Building Life Cycle Assessment Research Articles

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

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.

Comparative Cradle-to-Grave Life Cycle Assessment of Low and Mid-Rise Mass Timber Buildings with Equivalent Structural Steel Alternatives

The objective of this paper was to quantify and compare the environmental impacts associated with alternative designs of typical North American low and mid-rise buildings. Two scenarios were considered: a traditional structural steel frame or an all-wood mass timber design, utilizing engineered wood products for both gravity and lateral load resistance. The boundary of the quantitative analysis was cradle-to-grave with considerations taken to discuss end-of-life and material reuse scenarios. The TRACI methodology was followed to conduct a Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) analysis that translates building quantities to environmental impact indicators using the Athena Impact Estimator for Buildings Life Cycle analysis software tool and Athena’s Life Cycle Inventory database. The results of the analysis show that mass timber buildings have an advantage with respect to several environmental impact categories, including eutrophication potential, human health particulate, and global warming potential where a 31% to 41% reduction was found from mass timber to steel designs, neglecting potential carbon sequestration benefits from the timber products. However, it was also found that the steel buildings have a lower impact with respect to the environmental impact categories of smog potential, acidification potential, and ozone depletion potential, where a 48% to 58% reduction was found from the steel to the mass timber building designs.

Development of Building Information Modeling Template for Environmental Impact Assessment

Eco-friendly building designs that use building information modeling (BIM) have become popular, and a variety of eco-friendly building assessment technologies that take advantage of BIM are being developed. However, existing building environmental performance assessment technologies that use BIM are linked to external assessment tools, and there exist compatibility issues among programs; it requires a considerable amount of time to address these problems, owing to the lack of experts who can operate the programs. This study aims to develop eco-friendly templates for assessing the embodied environmental impact of buildings using BIM authoring tools as part of the development of BIM-based building life cycle assessment (LCA) technologies. Therefore, an embodied environmental impact unit database was developed, for major building materials during production and operating stages, to perform embodied environmental impact assessments. Moreover, a major structural element library that uses the database was developed and a function was created to produce building environmental performance assessment results tables, making it possible to review the eco-friendliness of buildings. A case study analysis was performed to review the feasibility of the environmental performance assessment technologies. The results showed a less than 5% effective error rate in the assessment results that were obtained using the technology developed in this study compared with the assessment results based on the actual calculation and operating stage energy consumption figures, which proves the reliability of the proposed approach.

Integrating long term temporal changes in the Belgian electricity mix in environmental attributional life cycle assessment of buildings

The operational energy use is responsible for an important share of the life cycle environmental impact of buildings. In the national LCA method for buildings in Belgium, as in most environmental impact assessments, operational energy use and associated impacts are kept unchanged throughout the 60-year service life of the building. The energy mix will however change over the building life cycle and this will influence the impact of the operational energy use. The overall aim of this paper is to analyse how long term temporal changes in the electricity mix in Belgium might influence the life cycle environmental impact of buildings using an attributional approach. This paper focuses on three aspects. First, it analyses future scenarios for the Belgian electricity mix as it is uncertain how it will change over time. Second, the environmental impact of these changes in the mix is evaluated using the Belgian life cycle impact assessment method for buildings considering a broad set of indicators. Finally, it is investigated how these changes in the electricity mix during the building service life can be included in the attributional life cycle assessment and how this influences the overall environmental impact of the operational phase. Within this study, three dynamic scenarios are defined and compared with the static approach, i.e. current electricity mix remains unchanged during the next 60 years. The analysis reveals differences in the building life cycle environmental impact of −29% and +34% compared to the current static approach, while differences in the life cycle carbon footprint range from −59% to +33%. This highlights the importance of considering changes in the electricity mix in LCA of buildings and in considering a broad range of environmental indicators instead of solely focussing on greenhouse gas emissions when making policy decisions. In general, a major challenge for the next decade seems to be phasing out nuclear power, without increasing the environmental impact of the electricity mix.

Analysis of the Characteristics of Environmental Impacts According to the Cut-Off Criteria Applicable to the Streamlined Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) of Apartment Buildings in South Korea

This study analyzed the characteristics of the environmental impacts of apartment buildings, a typical housing type in South Korea, as part of a research project supporting the streamlined life cycle assessment (S-LCA) of buildings within the G-SEED (Green Standard for Energy and Environmental Design) framework. Three recently built apartment building complexes were chosen as study objects for the quantitative evaluation of the buildings in terms of their embodied environmental impacts (global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, ozone layer depletion potential, photochemical oxidant creation potential, and abiotic depletion potential), using the LCA approach. Additionally, we analyzed the emission trends according to the cut-off criteria of the six environmental impact categories by performing an S-LCA with cut-off criteria 90–99% of the cumulative weight percentile. Consequently, we were able to present the cut-off criterion best suited for S-LCA and analyze the effect of the cut-off criteria on the environmental impact analysis results. A comprehensive environmental impact analysis of the characteristics of the six environmental impact categories revealed that the error rate was below 5% when the cut-off criterion of 97.5% of the cumulative weight percentile was applied, thus verifying its validity as the optimal cut-off criterion for S-LCA.

