 2050. We must start now to aggressively reduce energy use in new and existing buildings in order to reduce the planet's energy-related carbon footprint by 77% or 48 Gigatons (against the 2050 baseline) to stabilize CO2 levels to reach the level called for by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Discussion

The rapidly growing and evolving green buildings movement in the world has resulted in the increase in development and application of EIAP for buildings. In return EIAP have provided considerable theoretical and practical experience on their potential contribution in furthering green buildings practices. While EIAP for buildings' early role was to acknowledge the importance of assessing buildings across a range of considerations, the increased use of these methods has exposed new potential roles to transform the market to a more environmentally conscious one. However, despite their current success and influence, the majority of current EIAP for buildings remain constrained by several limitations and on the other hand addressing sustainability and the culture of building industry are changing.

Even though EIAP for buildings can be quite different in scope and objective, what connects these programs is the intent to reach beyond the mere requirements of building construction, introduce new goals in performance achievements and improve existing practice. Noticeably, from the past review, there are some defining characters for each program for example BREEAM provides a set of predefined criteria and many of the criteria set specific performance targets. R-2000, P-mark and Novoclimat, focuses on indoor air quality issues. ENERGY STAR, very prescriptive and narrowly focused only on improving the features that influence energy consumption such as building envelope and mechanical system. LEED was designed to provide a simple to use approach to rating buildings, however, there are many cases where the simplicity creates a lack of distinction in application, and the disaggregating into individual credits may stimulate specific solutions, but overall building integration may be less than ideal. Even though the Green Building Regulatory Guidelines for Dubai is still under developing and have not reach its final design stages yet, it was important to include a brief introduction about it as it is the only attempt in the middle east area to address green buildings design.

The comparative review provided information on variety of EIAP features. Firstly, EIAP for buildings were voluntary but with the green building market expanding they are changing toward being more applicable on a mandatory basis or at least having mandatory requirements within the assessment program like in BREEAM 2008.

Secondly, scoring system for EIAP for buildings vary depending on the main goal of the program. Simple additive approach, pre-weighted credits or post-scoring weighting are the most common scoring systems in use. To accomplish more realistic result in evaluating building performance some programs offers pre-operation assessment like in CEPASS and CASBEE.

Thirdly, the targeted building groups vary from program to another depending on the country adopting the scheme. Most of the EIAP are now moving toward more comprehensive programs to assess almost all types of buildings.

There are some EIAP that are specifically applicable to new designs and retrofits of new commercial, institutional and high-rise residential buildings like LEED (2000). Another group, for example BREEAM (2004), covers office, multi-residential, industrial and recreational buildings, as well as municipal building operations, with somewhat different specification for each type.

Finally different methodologies have been used to investigate and develop EIAP in the world; it usually starts with discussions and questionnaires followed by initial indices and finally choosing the method of presenting the program either as code, checklists simulation, interactive program or all of the above.

Future development directions for EIAP will include expanded building forms, expanded credit simulation, expanded assessment categories, and refinement of data sources and modeling.

Summery

Chapter 2 presented a comparative review of EIAP for buildings from different regions and countries of the world to give a comprehensive vision on EIAP evolution, its intended role and future development directions. This chapter served as a starting pointing in understanding assessment program's development processes and the methodologies used in evaluating them, as it will aid in choosing the methodologies undertaken by this study. In the next chapter a more focus view on the Egyptian environment will be presented.

Status, Challenges and

Opportunities

For example the aim of ISO 21929 is to:

  1. adapts general sustainability principles for buildings;
  2. includes a framework for the assessment of economic, environmental and social impacts of buildings;
  3. shows indicators as examples;
  4. shows how to use sustainability indicators with regard to buildings and shows the process of using sustainability indicators;
  5. supports the process of choosing indicators;
  6. supports the development of assessment tools; and
  7. defines the conformity with this specification.

