ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY INDICATORS AND PERFORMANCE THRESHOLDS FOR RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS: A SCOPING REVIEW

Construction depletes natural resources resulting in environmental degradation. This review aims to identify environmental sustainability indicators and performance thresholds in residential buildings. Using population-concept-context framework, 67 eligible literature from Scopus and Google Scholar databases and grey literature from 2020-2025 identified environmental sustainability domains as (1) land efficiency, (2) water efficiency, (3) energy efficiency, (4) material efficiency and (5) internal environmental quality with subdomains of (5.1) thermal comfort, (5.2) acoustic comfort, (5.3) visual comfort and (5.4) internal air quality. Environmental sustainability indicators and thresholds include ecological footprint ≤75% and diameter at breast height representing biomass of ≥0.258 cm/m2 for land efficiency; water saving rates of ≥80% and water exploitation rates at ≤20%; renewable energy of ≥60% and energy use intensity limited at 60 kWh/m2/year. Embodied and operational carbon intensities of ≤11 kgCO2eq/m2/year minimizes climate change. Visual comfort requires 100-300 lux for daylight factors of 1-5%, acoustic comfort occurs at sound pressure levels of 43-63 dB and cross-ventilation at window-to-wall ratios of 20-40% and window-to-floor-area ratios ≥8% ensures air change hourly rates of 0.3-1.0 H-1 for internal air quality. The study supports policies, practice and research in sustainable design of new and retrofitting of existing buildings in managing the built environment better.