A Comprehensive Review on Passive Design Approaches in Green Building Rating Tools

• A comprehensive literature review of renewable, passive, and climate responsive building practices.
• Discusses how many climate responsive design strategies have a low up-front cost and save considerable amounts of energy and operational cost.

Five representative rating systems, which all developed their own passive design criteria leading to the award of credits, are subject to comparative examinations in respect of the comprehensiveness, effectiveness and accuracy of each criterion in this paper. Passive design criteria including the building layout, envelope thermophysics, building geometry, air-tightness and infiltration performance and their effects on building energy consumption are also comprehensively reviewed. The results show that a holistic design approach based on passive energy saving strategies proves to be an effective way to reduce building energy budgets.