Anna Elisabeth Kristoffersen

Anna Elisabeth Kristoffersen holds a B.Eng in Architectural Engineering and an M.Sc in Civil and Architectural Engineering, both from Aarhus University. She is currently employed as a PhD Student at the section of Building Science. A focus both throughout her studies and her current PhD project has been sustainability in relation to buildings. Therefore, Anna possesses significant knowledge of subjects such as Social, environmental and economic sustainability, LCA, LCC and planetary boundaries. 
 
Description of PhD project:
Project title: Social and socio-environmental sustainability value assessment and creation in the design of building renovation projects
The issue of sustainability is becoming more and more the central key to a better future. This focus has also taken hold in the Danish construction industry through, among other things, the sustainability certification of buildings, and the Danish building regulations’ requirement for life cycle assessments for newly constructed buildings. A commonly used depiction of sustainability divides the concept into environmental, economic, and social sustainability. Both environmental and economic sustainability are reasonably well-defined, with clear targets and assessment methods. Social sustainability, on the other hand, is usually more vaguely defined, focusing on concepts such as well-being, health, safety, and equality at both the level of society and individual. To fully address the task ahead, building designers to address sustainability, they need to be introduced and equipped with adequate methods and decision-support tools to facilitate the integration, assessment, and evaluation of social values while also being informed of the environmental and economic consequences of the choice. In the light of this, the main objectives of this PhD project are:

• To create an inventory of the social intents that are commonly considered by the building design team in Danish construction and renovation projects,
• To evaluate the relationship between social intentions, activities to promote these intentions, and the perceived social value of the finished building, and
• To develop an evidence-based decision support tool to support decision-making regarding the inclusion of social intents in building design.  

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research project, PROBONO, under grant agreement no. 101037075.