Towards a Definition for Zero Impact Buildings

There are several trials to develop a definition for zero impact or near zero impact buildings. Most these trials are based on setting performance metrics and metric benchmarks for the different resources utilized during the building life cycle by defining the resource quantity and quality. However, the problem of these efforts is that they are separate, leading to restricted design approaches. Most existing definitions focus only on one resource, such as energy, water or materials, during the building life cycle. Thus the building community needs to set a collective definition for buildings with zero ecological impact, conflating all resources. In this paper, we discuss this problem and suggest a necessary shift towards a collective zero impact buildings definition. The definition allows us to examine broader criteria including land management, carbon neutrality, energy neutrality, water efficiency and material neutrality. The intent of this paper is to overview existing definitions in order to define a combined zero impact definition.