Sustainable Construction - Environmental Impacts Assessment of Architectural Elements and Building Services

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 77-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Moňoková ◽  
Silvia Vilčeková
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Sustainable Construction ◽  
Building Structures ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
Ozone Formation Potential ◽  
Environmental Technologies

Increasing concerns about negative environmental impacts of building structures call for higher demands on the design of environmental friendly buildings. This article is aimed at assessing the overall environmental impact of buildings throughout its life cycle as well as on environmental impact of all building materials and building services for single-family homes. This analysis examines the role of utilized green environmental technologies for the following selected impact categories: GWP - global warming potential, EP - eutrophication potential, AP - acidification potential POCP and photochemical ozone formation potential expressed in kg CO2eq, PO43-eq, SO2eq and ethylene within the “Cradle to gate with options” boundary. The LCA assessment methodology and eToolLCD software have been used to model the effects of houses’ life cycle.

The Application of the Life-Cycle Assessment in the Building Sector: An Italian Case Study

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-108
Author(s):  
Maurizio Cellura ◽  
Francesco Guarino ◽  
Sonia Longo
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Life Cycle Thinking ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Building Sector ◽  
Life Cycle Assessment Methodology ◽  
Use Of Resources ◽  
Whole Life Cycle

The building sector is one of the most relevant in terms of generation of wealth and occupation, but it is also responsible for significant consumption of natural resources and the generation of environmental impacts, mainly greenhouse gas emissions. In order to improve the eco profile of buildings during their life-cycle, the reduction of the use of resources and the minimization of environmental impacts have become, in the last years, some of the main objectives to achieve in the design of sustainable buildings. The application of the life-cycle thinking approach, looking at the whole life cycle of buildings, is of paramount importance for a real decarbonization and reduction of the environmental impacts of the building sector. This paper presents an application of the life-cycle assessment methodology for assessing the energy and environmental life-cycle impacts of a single-family house located in the Mediterranean area in order to identify the building components and life-cycle steps that are responsible of the higher burdens. The assessment showed that the largest impacts are located in the use stage; energy for heating is significant but not dominant, while the contribution of electricity utilized for households and other equipment resulted very relevant. High environmental impacts are also due to manufacture and transport of building materials and components.

scholarly journals Evaluation Model of Environmental Impacts of Insulation Building Envelopes

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 2258
Author(s):  
Qianmiao Yang ◽  
Liyao Kong ◽  
Hui Tong ◽  
Xiaolin Wang
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Building Envelopes ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
Entire Life Cycle

Energy consumption during use is the focus of insulation envelope design, but the environmental impact of other stages in the entire life cycle of building envelopes should be of equal concern. In this paper, a model has been developed based on the life-cycle environmental assessment for calculating the environmental impacts of building envelopes. The model proposed will be useful to evaluate the environmental performance of various envelopes to optimize the design of energy-saving envelopes. Consequently, lots of experiments are conducted for environmental impact assessment and analysis for external windows and filler walls with energy-savings in heating areas of China. Four conclusions can be drawn from the analysis. (1) K of building envelope is the design parameter of the greatest impact on environmental performance and has a critical value, which is the value that has the smallest environmental impact over the entire life cycle. (2) The importance of the environmental impact of the building envelope during the life cycle stages is as follows: usage > production > transportation > disposal > construction. The construction process of the thermal insulation wall could be negligible. (3) The choice of regional building materials should consider the distance of transportation, which may be the key factor determining its life cycle environmental performance. (4) Aerated concrete EPS walls and wooden windows are the first choices for envelope construction from the environmental impact throughout the life cycle.

scholarly journals Multi-criteria analysis of ten single family houses regarding environmental impacts

2020 ◽  
Vol 310 ◽  
pp. 00065
Author(s):  
Andrea Moňoková ◽  
Silvia Vilčeková
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Reduction Rate ◽  
Mineral Wool ◽  
Expanded Polystyrene ◽  
Building Structures ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Abiotic Depletion Potential ◽  
Abiotic Depletion ◽  
Depletion Potential

This study presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) of ten single family houses located in Eastern Slovakia with the aim to compare them in terms of the materials and technologies used. The main goal is to investigate and emphasize the reduction rate of environmental impact resulting from using green materials and technologies. Environmental impacts are determined by using eToolLCD software. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) categories of global warming, ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication and photochemical ozone creation potential, as well as abiotic depletion potential - elements, abiotic depletion potential - fossil fuels, use of renewable primary energy resources, net use of fresh water, components for reuse and materials for recycling are determined within the cradle-to-grave boundary. Assessed family houses are built as a combination of conventional materials such as aerated concrete blocks, expanded polystyrene (EPS), extruded polystyrene (XPS) and roofing mineral wool and natural materials such as wood, cellulose, clay, straw and extensive vegetation roofs. Multi-criteria decision analysis points out that material optimization of building structures as well as the application of green technologies can ensure a considerable reduction of environmental impacts.

