LEED(TM) for schools was introduced in response to research that showed the influence of classroom environment on energy savings and students’ performance. There is however a need to investigate the relationship between credits achieved by the LEED(TM) for schools rating system and its impact on building performance. This study quantifies and analyzes resource consumption and indoor comfort of two LEED(TM) certified elementary schools in Houston, Texas by comparing them to their conventional counterparts. Year-long metered data for 2015 was analyzed for resource consumption. Indoor comfort was analyzed by recording visual and thermal comfort metrics for a north and south oriented classroom in each school. Both LEED(TM) schools had greater energy savings and better visual comfort as compared to the non-LEED schools. However, the water consumption savings and thermal comfort varied by school. Also, the LEED(TM) Gold School didn’t exhibit higher energy and water consumption savings than the LEED(TM) Silver School. / 10000-01-01

As condições fornecidas pelo espaço físico de instituições de ensino são determinantes para o desenvolvimento das atividades de ensino e aprendizado. O presente trabalho dá continuidade às pesquisas do grupo da Linha de Pesquisa em Edificações e Comunidades Sustentáveis do NORIE/UFRGS, objetivando a avaliação das alternativas propostas para escola de ensino fundamental projetada utilizando estratégias sustentáveis, pelo próprio grupo em 2004. Assim, a presente pesquisa teve como objetivo explorar a referia escola, através de uma avaliação do conforto ambiental nos espaços construídos. Para tal, foi realizada uma análise exploratória das características dos materiais que envolvem a escola, além de medições térmicas, acústicas e lumínicas. Também foi verificado o nível de satisfação dos usuários, através de ferramentas quantitativas e qualitativas, buscando verificar como os seus ocupantes respondem à proposta sustentável da edificação e às condições de conforto ambiental oferecidas a seus ocupantes. Os dados térmicos, com monitoramento de maio a dezembro de 2008, foram analisados através de valores máximos e mínimos absolutos, zonas de conforto (considerando temperatura e umidade) e gráficos de graus-hora. Os dados lumínicos, coletados próximos aos solstícios e equinócio de primavera, foram analisados em relação às iluminâncias médias do ambiente, coeficiente de uniformidade e contribuição da luz artificial. Os dados acústicos, coletados em dia específico de atividades na escola, através dos níveis de pressão sonora causados por ruídos externos e o tempo de reverberação dos ambientes. Por fim, também foi verificada a satisfação dos usuários através de aplicação de questionário nos alunos e de grupo de foco, realizado junto aos professores. Através do cruzamento de todas as análises realizadas, concluiu-se que a resposta da edificação escolar, em geral, foi satisfatória, e, portanto, capaz de oferecer condições de conforto ambiental aos seus usuários. Espera-se que esta pesquisa contribua para a melhoria da eficiência energética, conforto ambiental e sustentabilidade de edificações escolares. / The conditions supplied by the physical spaces of educational buildings are very important for the development of learning and teaching activities. The present work gives continuation to the studies developed by the research group on Sustainable Buildings and Communities at NORIE/UFRGS, aiming to evaluate the different alternatives to a primary school building designed with the use of sustainable strategies, as proposed by the same group in 2004. Therefore, the present study had as main aim to carry out the indoor comfort evaluation of the facilities in use within the above mentioned school, through thermal, acoustic and daylighting measurements. After verifying the users satisfaction, by means of quantitative and qualitative tools, the environmental performance of the building was assessed. The collected data were analyzed in different ways. The thermal data, monitored from May to December of 2008, were analyzed through the absolute maximum and minimum temperatures, comfort zone (temperature and relative humidity) and the degree hours. The lighting data, collected on the solstices and at the spring equinox, were analyzed considering the classroom's illuminance, the distribution of illuminance values in the classroom, and the artificial lighting contribution. The acoustical data, collected in a specific day of regular activities in the school, were analyzed by looking at the different sound levels caused by external sound sources, and at the reverberation time of the classrooms. Finally, the users satisfaction was checked by questionnaires applied to the students and by meetings carried out with the teachers of the school. It was concluded, through the comparison of information from the analysis carried out, that the response of the educational building was satisfactory, therefore able to offer indoor comfort conditions to its users. It is expected that the most important contribution of this study will be related to the improvement of the indoor comfort of educational buildings.

