Environmental, Social and Economic Resilience in Multi-Residential Buildings: Assessing SBToolCZ Rating System

Sustainable Building Tool for the Czech Republic (SBToolCZ) is the Czech national green building rating system that encourages the design of sustainable buildings by incentivising reductions in energy, water, and building materials consumption, as well as improving occupant health and community connections. In addition to reducing the overall environmental impacts, certified green buildings must also be resilient enough to withstand external stressors, most frequently the symptoms of climatic change that may arise throughout the building's lifetime. Therefore, a resilient building should be capable of adapting and remaining functional under the pressure of more frequent and severe challenges. The purpose of this study is to examine where the SBToolCZ certification system has inherent overlaps with the topics of resilience, considering the environmental, social and economic factors relevant to Central European contexts. This is accomplished by comparing the criteria of this certification system with the most accepted principles of resilient design that have emerged from the international resilience rating systems or guidelines. A number of synergistic opportunities, as well as improvements for better integrating resilient design into the SBToolCZ framework and, therefore, into green construction, are discussed to implement existing criteria or propose supplementary ones. A key component of implementing resilience for multi-residential buildings is the SBToolCZ Site category, which is key to addressing the unique regional needs of each project and should be integrated with resilience-enhancement indicators. Finally, climate projections should be used instead of historical climate data at an early design stage to improve the resilience of the building.