Abstract
Buildings are a major cause of global resource consumption, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other impacts on the environment, originating from both operational energy and material use. Informed design decisions can help mitigate potential impacts on the environment, by the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) in the early project stages. In order to mitigate building environment impacts throughout the industry, architects and engineers need tools that are integrated in the design workflow and based on the information available. Existing LCA tools for building design professionals are predominantly embedded in a specific context such as a country or a sustainability scheme. This paper provides learnings for the development of context-tailored tools for building-LCA using the case of Denmark, with specific focus on GHG-emissions that are in focus worldwide. Based on stakeholder involvement, four key areas were defined: Default information, flexibility, environmental design feedback and transparent results. Tool functions include a component library and a quantity estimator for bridging incomplete building information. A comparison monitor displays the performance of design solutions selected in the model, while a number of graphs and tables provide analysis of inventory and results. Finally, a customisable model data export, a complete input/output file for revision and custom analysis are among key functions for transparency.
Highlights
With the Paris agreement, many countries have agreed on committing to limit global warming to 2.0 degrees with an aspiration to 1.5 degrees
The development of the tool was driven by four objectives, both evolving from stakeholder involvement and framed by a political strategy of increasing the use of life cycle assessment (LCA) in building practice:
This paper provides insights from the development process of the Danish buildingLCA tool LCAbyg
Summary
With the Paris agreement, many countries have agreed on committing to limit global warming to 2.0 degrees with an aspiration to 1.5 degrees. The national target for Denmark has been set to a 70% greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction by 2030 compared to. The building sector, representing almost 40% of GHG emissions [2], is a pivotal area of action in achieving this aim. Policies on energy efficiency in new [3] and existing buildings [4] have been implemented. The goal is to achieve buildings with zero operational energy by 2050. As emissions caused by the operational energy use of new buildings have decreased, the share of embodied emissions has grown [5,6,7,8,9]. A whole-life perspective of building GHG emissions should be applied
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