Towards sustainable decision-making in multi-criteria building design: A game-theoretic approach 

As major contributors to global energy demand and CO2 emissions, Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS) pose a significant challenge to sustainability and green energy transition. This study, therefore, formulates the estimation of both passive (e.g., thermal absorptance and conductivity) and active (e.g., thermostat set-points) BEMS parameters as a constrained multi-objective optimization problem that minimizes energy consumption and global warming potential (GWP) while enhancing occupant comfort. Furthermore, practical constraints stemming from implementation feasibility and maintenance costs, often overlooked in existing investigations, are considered. The parameter estimation problem is then approached as a cooperative two-player game representing partially diverging preferences of policymakers and building developers. To this end, a two-stage framework is proposed: Stage I identifies non-dominated parameters via NSGA-II; Stage II performs a posteriori selection through preference articulation and Nash bargaining. This framework employs a co-simulation environment that couples EnergyPlus for building energy simulations and Python for optimization and game simulation. The efficacy of the proposed approach is demonstrated through a case study of a mid-rise commercial building in Auckland, New Zealand. The Nash bargaining solution yields reductions of approximately 32% in energy consumption, 76% in emissions, and 76% in occupant discomfort relative to the baseline design. Sensitivity analysis further reveals that developer risk attitude significantly influences bargaining outcomes, highlighting the potential role of risk-sharing mechanisms in incentivizing sustainable design adoption.