Özet:

The construction industry is responsible for the consumption of large proportions of natural resources such as material, energy and water. Inefficient use of resources in the construction industry has a negative impact on the natural environment. In order to reduce these negative impacts on the natural environment, sustainable development has gained importance. “Green building” can be considered as the implementation of sustainable development principles in the construction industry. A building can be considered as “green” if it is evaluated and certified according to a recognized green building certification system such as LEED, BREAM, DGNB, BEPAC, CASBEE, etc. In Turkey, LEED is one of the most commonly preferred green building certification systems. In this green building certification system, “Materials and Resources” (MR) credit is one of the seven main credits and has 14 points, which accounts for approximately 13% of the maximum achievable points (110 pts. from seven different credits) for “New Construction” in LEED v3. However, the LEED certified green buildings in Turkey attain relatively low level of achievements in MR credit, regardless of the level of certification, especially when compared to the other categories. MR credit has seven sub-credits, which include: 1) building reuse, 2) construction waste management, 3) materials reuse, 4) recycled content, 5) regional materials 6) rapidly renewable materials, and 7) certified wood. The main objective of this study is to find out whether there are statistically significant differences between the MR credit achievements of 172 newly constructed and certified buildings in Turkey with respect to four different levels of certification. In addition, this study aims to investigate the potential reasons behind this low level of achievement in this credit. In this study, some recommendations have also been made to improve these low levels of achievements. These recommendations not only help the achievement of sustainability goals for construction projects, but also assist in attaining higher credit points during the application processes for green building certification.

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