Global warming induced by the emissions of greenhouse gases is one of the most important global environmental issues facing the world today. Using the building simulation techniques, this research investigates the interaction and relationship between global warming and built environment, particularly for the air-conditioned office buildings. The adaptation potential of various building designs is also evaluated. Based on the descriptive statistics method, the Pearson Product Moment Correlation and the regression analysis method, ten years of historical hourly climatic data for Australia are first analyzed. The distribution patterns of key weather parameters between a Test Reference Year (TRY) and multiple years (MYs), and between relatively cold and hot years are also compared. The possible cross-correlation between several different weather variables are then assessed and established. These findings form a useful basis and provide insights for the development of future weather models under "hot" global warming conditions and the explanation of building performance at different locations. Based on a review of the existing weather data generation models and findings from historic climatic data analysis, an effective method to generate approximate future hourly weather data suitable for the study of the impact of global warming is presented. This is achieved by imposing the future temperature projection from the global climate model on top of the historically observed weather data. Depending on the level of information available for the prediction of future weather conditions, this method allows either the method of retaining to current level, constant offset method or diurnal modelling method to be used. Therefore it represents a more comprehensive and holistic approach than previous one that have been used to convert the available weather data and climatic information to a format suitable for building simulation study. An example of the application of this method to the different global warming scenarios in Australia is also presented. The performance of a representative office building is then examined in details under the five weather scenarios (present, 2030 Low, 2030 High, 2070 Low and 2070 High) and over all eight capital cities in Australia. The sample building used for this study is an air conditioned, square shape, ten storey office tower with a basement carpark, which is recommended by the Australian Building Codes Board to represent the typical office building found in the central business district (CBD) of the capital cities or major regional centres in Australia. Through building computer simulations, the increased cooling loads imposed by potential global warming is quantified. The probable indoor temperature increases and overheating problems due to heat load exceeding the capacity of installed air-conditioning systems are also presented. It is shown that in terms of the whole building indoor thermal environment, existing buildings would generally be able to adapt to the increasing warming of the 2030 year Low and High scenarios projections and the 2070 year Low scenario projection. For the 2070 year High scenario, the study indicates that the existing office buildings in all capital cities will suffer from the overheating problem. To improve the building thermal comfort to an acceptable standard (ie, less than 5% of occupied hours having indoor temperature over 25°), a further increase of 4-10% of building cooling load is required. The sensitivity of different office building zoning (i.e. zone at different floors and/or with different window orientation) to the potential global warming is also investigated. It is shown that for most cities, the ground floor, and the South or Core zone would be most sensitive to the external temperature change and has the highest tendency to having the overheating problem. By linking building energy use to CO2 emissions, the possible increase of CO2 emissions due to increased building energy use is also estimated. The adaptation potential of different designs of building physical properties to global warming is then examined and compared. The parametric factors studied include the building insulation levels, window to wall ratio, window glass types, and internal load density. It is found that overall, an office building with a lower insulation level, smaller window to wall ratio and/or a glass type with lower shading coefficient, and lower internal load density will have the effect of lowering building cooling load and total energy use, and therefore have a better potential to adapt to the warming external climate. This phenomenon can be linked to the nature of internal-load dominated office-building characteristics. Based on these findings, a series of design and adaptation strategies have been proposed and evaluated.