References

  • BREEAM, 2009, BERR, 2008, Howe, 2008, Glasson et al., 2005
  • BREEAM (2009) What is BREEAM? BREEAM 2008 update. Building Research Establishment. http://www.breeam.org
  • BERR (2008) Department for Business Enterprise & Regulatory Reform. Strategy for Sustainable Construction, Analysis of Responses to Public Consultation, 25th February 2008.
  • Howe, C. (2008) Imminent changes to the 2008 version of BREEAM. Corporation Green. 5 March. http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=14286
  • Glasson, J., Therivel, R. & Chadwick, A. (2005) Introduction to Environmental Impact Assessment: Principles And Procedures, Process, Practice And Prospects, Published by Taylor & Francis. 423 pages. ISBN 0415338360, 9780415338363
  • Sustainable Development International Corporation SDIC (2009) Smart office: Eco labelling and certification. http://www.smartoffice.com/ecolabeling.html#buildings
  • Marshall, L. (2008) History of Green Building Rating Systems in Canada. Canadian Consulting Engineer, August/September.
  • Department of the Environment and Heritage DEH (2000) Greening the Building Life Cycle. Building LCA: Tools description. LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT TOOLS IN BUILDING AND CONSTRUCTION, 51
  • Bond, A. (1999) Smart Office Standards: BEPAC. Healthy and Green Living.
  • http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:lpBh6Fa7xToJ:www.care2.com/greenliving/smart-office-standards-bepac.html+BEPAC+canada&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
  • Lippiatt, B., Curran M. & Overly, J., Hofstetter, P. & Muller, R. (2002) BEES 2.0: Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability, Peer Review Report., Building and Fire Research Laboratory (U.S.). Published by U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Technology Administration, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Building and Fire Research Laboratory. 38.
  • NIST, National Institute of Standards and Technology (2007) Office of Applied Economics. BEES 4.0. http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/oae/software/bees/
  • Eldridge, C (2002) Lcaid Software: Measuring Environmental Performance Of Buildings. International Conference on Durability of Building Materials and Components 9DBMC. Paper 263.
  • Graham, P. (2000) The role of building environmental performance assessment in design. Environment Design Guide. The Royal Australian Institute of Architects, May 33.
  • Boonstra, C. & Pettersen T. (2003) Tools for environmental assessment of existing buildings. Sustainable building and construction. UNEP Industry and Environment. April - September. 80-83
  • Green Globes (2009) Green Building Initiative. http://www.thegbi.org/green-globes-tools/
  • ECD, Energy & Environment Canada. (2009). Green Globes: Design for New Buildings and Retrofits Rating. System and Program Summary. www.greenglobes.com
  • HK-BEAM (2009) BEAM standards. http://www.hk-beam.org.hk/general/home.php
  • Burnett, J. (2004) Environmental Performance Assessment Scheme for Hong Kong.
  • World Business Council for Sustainable Development WBCSD (2007) BEAM is Hong Kong's Best Kept Secret in the Green Building Industry
  • Huang, H., Wong, W. & Chan, E. (2000) Building Hong Kong: Environmental consideration Hong Kong University Press. 361 pages
  • Mithraratne, N. & Vale, R. (2007) Sustainable living: the role of whole life costs and values. Elsevier, 233.
  • Edmunds, K. & Chan, P. (2004) HK-BEAM: THE BUILDING ENV



rev

Our Service Portfolio

jb

Want To Place An Order Quickly?

Then shoot us a message on Whatsapp, WeChat or Gmail. We are available 24/7 to assist you.

whatsapp

Do not panic, you are at the right place

jb

Visit Our essay writting help page to get all the details and guidence on availing our assiatance service.

Get 20% Discount, Now
£19 £14/ Per Page
14 days delivery time

Our writting assistance service is undoubtedly one of the most affordable writting assistance services and we have highly qualified professionls to help you with your work. So what are you waiting for, click below to order now.

Get An Instant Quote

ORDER TODAY!

Our experts are ready to assist you, call us to get a free quote or order now to get succeed in your academics writing.

Get a Free Quote Order Now