scholarly journals Estimating injurious impact in construction life cycle assessments: A prospective study

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
James McDevitt ◽  
◽  
Dave Moore ◽  
Felicity Lamm ◽  
Nadine McDonnell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Construction Sector ◽  
Life Cycle Assessments ◽  
Suggested Approach ◽  
Accident Compensation ◽  
Social Metrics ◽  
High Level ◽  
A Prospective Study

This paper is the result of a desire to include social factors alongside environmental and economic considerations in Life Cycle Assessment studies for the construction sector. We describe a specific search for a method to include injurious impact for construction Life Cycle Assessment studies, by evaluating a range of methods and data sources. A simple case study using selected Accident Compensation Corporation information illustrates that data relating to injury could provide a compelling evidence to cause changes in construction supply chains, and could provide an economic motive to pursue further research in this area. The paper concludes that limitations notwithstanding, the suggested approach could be useful as a fast and cheap high level tool that can accelerate the discussions and research agenda that will bring about the inclusion of social metrics in construction sector supply chain management and declarations.

scholarly journals Life-Cycle Assessment of a Rural Terraced House: A Struggle with Sustainability of Building Renovations

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (9) ◽  
pp. 2472
Author(s):  
Karel Struhala ◽  
Milan Ostrý
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Construction Sector ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
New Construction ◽  
Consumption Energy

Contemporary research stresses the need to reduce mankind’s environmental impacts and achieve sustainability. One of the keys to this is the construction sector. New buildings have to comply with strict limits regarding resource consumption (energy, water use, etc.). However, they make up only a fraction of the existing building stock. Renovations of existing buildings are therefore essential for the reduction of the environmental impacts in the construction sector. This paper illustrates the situation using a case study of a rural terraced house in a village near Brno, Czech Republic. It compares the life-cycle assessment (LCA) of the original house and its proposed renovation as well as demolition followed by new construction. The LCA covers both the initial embodied environmental impacts (EEIs) and the 60-year operation of the house with several variants of energy sources. The results show that the proposed renovation would reduce overall environmental impacts (OEIs) of the house by up to 90% and the demolition and new construction by up to 93% depending on the selected energy sources. As such, the results confirm the importance of renovations and the installation of environmentally-friendly energy sources for achieving sustainability in the construction sector. They also show the desirability of the replacement of inefficient old buildings by new construction in specific cases.

scholarly journals Comparing Three Building Life Cycle Assessment Tools for the Canadian Construction Industry

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayley Cormick
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Life Cycle Assessments ◽  
Bill Of Materials ◽  
Building Life Cycle

This research aims to contribute to quantifying whole building life cycle assessment using various software tools to determine how they can aid the construction industry in reducing carbon emissions, and in particular embodied emissions, through analysis and reporting. The conducted research seeks to examine and compare three whole building life cycle assessment tools; Athena Impact Estimator, Tally and One-Click LCA to relate the input variability to the outputs of the three programs. The three whole building life-cycle assessments were conducted using a case study building with an identical bill of materials and compared to determine the applicability and strengths of one program over another. The research confirmed that the three programs output significantly different results given the variability in scope, allowable program inputs and generated “black-box” back-end calculations, where the outputted whole building life cycle carbon equivalents of One-Click LCA is less than half than of Tally meaning the programs outputs cannot be simply compared side-by-side.

scholarly journals Comparing Three Building Life Cycle Assessment Tools for the Canadian Construction Industry

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hayley Cormick
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Carbon Emissions ◽  
Black Box ◽  
Assessment Tools ◽  
Life Cycle Assessments ◽  
Bill Of Materials ◽  
Building Life Cycle