As condições fornecidas pelo espaço físico de instituições de ensino são determinantes para o desenvolvimento das atividades de ensino e aprendizado. O presente trabalho dá continuidade às pesquisas do grupo da Linha de Pesquisa em Edificações e Comunidades Sustentáveis do NORIE/UFRGS, objetivando a avaliação das alternativas propostas para escola de ensino fundamental projetada utilizando estratégias sustentáveis, pelo próprio grupo em 2004. Assim, a presente pesquisa teve como objetivo explorar a referia escola, através de uma avaliação do conforto ambiental nos espaços construídos. Para tal, foi realizada uma análise exploratória das características dos materiais que envolvem a escola, além de medições térmicas, acústicas e lumínicas. Também foi verificado o nível de satisfação dos usuários, através de ferramentas quantitativas e qualitativas, buscando verificar como os seus ocupantes respondem à proposta sustentável da edificação e às condições de conforto ambiental oferecidas a seus ocupantes. Os dados térmicos, com monitoramento de maio a dezembro de 2008, foram analisados através de valores máximos e mínimos absolutos, zonas de conforto (considerando temperatura e umidade) e gráficos de graus-hora. Os dados lumínicos, coletados próximos aos solstícios e equinócio de primavera, foram analisados em relação às iluminâncias médias do ambiente, coeficiente de uniformidade e contribuição da luz artificial. Os dados acústicos, coletados em dia específico de atividades na escola, através dos níveis de pressão sonora causados por ruídos externos e o tempo de reverberação dos ambientes. Por fim, também foi verificada a satisfação dos usuários através de aplicação de questionário nos alunos e de grupo de foco, realizado junto aos professores. Através do cruzamento de todas as análises realizadas, concluiu-se que a resposta da edificação escolar, em geral, foi satisfatória, e, portanto, capaz de oferecer condições de conforto ambiental aos seus usuários. Espera-se que esta pesquisa contribua para a melhoria da eficiência energética, conforto ambiental e sustentabilidade de edificações escolares. / The conditions supplied by the physical spaces of educational buildings are very important for the development of learning and teaching activities. The present work gives continuation to the studies developed by the research group on Sustainable Buildings and Communities at NORIE/UFRGS, aiming to evaluate the different alternatives to a primary school building designed with the use of sustainable strategies, as proposed by the same group in 2004. Therefore, the present study had as main aim to carry out the indoor comfort evaluation of the facilities in use within the above mentioned school, through thermal, acoustic and daylighting measurements. After verifying the users satisfaction, by means of quantitative and qualitative tools, the environmental performance of the building was assessed. The collected data were analyzed in different ways. The thermal data, monitored from May to December of 2008, were analyzed through the absolute maximum and minimum temperatures, comfort zone (temperature and relative humidity) and the degree hours. The lighting data, collected on the solstices and at the spring equinox, were analyzed considering the classroom's illuminance, the distribution of illuminance values in the classroom, and the artificial lighting contribution. The acoustical data, collected in a specific day of regular activities in the school, were analyzed by looking at the different sound levels caused by external sound sources, and at the reverberation time of the classrooms. Finally, the users satisfaction was checked by questionnaires applied to the students and by meetings carried out with the teachers of the school. It was concluded, through the comparison of information from the analysis carried out, that the response of the educational building was satisfactory, therefore able to offer indoor comfort conditions to its users. It is expected that the most important contribution of this study will be related to the improvement of the indoor comfort of educational buildings.

As condições fornecidas pelo espaço físico de instituições de ensino são determinantes para o desenvolvimento das atividades de ensino e aprendizado. O presente trabalho dá continuidade às pesquisas do grupo da Linha de Pesquisa em Edificações e Comunidades Sustentáveis do NORIE/UFRGS, objetivando a avaliação das alternativas propostas para escola de ensino fundamental projetada utilizando estratégias sustentáveis, pelo próprio grupo em 2004. Assim, a presente pesquisa teve como objetivo explorar a referia escola, através de uma avaliação do conforto ambiental nos espaços construídos. Para tal, foi realizada uma análise exploratória das características dos materiais que envolvem a escola, além de medições térmicas, acústicas e lumínicas. Também foi verificado o nível de satisfação dos usuários, através de ferramentas quantitativas e qualitativas, buscando verificar como os seus ocupantes respondem à proposta sustentável da edificação e às condições de conforto ambiental oferecidas a seus ocupantes. Os dados térmicos, com monitoramento de maio a dezembro de 2008, foram analisados através de valores máximos e mínimos absolutos, zonas de conforto (considerando temperatura e umidade) e gráficos de graus-hora. Os dados lumínicos, coletados próximos aos solstícios e equinócio de primavera, foram analisados em relação às iluminâncias médias do ambiente, coeficiente de uniformidade e contribuição da luz artificial. Os dados acústicos, coletados em dia específico de atividades na escola, através dos níveis de pressão sonora causados por ruídos externos e o tempo de reverberação dos ambientes. Por fim, também foi verificada a satisfação dos usuários através de aplicação de questionário nos alunos e de grupo de foco, realizado junto aos professores. Através do cruzamento de todas as análises realizadas, concluiu-se que a resposta da edificação escolar, em geral, foi satisfatória, e, portanto, capaz de oferecer condições de conforto ambiental aos seus usuários. Espera-se que esta pesquisa