Review on building life cycle assessment from the perspective of structural design

ABSTRACT The resource-related, environmental and ecological problems raised by building construction activities have drawn a wide range of concerns among researches, especially in China. Those problems have become prominent. In last decade, the building life cycle emissions and energy efficiency have been researched widely. Most of the studies focus on the assessment models and emission analysis based on the available project data and statistical data. Very few of them study the emissions from the view of structure design, which can reduce the building emission at source. This review summarizes and examines different models proposed for the building life cycle assessment, focusing on the model scopes, assumptions, and their applications from the view of structure design. A great attention is given to the data used in the current studies. Finally, a variety of future research directions of building life cycle assessment are discussed.

Whole building life cycle assessment for buildings: A case study ON HOW to achieve the LEED credit

Whole building life cycle assessment (WBLCA) has received significant attention from the research community in the past few years. The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has made it an option for receiving points in version 4 of its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system. Yet, the research described in this paper has revealed that the process of WBLCA as applied to LEED is not very well understood by building professionals. As many building professionals do not understand WBLCA, very few pursue it for their new building projects. The objective of the research described in this paper was to examine and clarify issues related to WBLCA as it applies to LEED. The paper presents a six-step process for conducting a WBLCA and use the process on a building case study for which a LEED compliant WBLCA was conducted and approved. The paper also suggests improvements to the current LEED WBLCA requirements that have the potential to further reduce the embodied energy and environmental impacts of materials used in new building projects. The ultimate goal of the research presented in the paper is to increase the building industry awareness of the WBLCA process and make it “business as usual”.

Sustainable Building Materials and Life Cycle Assessment

Today, sustainability principles should be applied to all industries, including the building sector, which ranks among the sectors with the most negative environmental impacts [...]

Evaluation and Analysis of Risk Factors of Green Building Life Cycle with the Help of Computer Aid

During the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, the green building special content was included in the goal of scientific and technological development in the field of housing and urban and rural construction. At the same time, it also issued relevant policies that will clearly establish a financial incentive mechanism, improve standards and evaluation of the identification system, promote relevant scientific and technological progress and industrial development, and strive to achieve more than 30% of new buildings by 2020. This paper first gives an overview of the green building life cycle assessment system. Through the analysis of the advantages of the life cycle assessment system, from the planning, planning, design, construction, operation and demolition stages, the green life cycle assessment strategy is proposed with the help of computer aid.

BIM Integrated LCA for Promoting Circular Economy towards Sustainable Construction: An Analytical Review

Sustainable construction is widely regarded as one of the best decisions to reduce the environmental impact of the buildings. Numerous scientific efforts have been devoted to promoting sustainability by adopting different techniques such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and building information modeling (BIM). The recent circular economy (CE) agenda is prioritizing in different sectors including construction due to increasing concern on the materials efficiency and resources consumption. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the implications, considerations, contributions and challenges of BIM integrated LCA and the CE adoption in the industry by critically analyzing the recent literature. A scientometric analysis was applied to the selected studies to show the knowledge among BIM, LCA and CE relationships. With a comprehensive analysis of major challenges and opportunities of LCA and BIM for construction sustainability, key drivers for sustainable building design were identified and analyzed. A prospective integrated framework for CE adoption into BIM-based LCA of buildings and an evaluation method are proposed by analyzing the contemporary issues. It is believed that the analyzed critical issues, identified future research direction and proposed frameworks and this methodology should contribute to effective implementation of CE into the building for promoting sustainable construction.

