Abstract
Life Cycle Assessment is a methodology that investigates impacts linked to a product or service during its entire life cycle. Life Cycle Assessment studies investigate processes and sub-processes in a fragmented way to ascertain their inputs, outputs and emissions and get an overview of the generating sources of their environmental loads. The lifecycle concept involves all direct and indirect processes of the studied object. This article aims to model the material flows in the masonry and drywall systems and internal walls in a Brazilian scenario, and calculate the climate change impacts generated by the transport of the component materials of the systems. Internal walls of a residential dwelling in Rio de Janeiro are analyzed from a qualitative inventory of all life cycles with an analysis of material flows, based on technical and academic literature. All Life Cycle Impact Assessment of the systems is carried out with international data from the database, and using the IPCC2013 method for climate change impacts. This study disregards the refurbishment and possible extensions within the use phase. Thus, the inventory identifies weaknesses of the systems while the impact assessment validates the results. This study allows us a complete understanding about the inner walls systems in the Brazilian scenario, evidencing its main weaknesses and subsidizes decision-making for the industry and for planning of the new buildings.
Highlights
Buildings generate a high amount of impacts throughout their life cycles
Internal wall systems are analyzed in a qualitative life cycle inventory based on academic literature and technical reports
For the analysis of climate change impacts generated by transport systems, the distances travelled by the materials were estimated and types of vehicles were checked on the basis of academic literature and technical reports
Summary
Buildings generate a high amount of impacts throughout their life cycles. The construction of buildings promotes modification of landscape and consumption of natural resources, while during their use phase, there is high utilization of energy and their demolition generates elevated volumes of waste [1,2,3].Further, the impacts relating to processes for manufacturing and distribution supply chain of products and by-products are part of the life cycle of buildings and are incorporated into the total load of the building. Buildings generate a high amount of impacts throughout their life cycles. The construction of buildings promotes modification of landscape and consumption of natural resources, while during their use phase, there is high utilization of energy and their demolition generates elevated volumes of waste [1,2,3]. Energy consumption in the use phase of buildings [4] makes this stage the most impactful of the of the building’s life cycle. The consumption of oil products, coal, electricity and natural gas in natural resource extraction, the production and assembly of materials, demolition, and transportation of materials and staff add to the energy impacts of buildings [5]
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