The building industry has recently changed its focus from energy efficient buildings to sustainable buildings. The Danish DGNB certification scheme is the leading standard within sustainable building in Denmark and approaches sustainability based on the three dimensions social, economic, and environmental sustainability. The social dimension of sustainable building is the main focus in this project and it is investigated how sustainable building can add value to the users by contributing to their well-being.
Different perspectives on the concept of value is addressed in the theoretical framework in order to discover what value is. Furthermore, the theoretical framework explores how value can be added through the theory of co-creation. Interviews have been conducted with building professionals and users with the purpose of generating knowledge of their understandings of the social dimension in sustainable building. A workshop and a field trip with actors from the building industry have together with literature studies contributed with knowledge concerning the problem field.
Based on the theoretical framework it is analyzed how building professionals and users understand the the social dimension of sustainable building. These understandings are compared to social criteria in the DGNB certification in order to discover how the understanding be utilized in the DGNB certification in order to add value to the users.
It is concluded that the understandings can be utilized through inclusion of co-creation in the process criteria, and through a Post Occupancy Evaluation of social criteria. Implementation of these initiatives will improve the social dimension of the DGNB certification scheme as value will be added to the users.