Modeling the Effect of Building Stakeholder Interactions on Value Perception of Sustainable Retrofits

Authored by Kristina Stephan, Carol C Menassa

Date Published: 2015

DOI: 10.1061/(asce)cp.1943-5487.0000409

Sponsors: United States National Science Foundation (NSF)

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Flow charts

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Alignment among building stakeholders is necessary to ensure that sustainable retrofits achieve the purpose of maximizing economic, environmental, and social value of the building. However, dynamic stakeholder opinions and value maximization perceptions result in conflicting requirements that hinder the adoption of truly sustainable retrofit decision. This paper uses an agent-based model to understand how social network interactions can help stakeholders with different characteristics prioritize their values on cost awareness, energy saving, and organizational performance to ultimately come up with an optimal retrofit decision for a commercial office building. Experimental analysis is used to qualitatively validate the model against results from other studies in literature. The results indicate that highly connected network structures can facilitate the interaction between the stakeholders to achieve alignment. In addition, networks with highly confident stakeholders typically hinder agreement, whereas those with stakeholders that have similar perceptions of values and moderate confidence levels can significantly facilitate alignment and polarization of stakeholders towards a unified retrofit objective. (C) 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Tags

Complex networks Dynamics Energy use Network Structure Commercial buildings Construction Interventions Impact Social networks Technologies