Functional unit influence on building life cycle assessment

The building sector is one of the most relevant sectors in terms of environmental impact. Different functional units (FUs) can be used in life cycle assessment (LCA) studies for a variety of purposes. This paper aimed to present different FUs used in the LCA of buildings and evaluate the influence of FU choice and setting in comparative studies. As an example, we compared the “cradle to grave” environmental performance of four typical Brazilian residential buildings with different construction typologies, i.e., multi-dwelling and single dwelling, each with high and basic standards. We chose three types of FU for comparison: a dwelling with defined lifetime and occupancy parameters, an area of 1 m2 of dwelling over a year period, and the accommodation of an occupant person of the dwelling over a day. The FU choice was found to bias the results considerably. As expected, the largest global warming indicator (GWi) values per dwelling unit and occupant were identified for the high standard dwellings. However, when measured per square meter, lower standard dwellings presented the largest GWi values. This was caused by the greater concentration of people per square meter in smaller area dwellings, resulting in larger water and energy consumption per square meter. The sensitivity analysis of FU variables such as lifetime and occupancy showed the GWi contribution of the infrastructure more relevant compared with the operation in high and basic standard dwellings. The definition of lifetime and occupancy parameters is key to avoid bias and to reduce uncertainty of the results when performing a comparison of dwelling environmental performances. This paper highlights the need for adequate choice and setting of FU to support intended decision-making in LCA studies of the building sector. The use of at least two FUs presented a broader picture of building performance, helping to guide effective environmental optimization efforts from different approaches and levels of analysis. Information regarding space, time, and service dimensions should be either included in the FU setting or provided in the building LCA study to allow adjustment of the results for subsequent comparison.

Developing a tier-hybrid uncertainty analysis approach for lifecycle impact assessment of a typical high-rise residential building

Reducing embodied impacts of buildings has become urgent given its dramatically increasing contribution to the total lifecycle impact. The embodied impact is traditionally assessed through a deterministic lifecycle assessment (LCA) approach whose validity is impaired by existing uncertainties in the building lifecycle, so that uncertainty analyses are necessary to improve the validity of buildings LCAs. However, there are many limitations in current uncertainty studies such as biases in the use of a pure data quality indicator (DQI) approach, a lack of uncertainty analyses for lifecycle phases such as the end-of-life stage, and the incomprehensiveness in uncertainty parameters. To address these gaps, this study: (i) proposed a tier-hybrid uncertainty assessment approach to evaluate parameter uncertainties in the lifecycle of buildings; (ii) adopted proper assumptions to explore the impact of scenario and model uncertainties as well as investigate strategies to reduce the energy use and carbon emission. A case study is conducted to estimate uncertainties in building LCAs where end-of-life management strategies and alternative design materials are comprehensively explored to reduce energy and environmental impacts. It is revealed that the materials production stage causes the least uncertainties although it contributes the most impacts. Uncertainties in other lifecycle phases reduce in the order of transportation, maintenance to construction. Also, it is proved that the alternative design strategies and materials explored can effectively reduce the energy use and carbon emission by 19.91% and 15.23%, respectively. Therefore, the developed tier-hybrid approach can increase the comprehensiveness and reliability of building LCAs.

Comparative study on Life Cycle Assessment of buildings in developed countries and Sri Lanka

PurposeLife cycle assessment (LCA) has considerably contributed to increasing the environmental friendliness of buildings in developed countries. However, it is hard to find evidence on the application of LCA for buildings in developing countries; particularly, Sri Lanka. There is a lack of research to compare the status of LCA of buildings in developed countries vs developing countries. In this context, the purpose of this study aims to examine the status of LCA implementation for buildings between developed countries and Sri Lanka, a developing country.Design/methodology/approachThe exploratory research was adapted, and in-depth interviews were held with LCA professionals from Sri Lanka and developed countries, respectively.FindingsRelatively less attention has been paid to the implementation of LCA for buildings in Sri Lanka compared to the developed countries due to the time and effort required to collect life cycle inventory data and limited stakeholder understanding of the LCA. Hence, this study proposed improvements, including the development of LCA databases containing region-specific data and conducting programmes to raise stakeholders' awareness to address the gaps in Sri Lanka.Research limitations/implicationsThe identified LCA implementation process for buildings could be used as a guide for first-time LCA users, and it equally makes a valued reference for experienced practitioners.Originality/valueA limited number of the studies formulate a comparison between the LCA for building in developed countries and developing countries. This research attempts to address this knowledge gap.

Building life cycle assessment: a scenario analysis of a basic dwelling unit to evaluate environmental sustainability

The built environment consumes significant amounts of natural resources and energy while being responsible for emitting large quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As a result, serious ...

Building life cycle assessment: a scenario analysis of a basic dwelling unit to evaluate environmental sustainability

Building life cycle assessment: a scenario analysis of a basic dwelling unit to evaluate environmental sustainability

Building Life Cycle Assessment to Evaluate Environment Sustainability of Residential Buildings in Sri Lanka

The built environment consumes significant amounts of natural resources and energy while being responsible for emitting huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and thereby to become as one of the main contributors for climate change. Therefore, identifying the nvironmental hotspots from the built environment has become important considering the entire life cycle of the building i.e. cradle-to-gate. Hence the importance of using Building Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a tool for evaluating environmental impacts related to the building sector is globally recognized. This paper presents an LCA for a case study of a typical single floor residential building located in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The system boundary of this study is considered as cradle-to-gate. The LCA model is developed using SimaPro 8.5.0. software tool. The results obtained from this LCA study highlighted that building walls as the most significant building component in terms of negative environmental impacts. Hence, more attention needs to be given to external and internal wall components to reduce negative environmental impacts. For further studies, it is recommended to measure the potential to reduce environmental impacts with the use of alternative construction materials and alternative construction practices for building walls in Sri Lanka.

