Sustainable Building Strategies for Green Buildings in Urban Environments: A Narrative Review of Design, Technology, and Governance Pathways

Abstract

Cities concentrate population, economic activity, and environmental pressure. The building sector alone is responsible for close to 40% of global energy use and more than 30% of carbon dioxide emissions, and the share attributable to urban buildings continues to rise with rapid urbanisation. Against this background, green and sustainable buildings have become central instruments for lowering the environmental burden of the urban built environment while protecting occupant health and comfort. This narrative review synthesises recent international literature to map the principal strategies through which green buildings are designed, delivered, and governed in urban settings. The evidence is organised into six interrelated domains: passive and bioclimatic design of the envelope and façade; operational energy efficiency and building performance; materials, embodied carbon, and the circular economy; urban form, microclimate, and climate resilience; digital and intelligent technologies; and assessment systems, governance, and policy. The review also examines the social dimension of sustainable building, including affordable housing, stakeholder behaviour, construction skills, and architectural education, and it gives particular attention to evidence from developing and rapidly urbanising economies. Across the corpus, three findings recur. First, well-chosen passive measures, such as optimised window-to-wall ratios, shading devices, and high-performance envelopes, deliver substantial energy savings at modest cost and should precede mechanical and renewable solutions. Second, building-scale gains are amplified or eroded by decisions at the urban scale, so building and city strategies must be planned together. Third, technology and rating systems are necessary but not sufficient; governance, finance, awareness, and skills determine whether strategies are actually implemented. The review proposes an integrative framework that links the building, the precinct, and the city, and it sets out priorities for future research, including life-cycle thinking, context-specific evidence, and the equitable diffusion of green building practice.