scholarly journals Exergy-Based Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings: Case Studies

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (21) ◽  
pp. 11682
Author(s):  
Martin Nwodo ◽  
Chimay Anumba
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Resource Use ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Comparison Of Results ◽  
Sustainability Assessments

The relevance of exergy to the life cycle assessment (LCA) of buildings has been studied regarding its potential to solve certain challenges in LCA, such as the characterization and valuation, accuracy of resource use, and interpretation and comparison of results. However, this potential has not been properly investigated using case studies. This study develops an exergy-based LCA method and applies it to three case-study buildings to explore its benefits. The results provide evidence that the theoretical benefits of exergy-based LCA as against a conventional LCA can be achieved. These include characterization and valuation benefits, accuracy, and enabling the comparison of environmental impacts. With the results of the exergy-based LCA method in standard metrics, there is now a mechanism for the competitive benchmarking of building sustainability assessments. It is concluded that the exergy-based life cycle assessment method has the potential to solve the characterization and valuation problems in the conventional life-cycle assessment of buildings, with local and global significance.

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 From Buildings’ End of Life to Aggregate Recycling under a Circular Economic Perspective: A Comparative Life Cycle Assessment Case Study

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (17) ◽  
pp. 9625
Author(s):  
Ambroise Lachat ◽  
Konstantinos Mantalovas ◽  
Tiffany Desbois ◽  
Oumaya Yazoghli-Marzouk ◽  
Anne-Sophie Colas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
End Of Life ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Open Loop ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Construction And Demolition Waste ◽  
Recycled Aggregates ◽  
Demolition Waste

The demolition of buildings, apart from being energy intensive and disruptive, inevitably produces construction and demolition waste (C&Dw). Unfortunately, even today, the majority of this waste ends up underexploited and not considered as valuable resources to be re-circulated into a closed/open loop process under the umbrella of circular economy (CE). Considering the amount of virgin aggregates needed in civil engineering applications, C&Dw can act as sustainable catalyst towards the preservation of natural resources and the shift towards a CE. This study completes current research by presenting a life cycle inventory compilation and life cycle assessment case study of two buildings in France. The quantification of the end-of-life environmental impacts of the two buildings and subsequently the environmental impacts of recycled aggregates production from C&Dw was realized using the framework of life cycle assessment (LCA). The results indicate that the transport of waste, its treatment, and especially asbestos’ treatment are the most impactful phases. For example, in the case study of the first building, transport and treatment of waste reached 35% of the total impact for global warming. Careful, proactive, and strategic treatment, geolocation, and transport planning is recommended for the involved stakeholders and decision makers in order to ensure minimal sustainability implications during the implementation of CE approaches for C&Dw.

scholarly journals Environmental impacts of a hydrometallurgical process for electronic waste treatment: A life cycle assessment case study

2017 ◽  
Vol 140 ◽  
pp. 1204-1216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena Maria Iannicelli-Zubiani ◽  
Martina Irene Giani ◽  
Francesca Recanati ◽  
Giovanni Dotelli ◽  
Stefano Puricelli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Waste Treatment ◽  
Electronic Waste ◽  
Hydrometallurgical Process

scholarly journals Life cycle assessment of the environmental impacts of transport infrastructure and individual modes of transport

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristína Kováčiková ◽  
◽  
Antonín Kazda
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Impact Assessment ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Transport Infrastructure

The paper is focused on the assessment of the environmental impacts of transport infrastructure and individual types of transport using the life cycle assessment method. The paper contains a description of the basic terminology of the problem related to transport, the environment and methods of environmental impact assessment. The paper contains analysis on monitoring carbon dioxide emissions from a global perspective as well as from a regional perspective focused on Slovakia. The aim of the paper is to create a proposal for the assessment of environmental impacts of transport infrastructure, in the form of specification of areas of assessment for selected types of transport with a focus on carbon dioxide emissions. Using the knowledge and principles of the life cycle method, a proposal for relevant indicators and a proposal for a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of selected types of transport, focused on carbon dioxide emissions, is created in the paper

ASSESSMENT OF ADDITIVE AND CONVENTIONAL MANUFACTURING: CASE STUDIES FROM THE AEC INDUSTRY

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nataša Mrazovic ◽  
Danijel Mocibob ◽  
Michael Lepech ◽  
Martin Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Assessment Process ◽  
Manufacturing Cost ◽  
Foreseeable Future ◽  
Assessment Approach ◽  
Building Components ◽  
Future Work

Given the development of Additive Manufacturing (AM), popularly known as 3D Printing, the coexistence of AM and conventional manufacturing (CM) in AEC will be a reality for the foreseeable future. Case studies on two AM metallic building components demonstrated that AM for building components is technologically feasible but cost-prohibitive today, and, in some cases, has lower environmental impacts than CM. Firstly, a feasibility study was conducted to assess the applicability, time to manufacture, and manufacturing cost of AM vs. CM of specific metallic building components. Secondly, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was used to assess environmental impacts of AM and CM for those two cases. The case studies were the first well-documented comparative analyses of AM vs. CM for building components, and they contribute to the emerging "AM-in-AEC" knowledge base with their assessment approach, findings and documented baseline efforts for the analyses. The studies also revealed that AEC practitioners lack a systematic way to rapidly and consistently assess the applicability (A), schedule (S), environmental impacts (E), and cost (C) of AM compared with CM to produce building components. Future work includes formalization of such an ASEC multi-criteria framework and impact assessment of the formalized assessment process on the effort and the consistency of the assessment between different assessors.

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