All guides: Sustainability in Construction and Design: Key resources

Recommended databases

Databases are collections of resources, primarily journal articles, but they can also contain conference papers, videos, eBooks, reports, images and more. Many databases specialise in a specific subject area, so you'll know when you're searching the database you will find material relevant to your studies.

BUILD: Australian Building Construction and Engineering Database (Informit)
Australian Building Construction & Engineering Database (BUILD), produced by the Building Information Resource Centre of CSIRO Building, Construction and Engineering, is a bibliographic database that indexes and abstracts published and unpublished material on worldwide information in the building, construction and engineering field including fire technology.
Higg Materials Sustainability Index
The Worldly Higg index measures the environmental, social and labour impacts of a product lifecycle at every stage. It covers materials used in the apparel, footwear, and home textile industries.
ProQuest
A large multi-disciplinary database of scholarly journals, trade publications, books, newspapers and reports. includes resources relevant to sustainability and design.
ScienceDirect (Elsevier)
ScienceDirect provides access to many sources relevant to sustainability including journal articles, book chapters, and case reports. Select ‘subscribed journals’ in the refine by section to only display full text records.
Business Source Complete (EBSCO)
This business focused database provides access to a broad range of scholarly business journals, company information, and media reports. Users can find information about business outlook, challenges, and theories relating to sustainable design and construction.
GreenFILE (EBSCO)
GreenFILE covers all aspects of human impact to the environment. It is a collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles, and includes content on global warming, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more. The database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 384,000 records, as well as Open Access full text for more than 4,700 records.
Wiley Online Library
Wiley Online Library provides access to a broad range of journals, books, and reference works. Relevant journal special issues on topics such as sustainability can be viewed under the ‘collections’ tab in search results.
Taylor & Francis Online
Taylor & Francis Online provides access to a range of scholarly journals, books, eBooks, and reference works relevant to sustainability and design.
Informit
The source for online Australian information. Provides access to peer-reviewed journal articles and a large video collection covering news and documentaries. The resources related to sustainability are broad covering information from specific construction techniques, to sociological impacts, and conference proceedings.
Emerald Insight
This business research database provides a focus on scholarly journals relating to strategy, leadership, management, urban studies, and related theories. Some engineering, applied science, and technology journals are also included.
Scopus (Elsevier)
Scopus provides powerful tools for reviewing the available literature on a given topic, such as sustainability. The Analyse search results feature allows insight into the results from individual searches such as the number of publications over time, key authors, and research funding sources. Scopus also provides citation counts and the ability to find a list of documents which cite a particular item. Other resources available include patents and research data.
Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics)
Web of Science is a citation index which allows researchers to get a sense of the available research on a particular search, such as sustainability. It allows for results to be filtered by high citation counts, countries/regions, or research area. Data dashboards can be generated via a citation report.
SafetyLaw
SafetyLaw is a work, health and safety legal obligations (WHS) or occupational health and safety (OHS) directory, designed to provide users with clear, comprehensive and easy-to-understand summaries of their legal obligations in Victoria

Construction Codes and Standards

National Construction Code Series (NCC)
Please note: this resource requires you to create an account and login each time you want to access the materials. This login is not your RMIT login details.

The National Construction Code Series (NCC) is an initiative of the Council of Australian Governments developed to incorporate all on-site construction requirements into a single code. The Building Code of Australia (BCA) is Volume One and Volume Two of the NCC. The Plumbing Code of Australia (PCA) is Volume Three.
Editions of the National Construction Code
Provides an archive of historical editions of the National Construction Code. Registration is required to view amendments.

Australian Standards Online (Intertek Inform)
Full-text access to the majority of Australian Standards, Draft Standards and some Handbooks. Royalty issues prohibit access to approximately 100 of the total 6,500 documents. ISO and IEC indexes are available.

Find out more about standards on our Standards subject guide.

Academic study skills

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Library subject guides

Sustainability in Construction and Design

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Recommended databases

Construction Codes and Standards

Academic study skills