ABSTRACT
The building industry has established various certification systems that utilise a checklist methodology to assess sustainability across a spectrum of independent criteria grouped into the three pillars of sustainability: Environment, Economy, and Social. However, this silo approach may inadvertently neglect potential interactions and trade-offs associated with design decisions made during the early stages of the building design process. This paper presents the initial findings from a research-oriented initiative aimed at developing a decision support system (DSS) that promotes informed decision-making regarding the social, environmental, and economic impacts of proposed design choices. The results derived from the iterative development and empirical testing of the DSS, which incorporated a three-stage methodology for data collection, indicate that further development of this approach is worthwhile. The outcome is supported by a questionnaire survey of potential end users who engaged with the three-stage method; nearly all respondents indicated that the DSS holds significant potential utility.
