Life cycle assessment and life cycle costing of multistorey building: Attributional and consequential perspectives

Abstract

Buildings are accountable for much of the resource consumption and CO2 emissions generated from human activities. Nonetheless, the focus of building life cycle assessment (LCA) studies to evaluate the environmental footprint are more commonly adopted in an attributional approach. Nevertheless, understanding a direct and indirect consequences in larger system using consequential approach is also needed for policy-making. Rather small body of existing literature has been found on the implementation of consequential LCA and life cycle costing (LCC) in the building sector. In this study, attributional and consequential approach are performed for hybrid wood multistorey building. The results showed that with attributional approach, the phase that contributed the environmental impacts the most in climate change category is the production phase yet it became the use phase if consequential approach is used. By performing consequential LCA-LCC the possible hidden impacts can be uncovered and sufficient insights into the indirect impacts can be seen, thereby offering stakeholders the opportunity to avoid such future consequences.