The Multi-Level Perspective on Sustainable Building Design: an Account on Building Environmental Assessment Tools

Abstract

Based on the middle-range theory in the field of socio-technical transitions, the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), the paper considers the practice of 'sustainable' building guided by building environment assessment tools (LEED, BREEAM or la Procedure HQE) as a niche activity under the mainstream construction regime. The MLP views transitions as a result of the interplay between three analytical levels: Niches (for radical innovations), socio-technical regimes and socio-technical landscapes. This perspective reveals how structuring effects reflect upon practices and thus how practices (re)produce structures. Where regimes tend to produce 'normal' innovation process pattern, niches refer to activities mostly protected from the structuring effects of regimes. In this framework, higher levels are more stable than lower ones and transitions are the shifts from one regime to another. In Turkey, although the number of certified buildings in one of these assessment tools remains small, these tools have gained significant appeal in marketing the projects. Regardless of the inadequacies of these tools in encouraging professionals towards environmentally sensitive buildings, their assessment methodology and criteria are seen to be highly influential on orienting the local discourse on sustainability. Considering the call for attaining a regenerative paradigm for a sustainable built environment, such an orientation might favor only one type of structure, by relinquishing others and, maybe more fruitful alternatives. Following the MLP, this paper discusses how such a niche activity interacts with the overarching construction regime in Turkey. It examines if such a niche-regime translation occurs and dwells upon possible counterproductive consequences for the future.