This research aims to contribute to quantifying whole building life cycle assessment using various software tools to determine how they can aid the construction industry in reducing carbon emissions, and in particular embodied emissions, through analysis and reporting. The conducted research seeks to examine and compare three whole building life cycle assessment tools; Athena Impact Estimator, Tally and One-Click LCA to relate the input variability to the outputs of the three programs. The three whole building life-cycle assessments were conducted using a case study building with an identical bill of materials and compared to determine the applicability and strengths of one program over another. The research confirmed that the three programs output significantly different results given the variability in scope, allowable program inputs and generated “black-box” back-end calculations, where the outputted whole building life cycle carbon equivalents of One-Click LCA is less than half than of Tally meaning the programs outputs cannot be simply compared side-by-side.

scholarly journals Selection of low impact concrete mixtures based on life-cycle assessment mixtures

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1354-1380
Author(s):  
M. G. SILVA ◽  
V. GOMES ◽  
M. R. M. SAADE
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Life Cycle Assessments ◽  
Performance Requirements ◽  
Concrete Mixtures ◽  
Concrete Production ◽  
Cradle To Gate ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract Over the past decades, extensive research has been carried out to reduce the environmental impacts associated with the cement and concrete production. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) enables the quantification of the environmental loads and offers a useful perspective to scientifically support such studies. In this paper, we demonstrate LCA’s contribution to the selection of low environmental impact concretes, using breakwater coreloc components as a case study. A detailed experimental study was designed for the selection of an alkali activator for blast furnace slag (bfs) to produce concrete suitable for breakwater structures; for the evaluation of concrete properties and for the performance assessment of full scale elements in the field, as well as in the laboratory. Sodium silicate-activated bfs concrete mixtures achieved the best results in terms of performance requirements. Our cradle-to-gate life-cycle assessments showed that, though this chemical activator indeed produces lower global warming potential mixtures than the reference portland CP V-ARI concrete, it induces relevant impacts in several environmental categories. Such information is critical when selecting and optimizing low-impact concrete mixture design, and would not be detected in typical experimental studies that are exclusively guided by compliance with performance requirements.

scholarly journals Managing Choice Uncertainties in Life-Cycle Assessment as a Decision-Support Tool for Building Design: A Case Study on Building Framework

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 5130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Ylmén ◽  
Johanna Berlin ◽  
Kristina Mjörnell ◽  
Jesper Arfvidsson
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Decision Support ◽  
Product Life Cycle ◽  
Stratospheric Ozone ◽  
Decision Support Tool ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Suggested Approach ◽  
Support Tool

To establish a circular economy in society, it is crucial to incorporate life-cycle studies, such as life-cycle assessment (LCA), in the design process of products in order to mitigate the well-recognized problem of the design paradox. The aim of the study was to provide means in a structured way to highlight choice uncertainty present in LCA when used as decision support, as well as to mitigate subjective interpretations of the numerical results leading to arbitrary decisions. The study focused on choices available when defining the goal and scope of a life-cycle assessment. The suggested approach is intended to be used in the early design phases of complex products with high levels of uncertainty in the product life-cycle. To demonstrate and evaluate the approach, a life-cycle assessment was conducted of two design options for a specific building. In the case study two types of building frameworks were compared from an environmental perspective by calculating the global warming potential, eutrophication potential, acidification potential, stratospheric ozone depletion potential and photochemical oxidants creation potential. In the study, a procedure named the Decision Choices Procedure (DCP) was developed to improve LCA as an effective tool for decision support concerning design alternatives when less information is available. The advantages and drawbacks of the proposed approach are discussed to spur further improvements in the use of LCA as a decision-support tool.

scholarly journals Water footprint assessment of gold refining: Case study based on life cycle assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 122 ◽  
pp. 107319
Author(s):  
Wei Chen ◽  
Jinglan Hong ◽  
Chengxin Wang ◽  
Lu Sun ◽  
Tianzuo Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Water Footprint ◽  
Gold Refining

Community-scale composting for food waste: A life-cycle assessment-supported case study

2020 ◽  
Vol 261 ◽  
pp. 121220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zi Xiang Keng ◽  
Siewhui Chong ◽  
Chee Guan Ng ◽  
Nur Izzati Ridzuan ◽  
Svenja Hanson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Food Waste
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