contribua para a melhoria da eficiência energética, conforto ambiental e sustentabilidade de edificações escolares. / The conditions supplied by the physical spaces of educational buildings are very important for the development of learning and teaching activities. The present work gives continuation to the studies developed by the research group on Sustainable Buildings and Communities at NORIE/UFRGS, aiming to evaluate the different alternatives to a primary school building designed with the use of sustainable strategies, as proposed by the same group in 2004. Therefore, the present study had as main aim to carry out the indoor comfort evaluation of the facilities in use within the above mentioned school, through thermal, acoustic and daylighting measurements. After verifying the users satisfaction, by means of quantitative and qualitative tools, the environmental performance of the building was assessed. The collected data were analyzed in different ways. The thermal data, monitored from May to December of 2008, were analyzed through the absolute maximum and minimum temperatures, comfort zone (temperature and relative humidity) and the degree hours. The lighting data, collected on the solstices and at the spring equinox, were analyzed considering the classroom's illuminance, the distribution of illuminance values in the classroom, and the artificial lighting contribution. The acoustical data, collected in a specific day of regular activities in the school, were analyzed by looking at the different sound levels caused by external sound sources, and at the reverberation time of the classrooms. Finally, the users satisfaction was checked by questionnaires applied to the students and by meetings carried out with the teachers of the school. It was concluded, through the comparison of information from the analysis carried out, that the response of the educational building was satisfactory, therefore able to offer indoor comfort conditions to its users. It is expected that the most important contribution of this study will be related to the improvement of the indoor comfort of educational buildings.

Over half of the world’s population lives in urban areas, a trend which is expected to only grow as we move further into the future. With this increasing trend in urbanisation, challenges are presented in the form of the management of urban infrastructure systems. As an essential infrastructure of any city, the energy system presents itself as one of the biggest challenges. As cities expand in population and economically, global energy consumption increases and as a result so do greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To achieve the 2030 Agenda’s sustainable development goal on energy (SDG 7), renewable energy and energy efficiency have been shown as key strategies for attaining SDG 7. As the largest contributor to climate change, the building sector is responsible for more than half of the global final energy consumption and GHG emissions. As people spend most of their time indoors, the demand for energy is made worse as a result of maintaining the comfort level of the indoor environment. However, the emergence of the smart city and the internet of things (IoT) offers the opportunity for the smart management of buildings. Focusing on the latter strategy towards attaining SDG 7, intelligent building control offers significant potential for saving energy while respecting occupant comfort (OC). Most intelligent control strategies, however, rely on complex mathematical models which require a great deal of expertise to construct thereby costing in time and money. Furthermore, if these are inaccurate then energy is wasted and the comfort of occupants is decreased. Moreover, any change in the physical environment such as retrofits result in obsolete models which must be re-identified to match the new state of the environment. This model-based approach seems unsustainable and so a new model-free alternative is proposed. One such alternative is the reinforcement learning (RL) method. This method provides a beautiful solution to accomplishing the tradeoff between energy efficiency and OC within the smart city and more importantly to achieving SDG 7. To address the feasibility of RL as a sustainable control strategy for efficient occupant-centred building operation, a comprehensive review of RL for controlling OC in buildings as well as a case study implementing RL for improving OC via a window system are presented. The outcomes of each seem to suggest RL as a feasible solution, however, more work is required in the form of addressing current open issues such as cooperative multi-agent RL (MARL) needed for multi-occupant/multi-zonal buildings.

The level of indoor comfort can highly be influenced by window opening and closing behavior of the occupant in an office building. It will not only affect the comfort level but also affects the energy consumption, if not properly managed. This occupant behavior is not easy to predict and control in conventional way. Nowadays, to call a system smart it must learn user behavior, as it gives valuable information to the controlling system. To make an efficient way of controlling a window, we propose RL (Reinforcement Learning) in our thesis which should be able to learn user behavior and maintain optimal indoor climate. This model free nature of RL gives the flexibility in developing an intelligent control system in a simpler way, compared to that of the conventional techniques. Data in our thesis is taken from an office building in Beijing. There has been implementation of Value-based Reinforcement learning before for controlling the window, but here in this thesis we are applying policy-based RL (REINFORCE algorithm) and also compare our results with value-based (Q-learning) and there by getting a better idea, which suits better for the task that we have in our hand and also to explore how they behave. Based on our work it is found that policy based RL provides a great trade-off in maintaining optimal indoor temperature and learning occupant’s behavior, which is important for a system to be called smart.

