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32
ZEB
annual report 2014
Discussions about what new sustainable
buildings cost are a central feature
of Norwegian public discourse on the
construction of buildings with high
environmental ambitions. Economic
calculations play a key role in the negotiations
and controversies around new buildings.
These calculations will always include and
exclude certain factors, but exactly how these
inclusions and exclusions are determined
in architects’, consulting engineers’ and
researchers’ offices or on the construction site
is crucial when it comes to the feasibility of
constructing buildings with high environmental
ambitions.
This work draws on perspectives developed
in Science and Technology Studies (STS)
that address the role of economics and
economic tools in the shaping of society. In
addition to describing widely different ways of
how “additional cost” is reasoned about, the
paper discusses how the rhetorical power of
the “additional cost” is made plausible. The
underlying idea for such an analysis is that
detailed descriptions of different framings
will provide knowledge that can contribute
to a more productive dialogue between the
various groups involved in the construction of
buildings with high environmental ambitions
and in defining sustainability in the built
environment.
Based on the performed studies of Norwegian
printed media and expert reports on the
cost of new sustainable buildings this paper
describes four different ways of framing the
cost of new buildings with high environmental
ambitions. Whether there is a focus on
innovation, environmental costs, ENØK or
direct profitability for the construction firm
profoundly influences how the numbers
that are presented as “additional cost” are
produced, presented and evaluated. While
a focus on innovation, for instance, would
write off additional costs for on-site product
development as productive investment, a
focus on direct profitability cannot do so.
And to factor in environmental costs (e.g. the
contribution to climate change) is very different
from the focus on cost-efficiency in an ENØK
perspective. Differences between these four
approaches are impossible to resolve into
one number representing the “real” additional
cost since all four are based on different
interpretations of the term “cost” and what it
should include or exclude. What is more, in
order to contribute to a market breakthrough
of zero emission buildings, all four types
of motivations (innovation, environment,
ENØK, private profit) are useful drivers, and
to focus only on one of them would mean to
miss three additional opportunities. Based
VALUATION OF SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS
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VERDSETTING AV BÆREKRAFTIGE BYGG
Jøran Solli (NTNU) and Thomas Berker (NTNU)
How much more does a square meter of
increased energy efficiency “really” cost?