Yos Sunitiyoso
Climate change is a worldwide problem and requires global effort. The built environment provides significant opportunities to lower carbon dioxide production by increasing energy efficiency. Addressing ways to significantly reduce our energy consumption in buildings can help us become more energy efficient and thereby help the environment. Retrofitting existing buildings could make a greater contribution to reducing energy consumption and improving sustainability than constructing new green buildings. Municipal and state governments, universities and colleges, K–12 schools, and hospitals (MUSH) buildings have been the major focus of financial and technical efficiency programs and services, as these sectors exhibit multiple favorable but unique attributes, including access to capital, experience with financial tools, decision makers’ motivations beyond the financial bottom line, control of multiple buildings, and portfolios of historical buildings that are energy intensive. However decisions to retrofit involve many stakeholders and aspects, which are interrelated and interact with each other, forming a dynamic system. Therefore, decision makers need support in the form of policy-making tools that can anticipate the dynamic nature of a public policy problem. The approach of system modeling offers an option for formulating and rehearsing strategic initiatives to resolve problems in a systematic, structured, and accountable manner. The study proposes to develop a framework for evaluating strategies in building retrofits using a soft system dynamic approach.