The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing about changes, and alongside these, we can alter the way we design our living spaces. The need for a healthy and comfortable living space is essential to mental and physical well-being. The present study covers the most up-to-date documents, including peer-reviewed papers, blog posts, news, journal articles, and expert opinions, to critically review lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and evaluates the expected changes in sustainability requirements of residential buildings. Health and safety, environment, and comfort are the three main aspects of residential buildings that have been tested during quarantines and are also expected to experience major transformations toward sustainability. Residential houses should provide certain health and safety protective measures to their occupants, such as the application of new touchless technologies, having proper sanitation to diminish the probability of getting infected, and developing greener and more intimate spaces that can help recover and improve mental states. Our findings address the need to reconsider sustainability requirements for residential buildings, which will provide adequate health and safety and comfort with no significant harm to the environment.

As the world faces the detrimental effects of humanity on the environment, the circular economy has started receiving a lot of attention as a tool to keep the value of resources. Although in Europe, circular economy principles have become a trend much earlier, CACs still face challenges in adopting them. The current research aims to review the available literature on sustainability, green economy, and circularity development through the adoption of political, industrial, and financial instruments, followed by an assessment of the barriers and opportunities to circular economy development in the CACs. The novelty of this research lies in the systematic review of different state-of-the-art data resources (journal papers, policies, news, and reports) of CACs by different categories: policy regulations, energy, waste, education, water, and agriculture. This research addresses that the CACs have similar circular economy development barriers (e.g., wide use of fossil fuels, water shortage, and lack of effective waste management) and opportunities (e.g., orientation towards sustainable development, foreign cooperation, and green financing). Therefore, performing effective strategic plans that are already directed to circularity, ensuring stakeholders’ involvement, and providing sufficient funding could benefit their circular economy development.

One of the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic is the momentum it has created for global changes affecting various aspects of daily lives. Among these, green building certification systems (GBCSs) should not be left behind as significant potential modifications may be required to ensure their versatility for residential buildings due to the new pandemic reality. The present study aims to evaluate the readiness of chosen GBCSs for a proper assessment of existing residential housing sustainability in a post-pandemic world. Based on a literature review of the state-of-the-art data sources and round table discussions, the present study proposes a particular set of sustainability indicators covering special sustainability requirements under pandemic conditions. Then, those indicators are used to evaluate the readiness of selected GBCSs (BREEAM, LEED, WELL, CASBEE) to meet new pandemic-resilient requirements based on their responses to the indicators. The assessment shows that none of the reviewed GBCSs are fully ready to cover all the proposed indicators. GBCSs have differing focuses on particular sustainability pillars, which also affected their responses to pandemic-resilient categories. For instance, WELL rating system successfully responded to the health and safety category, whereas LEED showed better preparedness in terms of environmental efficiency. BREEAM and CASBEE systems have a more evenly distributed attention to all three pandemic-resilient categories (Health & Safety, Environmental Resources Consumption, and Comfort) with an accent on the Comfort category. On a specific note, all GBCSs are insufficiently prepared for waste and wastewater management. In the future, GBCSs should be modified to better adapt to pandemic conditions, for which the current work may provide a basis. As an alternative, brand new standards can be created to face newly arising and evolving post-pandemic requirements.