Urbaniseringen i Sverige under 1960–1970-talet medförde en kraftig ökning av byggandet och efterfrågan på bostäder och lokaler var stor. Idag utgör bostad- och service sektorn 40 % av den totala energianvändningen i Sverige. För att åstadkomma ett hållbart samhälle måste energieffektivisering av befintliga byggnader ske samt måste nybyggnationer utförs energieffektivt och sträva efter nära noll energibyggnader (NNE). Detta är viktigt för att energianvändningen skall minska samtidigt som miljöpåverkan blir låg. Viktigt är också att invånarna upplever ett bra inomhusklimat och en bra stadsmiljö att leva i. Examensarbetet omfattar en befintlig byggnad i Göteborg på Doktor Fries Torg 6,7 och 10, där flera verksamheter bedrivs. Projektet har utförts på teknikkonsultföretaget Energi Triangeln AB i samarbete med Förvaltnings AB GöteborgsLokaler. Huvudmålet med projektet är att utföra en energianalys som talar om hur energianvändningen ser ut för hela byggnaden. Genom att undersöka energianvändningen möjliggörs framtagande av åtgärdsförslag för att åstadkomma optimala energiförhållanden, minska energianvändningen och driftkostnaderna för kunden samt att främja hållbar utveckling i samhället. Resultatet för projektet presenteras med hjälp av data från fastighetsägaren, beräkningsfiler och formler inom ämnet Energiteknik i byggnader. Den avgörande fasen under arbetsgången har varit platsbesöken som utförts ett flertal gånger. Platsbesöken har innefattat besiktning av ventilationssystemen, värmesystemet, klimatskalet, verksamhetselen, fastighetselen och interna värmelaster för respektive verksamhet samt på vilket sätt verksamheterna bedrivs. Besöken underlättade arbetsgången då analyser av byggnaden möjliggjordes samtidigt som antagande och slutsatser om byggnaden kunde konstateras utefter branschstandard. Resultatet från projektet visar att byggnaden i nuläget har en energianvändning på cirka 133 kWh/m2, år och cirka 154 kWh/LOA, år. Med framtagna åtgärdsförslag har byggnaden en besparingspotential på cirka 54 % som motsvarar en energianvändning på 71 kWh/m2, år och 83 kWh/LOA, år. / The desire to buy housing and facilities in Sweden was high during the urbanization, which led to a large amount of buildings were built during the time. Today, the housing and the service sector accounts for 40 % of the total energy use in Sweden. To achieve a sustainable society and a sustainable building, energy efficiency of existing buildings needs to be done as well as new constructions needs to be performed energy efficiently and aim for near zero energy buildings (NNEs). This is important for reducing the energy use, and at the same time low the impact on the environment, while people feel a satisfactory environment. The project comprises an existing building in Gothenburg, where several activities are conducted at Doctor Fries Torg 6, 7 and 10. The project will be performed at the technology consulting company Energi Triangeln AB and the client of the project is Förvaltnings AB GöteborgsLokaler. The main purpose of the project is to implement an energy analysis that shows how the energy use in the building is distributed. By examining the energy use, it is possible to develop action proposals to achieve optimum energy conditions, reduce the energy use and the operating costs for the customer by promoting sustainable development. The result of the project is presented using data from the property owner, calculation files and formulas. The decisive phase of the work has been the visits of the building, which were made a couple of times. The visits have included inspection of the ventilation systems, heating system, climate scale, business area, property area, the internal heating keys for the respective activity and the way in which the activities are conducted. The visits facilitated the workflow when analyzes of the building were made, as well as the assumptions and conclusions about the building could be identified according to the industry standards. The results from the project show that the building has an energy use of 133 kWh/m2 and approximately 154 kWh/LOA today. With action proposals, the building has a saving potential of approximately 54 % which corresponds to an energy use of 71 kWh/m2, year and 83 kWh/LOA, year.

