1. Sustainable Buildings and Biodiversity: A Critical Analysis

Biodiversity can be a complex subject. However, ignoring the negative impacts that it has been suffering shows that the current mechanisms for identifying environmental aspects and analyses of significance have been flawing and will eventually confront us in the future with situations which, if not irreversible, will be extremely costly to society. In this context, the aim of the thesis is to discuss adjustments to the existing indicators, and/or insertion of new indicators related to the biological diversity in the sustainable building tool: LEED ND “Neighborhood Development”. Initially, biodiversity and ecosystem services are conceptualized. Then, the conceptual basis for the framework of the existing pre indicators, the four environmental aspects that guided the proposed changes and the validation phase with experts are presented: Mirrored Facade, Green Roofs and Walls, Public Lighting and Wind Energy. Given the achieved results, it is believed that the dissemination of new indicators will support Brazil regarding its responsibility as a very important world player in terms of Biodiversity, besides representing a supporting basis for the national entrepreneurs, through a coherent, constructive and sustainable model.