Environmental performance and social perception of an environmentally certified building: Case study of a three-star hotel in Miraflores, Lima, Peru

Green buildings consider technical solutions to reduce energy and water use, which makes them intensive in technology. Even so, their environmental performance exceeds that of smart buildings. The better performance is not only due to the use of recycled materials, but to the building being integrated with the environment, which in the case of the LEED certification system implies meeting the site and environment criteria. The need arises to evaluate the environmental performance of these buildings using ecoefficiency indicators. The objective was to estimate the environmental performance of a building certified under local public parameters (baseline scenario), compared to the LEED and EDGE international certifications (optimized scenario). In the environmental impacts modeling associated with energy and water, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was used with the SimaPro software. The optimized scenario has a 34% reduction in GHG emissions for the Global Warming category, and a 20% reduction in resource depletion (water). In the pre-use phase (construction), the optimized scenario has a lower environmental performance (2% increase in emissions). The use phase explains the high environmental performance of the building during its life cycle (pre-use and use).