Les constructions traditionnelles en bois en France et à Madagascar témoignent de l’utilisation ancienne d’abondantes ressources forestières locales. Le bois peut être considéré comme un matériau naturel et renouvelable dans la mesure où les ressources forestières sont gérées durablement. L’utilisation du bois dans la construction contribue largement à la maîtrise du cycle du carbone atmosphérique et à la limitation des émissions de gaz à effet de serre. Ce travail présente les principales caractéristiques physiques du matériau bois et des systèmes constructifs associés, montrant l’importance et l’influence du revêtement en bois sur l’environnement intérieur des habitations. La caractérisation des phénomènes hygrothermiques à l’échelle de la pièce d’habitation a été détaillée : présence d’eau dans le bois, comportement de l’équilibre hygroscopique, transfert thermique et transfert de masse, les paramètres physiques du bois et d’une ambiance intérieure. Enfin, ce travail apporte des connaissances sur l’évaluation des interactions entre le confort thermique, l’ambiance intérieure et le revêtement en bois, grâce à des campagnes de mesure in situ, à des mesures en laboratoire et à des modélisations de scénarios numériques. / Traditional wood buildings in France and in Madagascar use abundant local forest resources in architecture. Woodcan be considered as renewable and natural material when coming from sustainably managed forest. Using wood in construction contributes significantly in controlling the atmospheric carbon cycle and the emission of greenhouse gas. This study presents the main physical characteristics of wood materials and building systems showing the influence of wood coating on indoor environment. Hygrothermal phenomena across the living space are characterized and presented in this work : the presence of water in the wood, the behavior of equilibrium moisture, heat transfer and mass transfer, the physical parameters of wood material and physical parameters of indoor environment. Thermal comfort is similarly characterised. This work contributes knowledge on the evaluation of interactions between thermal comfort, indoor air and wood coating by means of in situ and laboratory measurements and numerical model simulations.

To improve sustainability, social, environmental and economic aspects needs to be considered. The most optimal result appears when all three aspects are balanced equally, this is however often overseen by private investors, who focuses only on reaching economic sustainability at the expense of social and environmental sustainability. Building digitization is one way to potentially improve the sustainability of a building socially, environmentally and economically. Focusing on the aspects that often are neglected, this thesis aims to investigate if digitizing a building improves social and environmental sustainability. The investigation is made by evaluating the implementation of a digital building automation tool from selected social and environmental sustainability criteria at the University hospital of Northern Sweden. This by performing an interview survey with the maintenance organisation and the tenants in the building, as well as performing CO2-e calculations on emissions connected to energy usage, transportation and production of HVAC-products. The evaluation indicated that the implementation had resulted in improved sustainability in the studied building, both socially and environmentally. Showing that digitizing a building improves social and environmental sustainability. The social sustainability had been positively affected from increased efficiency and effectiveness of the maintenance work in the building and improved well-being of the maintenance staff. However, the tenants were not completely satisfied when asked if reported errors were being solved, but on the other hand had the maintenance organisation experienced an improvement in satisfaction among the tenants since the implementation of the digital building automation tool. Furthermore, the tenants were generally more satisfied than dissatisfied with the indoor climate, except for experienced low temperatures in the winter and dry air. The environmental sustainability had been improved from a reduction in emitted CO2-e, generated from less energy usage and minimized transportation connected to maintenance operations. Furthermore, an estimation on increased technical lifetime of HVAC-products demonstrated on a potential further reduction in emitted CO2-e during the building's whole life span. Finally, the evaluation identified two combined effects between social and environmental sustainability. First, the increased efficiency and effectiveness of the maintenance work was one direct factor for the decrease in CO2-e emissions connected to transportation. Second, the tenants in the building expressed that they would feel prouder of their choice of employer if their employer focused more on reducing their climate impact, which motivates to work with environmental sustainability to achieve satisfaction and moreover an improved social sustainability.  