Tools for sustainability not for the market: a critical analysis of environmental assessment tools

Environmental assessment comes about as a tool to guide architectural design and to evaluate its sustainability, with the aim of checking the project through the analysis of shared parameters relating to energy and environmental factors. However, environmental certification now seems to have become a marketing tool in the construction industry. The planning choices are influenced not so much by sustainable goals as by the objective of getting the highest score possible according to the assessment system adopted, to give the property a higher market value. There is nothing wrong with that – that is business – but let us not call it sustainability!