Linking research activities and their implementation in practice in the construction sector: the LCA Construction 2012 experience

Abstract

1 Introduction1.1 BackgroundNumerous research activities about life cycle assessment (LCA)appliedtobuildings,andmorerecentlytocivilengineering,haverisenoverthepastdecades.Environmentalstakesareparticularlyimportantinconstructionbecauseanyinitialdecisionhasalwayslong-termconsequences.Inadditi on,theconstructionsectorbothgenerates and recycles huge amounts of waste; it is generallyconsidered as an important contributor to climate change andinducesirreversiblechangesinlocalenvironments.Tofacethesestakes, industries invest into so-called “green innovations”,andnational or local public authorities are demanding scientificallybased decision support such as LCA. For the time being, LCAresearch appears to be fragmented between LCA practitioners invarious construction fields and LCA methodologists. However,LCApractitionersintheconstructionsectorshareidenticalmeth-odological questions. For example, drastic variations, whichinevitably occur between the early and operational stages ofconstruction projects, have led many research institutions todevelop their own dedicated LCA software tools. These toolsare, however, seldom comparable, since they generally use dif-ferent databases and assumptions. Only close cooperation be-tween LCA methodologists and construction scientists can leadto appropriate methodological developments.To better link LCA research activities and their implemen-tation in practice in the construction sector, the idea of orga-nizing a forum of discussions of recent developments andresearch results was launched in 2011 by IFSTTAR (theFrench Institute for Transport, Development and Networks)on the topics of LCA, recycling, and civil engineering. It wasthenexpandedtoLCAandbuildingswhenCSTB(theFrenchScientific and Technical Centre for Buildings) joined theinitiative. This idea leads to the organization of the firstinternational conference on LCA and Construction with afocus on civil engineering and buildings.1.2 LCA and construction activitiesUsing LCA in the construction activities has different goalsand scopes due to the different scales of the assessment