The results of this case study indicate that digital building automation improves the social and environmental sustainability of a building, strengthening the statement on potential sustainability improvements from building digitization. For property owners wanting to increase their building's sustainability, digital building automation is therefore a proposed course of action. However, the performance on sustainability and the balance between the different aspects should continuously be evaluated, as the study showed that further improvements on the social and environmental sustainability still could be made. Property owners working towards an improved sustainability through digitization will both see long term positive effects on people's health, as well as help fulfilling the climate goals in the Paris agreement, resulting in a more sustainable world for present and future generations. / För att skapa en bättre hållbarhet måste hänsyn tas till både den sociala, miljömässiga samt den ekonomiska aspekten. Fokuset på dessa tre aspekter bör balanseras lika för att uppnå optimal hållbarhet, dock efterföljs detta inte vanligtvis av privata investerare som ofta endast fokuserar på att uppnå ekonomisk hållbarhet på bekostnad av den sociala- och miljömässiga hållbarheten. En byggnads hållbarhet kan potentiellt förbättras genom digitalisering av byggnaden, vilket kan förbättra den sociala, miljömässiga och ekonomiska hållbarheten. Genom att fokusera på de aspekter som ofta blir nedprioriterade undersöker denna studie om den sociala och miljömässiga hållbarheten i en byggnad ökar vid digitalisering. Detta genom att utvärdera implementeringen av ett digitalt verktyg på Norrlands Universitetssjukhus från några utvalda kriterier för social och miljömässig hållbarhet. Den sociala hållbarheten utvärderas med hjälp av en intervjustudie med underhållspersonalen och hyresgästerna i byggnaden, medan den miljömässiga hållbarheten utvärderades genom att beräkna CO2-e utsläpp kopplade till energianvändning, transporter samt produktionen av HVAC-produkter. Utvärderingen indikerade att implementeringen hade resulterat i en ökad social och miljömässig hållbarhet i byggnaden, vilket visar att en byggnads sociala och miljömässiga hållbarhet kan förbättras genom digitalisering. Den sociala hållbarheten hade ökat på grund av en ökad effektivitet i underhållsarbetet samt ett förbättrat välmående hos underhållspersonalen. Dock visade undersökningen att hyresgästerna i byggnaden inte var helt nöjda med arbetet kring felanmälningar, underhållsorganisationen hade dock upplevt att hyresgästerna var nöjdare efter implementeringen av det digitala verktyget än de var innan. Hyresgästerna var också mer nöjda än missnöjda med inomhusklimatet, förutom att de upplevde låg inomhustemperatur på vintern och att luften var torr. Den miljömässiga hållbarheten hade förbättrats genom en minskning av CO2-e utsläpp från minskad energianvändning och minskade transporter kopplade till underhållsarbetet. Den estimerade ökningen av den tekniska livslängden på HVAC-produkter visade också på potentiella minskningar av CO2-utsläpp under byggnadens hela livslängd. Denna studie identifierade också två kombinerade effekter mellan social- och miljömässig hållbarhet. Den första var att genom ökad effektivitet i arbetet för underhållspersonalen så minskade även CO2-e utsläppen från transporterna. Den andra var att hyresgästerna i byggnaden uttryckte att de skulle känna sig stoltare över sitt val av arbetsgivare om deras arbetsgivare fokuserade mer på att minska sin klimatpåverkan, vilket motiverar att arbeta med miljömässighållbarhet för att uppnå ökad tillfredsställelse hos hyresgästerna och därav ökad social hållbarhet.  Resultaten från denna fallstudie indikerar att digital fastighetsautomation förbättrar den sociala och miljömässiga hållbarheten av en byggnad, vilket styrker argumentet att en byggnads hållbarhet potentiellt kan förbättras genom digitalisering. För fastighetsägare som vill öka en byggnads hållbarhet är digital fastighetsautomation därför rekommenderat. Hållbarheten samt balansen mellan de olika hållbarhetsaspekterna behöver däremot kontinuerligt utvärderas, eftersom denna studie har visat att den sociala- och miljömässigahållbarheten fortfarande kan förbättras. Fastighetsägare som arbetar med att öka hållbarheten i byggnader genom digitalisering kommer uppleva långvariga positiva effekter för människors hälsa samt så kommer de bidra till att uppnå klimatmålen i Parisavtalet. Detta resulterar i en mer hållbar värld för nutida och framtida generationer.