Abstract
The new Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) 2018 and the GebäudeEnergieGesetz (GEG) tightened the requirements for energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources in buildings at EU and national levels. Environmental impacts from manufacturing, dismantling and recycling of buildings are not taken into account. Green Building Certification Systems, such as the DGNB or BNB systems, are therefore the only ones that (voluntarily) set holistic, ecological requirements for buildings. Based on a Whole-Building Life Cycle Assessment, the entire building life cycle and its environmental effects are evaluated. While building services in this context are usually only included in such a simplified approach, the full scope of the produced environmental impacts are underestimated and misjudged for the reduction of emissions and other environmental impacts. This publication uses the results of a life cycle assessment of a typical office building (in Germany) to show the amount of influence building services have on environmental impacts of buildings. Furthermore the study shows an approach how the very high pro-curement and calculation effort of LCA can be reduced by linking the Building Information Modelling (BIM) Method and LCA models to enable a significantly more efficient and easier calculation process, es-pecially for building services.
Highlights
In the construction sector, as one of the key sectors for achieving national, European and international climate protection goals, intensive measures to reduce emissions and environmental impacts are required in view of economic growth, demographic change and increasing comfort requirements.The newly revised Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EU) 2018/844 [1], which came into force on 9 July 2018, requires EU countries to transpose the new requirements into national law within 20 months
The freely accessible software eLCA was used for the Whole-Building Life Cycle Assessment (WBLCA), the development of which was commissioned by the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR). eLCA offers the calculation of modules A1-A3, B6 and C3 and C4
Since the aim of this work was to calculate the environmental impacts of building services as accurately as possible with the freely accessible database in Germany, supposedly small material or component groups below the 1% threshold were taken into account
Summary
In the construction sector, as one of the key sectors for achieving national, European and international climate protection goals, intensive measures to reduce emissions and environmental impacts are required in view of economic growth, demographic change and increasing comfort requirements.The newly revised Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EU) 2018/844 [1], which came into force on 9 July 2018, requires EU countries to transpose the new requirements into national law within 20 months. In the construction sector, as one of the key sectors for achieving national, European and international climate protection goals, intensive measures to reduce emissions and environmental impacts are required in view of economic growth, demographic change and increasing comfort requirements. A first draft shows that, similar to the new EU directive, ambitious measures are being sought in the areas of building renovation and new building construction, but the environmental compatibility of products and their effects on the climate are largely ignored. The aim was to achieve the lowest possible energy consumption during the use phase and so more and more energy-efficient building standards have been developed. The environmental impact of the construction and disposal phase of a building is becoming increasingly important, especially in the case of passive houses and energy plus standards, the main characteristics of which are very low primary and final energy requirements
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