In the last decade the world’s nation summits have indicated the importance of a critical notion for a secure development of the earth’s societies in accordance with the issues of:

·        environmental respect,

·        economical prosperity and

·        social well being.

The venture of this project was to approach this subject from an objective point of view and, for the trinity of sustainability values, to assess their establishment within the modern building design regulations.

The process involved the analysis of the sustainability issues, their exclusive study and the effect that they pose upon building development and design.

The ultimate objective was to find a way, with which relevant engineers could assess sustainability in its core, thus addressing the majority of sustainable problems, and above all finding a metric system for examining sustainable techniques and methodologies.

For that the team critically selected an existing industrial tool, currently used for environmental and economical studies within companies and organizations (Life Cycle Analysis - LCA), and thoroughly tested it for its applicability within a range of sustainable questions posed by the team. By that approach we managed to produce useful results about the industrial practicability and managerial compatibility LCA possess today as a quantifying method of sustainability.

For this purpose the team applied the relevant tool to a case study (a school in the area of Glasgow) and systematically recorded the useful and non-useful points in order to conclude the work with a testament of the tool’s overall validity. From that study, a clear image for one sector of the building’s most important life support systems (cables) was also prepared using again the same tool to find out the actual problems generated from these elements to the overall sustainability of the building itself. 

Useful conclusions were drawn about the relationships among the:

·        environmental impacts

·        life cycle phases

·        energy consumption