Assessing the sustainability of existing buildings using the analytic hierarchy process

Relative concepts of sustainability are more and more influenced by societies around the world. The construction industry, especially for building construction development, is being accused of promoting environmental impacts that range from excess use of resources to pollution generation. This paper present an application of the sustainability concept applied to buildings, as well as, a contribution to the development of practices, methodology and tools for evaluation of already existing buildings. In order to achieve that, this study will detail how current systems to evaluate building performance operate, and how can we improve them. The Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multi-criteria method, is used as a tool to investigate the relative importance of the criteria, sub-criteria and families of indicators established by the researcher and interested parties, and adjust the proposed system to the local culture. AHP usage allowed a deeper insight into the problem.