Review of the terminology in the sustainable building sector

Abstract Over the last decade, research focusing on sustainability in construction has emerged. Many solution approaches were developed with the aim to reduce the environmental impact of buildings and increase their social value, while achieving economic feasibility. However, with the variety of new tools and models increased the number of specific terms to describe the upcoming approaches and developments. This leads partly to misunderstandings and confusion in the scientific community, by companies and authorities, which are involved in planning, permission and construction of buildings. So this paper gives an overview of different terms, work out their definitions - as far as possible - and interrelate the terms with one another. The literature research was conducted using the Scopus database and the systematic literature review to determine the various terms. In total 11 terms have been identified from the fields of building, construction, design, management and planning. Afterwards, a pool of articles was selected and analyzed for each of these terms in order to find an accurate definition for each of them. The findings showed that clear definitions for most of the terms are possible. Some terms currently used should not be used in the context of sustainability and buildings or construction to avoid further confusions. As a result this study helps to improve the communication between scientists from different disciplines and thus enable an efficient further development of sustainability in the building sector by building on the already existing know-how.