Societies have long sought to provide affordable housing while ensuring sustainable living conditions. However, despite extensive research on sustainable construction, limited attention has been given to how sustainability assessment criteria should be prioritised when evaluating construction method compatibility. The “German Sustainable Building Council” (DGNB) certification system is one of the most widely used sustainability assessment frameworks in Germany, yet the relative importance of its criteria for construction method selection has not been assessed from the perspective of practitioners. This study investigates how DGNB-certified practitioners prioritise DGNB assessment criteria when evaluating construction method compatibility in affordable multi-family residential housing. A questionnaire survey was conducted among DGNB-certified practitioners, resulting in 332 valid responses. Descriptive statistical analysis, including mean values, standard deviation, median values, the proportion of high ratings, and Kendall's W, was used to prioritise the 29 DGNB criteria. The results indicate that environmental and economic qualities are considered the most influential categories, while process and site quality receive substantially lower priority. Among the individual criteria, ENV1.1 “Climate action and energy” and ECO1.1 “Life Cycle Cost” achieved the highest importance ratings. The findings further reveal that practitioner priorities differ from the general weighting applied within the DGNB residential assessment system when construction method compatibility is considered. This practitioner-based prioritisation provides an empirical basis for future refinement of construction method assessment within the DGNB framework and supports subsequent research aimed at adapting DGNB to better reflect construction methods in affordable multi-family residential housing.