Analysis of the embodied energy of construction materials in the life cycle assessment of Hellenic residential buildings

As the operational energy use in new constructions is moving towards nearly zero energy buildings, the embodied energy of buildings is gaining more importance. This work elaborates the importance of embodied energy in Hellenic residential buildings by comparing the primary energy consumption during their life cycle. Field surveys were used to collect relevant data from local manufactures and determine the embodied energy coefficients of popular construction materials. The derived embodied energy intensities (EEI) and the calculated primary energy use intensities (EUI) are then used for benchmarking the buildings’ energy and environmental life cycle performance. The EEI value ranged from 3.2 to 7.1 GJ/m2, compared with annual primary EUI of 0.3 to 3.9 GJ/m2. The initial and recurrent embodied energy of building construction materials over the lifetime of a building can reach up to ~30%. The analysis quantified the time it takes for the operational energy savings resulting from energy conservation measures that are implemented in existing dwellings to recover the embodied energy impact of the new materials or products that are used. For individual measures, the average recovery time ranged from 1 to 6 years, and up to 10 years from more conservative estimates. For a combined scenario it approaches ~2 years or ~3.5 years, respectively.

Life cycle assessment of energy efficient buildings

Life Cycle Analysis applications in the construction sector are growing due to the increased importance of embodied components in low energy buildings. In this study, standard building reference scenarios were compared with highly efficient building typologies, classified as low-energy or nearly Zero Energy Buildings. Energy consumptions were simulated starting from validated models while uniform assumptions, such as materials to be included, stages to be considered and coefficients of impact to be applied, were made for the LCA. The results show how the enhanced energy efficiency in the examined buildings and the reduction of their operational non-renewable primary energy requirement correspondingly causes a decrease of their life cycle non-renewable energy requirement, Cumulative Energy Demand and Global Warming Potential. A high potential in the reduction of non-renewable operational primary energy and GWP was found (until a maximum of 89% for the energy and 88% for the emissions). However, due to the shifting of impacts to the embodied components, the achievable life cycle reduction of non-renewable primary energy and emissions is lower (respectively 60% and 63% for the best performing retrofit). The benefit on life cycle CED is even lower due to the energy transition to renewables.

Non-graphical data structure for the purpose of BIM-based Life Cycle Assessment: Methodology for the Czech environment

The article deals with the data structure required for the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of buildings using the Building Information Model (BIM) for implementation in the Czech construction industry. The construction industry produces a significant amount of waste while the capacity of landfills is being limited. The effective management of previously used materials that have the potential to be reused can significantly help to decrease consumption and save natural resources. LCA is a method that can be used to demonstrate the suitability of proposed materials, structures or buildings in terms of their whole life cycle and its environmental impact. For an LCA evaluation, it is crucial to obtain life cycle inventory (LCI) input data, though the structure of this data has not yet been clearly defined for the Czech environment. BIM includes, in addition to geometry, an information component which is applicable to this assessment. The aim of the article is to analyze previous approaches and define a BIM data structure for a particular material for LCI purposes. The new methodology is based on the standardization of a non-graphical information model data structure (SNIM) which was developed for the Czech construction industry. “Markup syntaxes” have been taken from the SNIM database and used to further identify the data for LCI base structure purposes. The MatLab matrix solver was used to classify these data. The advantages of the proposed methodology have been demonstrated via a case study of a monolithic concrete slab structure in which three types of concrete were evaluated. The results indicated the percentage of impact categories for each concrete type. These results are useful for expanding the BIM model with new data necessary for further LCA calculations. The extension of the BIM model via LCA calculations will lead to a reduction in the extraction of natural resources as well as a positive impact on the environment.

Life cycle assessment of a residential building in Egypt: A case study

The present study discussed the significant environmental impacts of a residential building located in New Cairo, Egypt. This covered all life cycle steps from cradle to cradle with a projected 60-year life span: (i) an inventory of all the construction materials were analysed, covering the building structure as well as the energy consumption; (ii) three types of functional units were defined; (iii) the two top building materials were examined, and a sensitivity analysis was conducted to investigate the impact associated with the choice of building materials. The result shows that two life cycle phases concerning, manufacturing and operation, were more significant in all of the impact categories. It also shows that building structure and flooring result in most of the environmental loads. In terms of the sensitivity analysis, it was found the structural concrete had the largest impact, dominating all selected impact categories except ODP. Finally, limitations and challenges are discussed to explore better design decisions for selecting buildings’ structural systems in future studies.