Green building certificates and a national certification system proposal for Türkiye

The emergence of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century led to radical changes in many areas from technology to agriculture. However, these developments also brought about negative consequences such as uncontrolled population growth and irresponsible consumption of natural resources. Over time, this process has turned into global threats such as environmental pollution and disruption of the balance in the ecosystem. In order to find solutions to these problems, states have initiated studies at national and international levels. In this context, conferences have been organized, declarations have been published and many protocols have been signed. These efforts have laid the foundations of the concepts of green building and sustainability, and have brought an understanding that minimizes the harm of buildings to the environment and human health and focuses on resource efficiency to the construction sector. Certification systems have also been established in order to spread and encourage green buildings. In this context, BREEAM was first developed in England. Later, many certification systems such as LEED in America, DGNB in Germany, CASBEE in Japan, Green Star in Australia, etc. have been established. However, since these widely used systems are designed according to the characteristics and conditions of their own countries, adaptation problems arise when they are applied in different countries. This situation once again highlights the necessity of each country to create local certification systems specific to its own needs. In this context, a total of 14 national and international certificates, including local systems such as YeS-TR and B.E.S.T in Turkey, were researched and presented in the thesis study. As a result of the problems that arose during the implementation of international systems, the lack of unity in the systems in Turkey, and the observation that the scope of YeS-TR, which is defined as a national certificate and created for buildings, was left within certain limits, a new local certificate model proposal was presented. In this direction, it was aimed to contribute to the achievement of a more effective green certificate system for Turkey and to the subsequent studies to be conducted with the information and results obtained.