A review of life cycle assessment of buildings using a systematic approach

Abstract

There is increasing interest in the study of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of buildings, which entails an estimate of the potential environmental impacts and resource use of buildings. This is driven by increasing awareness of the environmental impact of buildings, as well as the emergence of enabling tools for their assessment. There are review articles on building LCA (see Table 1) but none focuses on the challenges of building LCA, ongoing studies and potential solutions to address the challenges. The aim of this paper is to provide an up-to-date systematic review of life cycle assessment of buildings, and to discuss the major challenges in building LCA, ongoing studies and potential solutions to resolve the identified issues. The methodology involves a detailed literature review to provide an overview of existing studies in building LCA, and a systematic selection and study of review articles/books to investigate the benefits and challenges of building LCA. A summary of the research outputs and recommended further studies on building LCA are outlined in the conclusion section. The major challenges in building LCA were identified as data intensity and quality, subjectivity in environmental impact characterization and valuation, inadequate definition of functional units, assumptions for building life span and service life, lack of procedure for system boundaries, lack of uncertainty analysis, and limitation as a decision-making tool. In addition to discussing ongoing studies to address the issues, this study also proposes research trajectories to resolve the major challenges identified in building LCA.