scholarly journals Analysis of Factors Affecting the Circularity of Building Materials

Materials ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (23) ◽  
pp. 7296
Author(s):  
Joanna Sagan ◽  
Anna Sobotka
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Waste Management ◽  
Solid Waste ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Sustainable Construction ◽  
Building Structures ◽  
Construction Waste ◽  
Factors Affecting ◽  
Waste Minimisation

A circular economy requires closed circuits of consumed resources. Construction generates approximately 50% of solid waste globally, which is difficult to manage. The aim of this article was to identify the factors that determine the development of circular construction in the context of waste minimisation in the life cycle of building structures. The identification of cause-and-effect relationships by means of the DEMATEL method allows the problems of construction waste management to be taken into account in the context of the development of sustainable construction and fulfilling the principles of the circular economy.

scholarly journals Comparison of Environmental Performance of Single-Family House and Multi-Storey Apartment in Turkey using Life Cycle Assessment

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sedat Gulcimen ◽  
Nigmet Uzal ◽  
Tolgahan Varışlı ◽  
Ghaith Khidrah
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Sustainable Construction ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Floor Area ◽  
Operation Phase ◽  
Family House

Abstract In recent years, there has been a significant transition from multi-storey buildings to single-family houses especially due to COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, people prefer to live in single-family houses or detached houses where they have more free space in outside of the house. The aim of this study is to quantify and compare the environmental performance of a single-family house and multi-storey apartment building in Turkey throughout their life cycle with cradle-to-grave approach. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) based on ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 was used to analyse the environmental impacts of the single-family house and multi-storey apartment buildings. The functional unit was chosen as 1m2 of floor area of a house over their lifespan (50 years). With cradle-to-grave approach of the LCA, the system boundaries for the environmental assessment covers the pre-operation, operation and post-operation stages. The results of this LCA study revealed that majority of the environmental impacts occurs at operation phase for both single-family house and multi-storey apartment. The operation stage has the highest impact with 79% and 78% share of the global warming potential (GWP) for single-family house and the multi-storey apartment, respectively. In comparison of environmental impact results, GWP of the multi-storey apartment per m2 of floor area is 30% lower than single-family house. The environmental impacts of the operation phase have significant importance on the overall environmental performance of both single-family house and multi-storey apartment. The results showed that electricity consumption and steel usage are the main contributors of the environmental impacts coming from the operation and pre-operation phases, respectively. To pave the way to a sustainable future, the building industry must strive to use of renewable energy sources and sustainable construction materials in order to reduce their environmental impacts with a sustainable approach.

Development of Local Weighting Factors in the Context of LCIA

2014 ◽  
Vol 935 ◽  
pp. 293-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saniye Karaman Oztas ◽  
Leyla Tanacan
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Impact Categories ◽  
Inventory Analysis ◽  
Local Data ◽  
Weighting Factors ◽  
Environmental Impact Categories

Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) is a phase of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in order to quantify various environmental impacts based on the inventory analysis. Weighting although is not the mandatory element of LCIA is the element in which local data becomes important. Potential environmental impacts and the importance of particular impacts can be quite significant among the countries or regions. Determination of the importance degree is possible by weighting of the selected environmental impact categories. Therefore, this study aimed to develop local weighting factors (WFs) by taking the environmental issues into consideration for the building materials produced in Turkey. And 11 environmental impact categories such as global warming, ozone depletion, acidification, photochemical ozone formation, eutrophication, fossil fuel depletion, mineral resource depletion, water depletion, land use, indoor air quality and waste were selected considering environmental impacts caused by the building materials and environmental issues in Turkey. And WFs of these categories for Turkey were determined by using a panel approach. Thus, it can be possible to assess environmental impacts of building materials by using local data.

Optimization of Building Envelope Components Based on Life Cycle Environmental Impacts and Costs

2014 ◽  
Vol 899 ◽  
pp. 93-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Medgyasszay ◽  
Zsuzsa Szalay
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Environmental Indicators ◽  
Single Family ◽  
Operational Energy

Recent national and international building regulations on the energy performance of buildings focus mainly on the reduction of operational energy. This can be achieved by increasing the energy efficiency of the building, installing highly efficient building service systems and applying renewable energy sources. However, these measures have a price in terms of investment costs, and also in terms of environmental impacts. The life-cycle of building materials, building constructions or whole buildings from cradle to grave can be assessed using the method of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost analysis (LCC). These tools take into account not only the heating energy saving due to additional insulation, but also the embodied environmental impacts and costs of the investment. In this paper, the optimum thickness of various insulation materials, including natural and recycled materials is examined considering three main environmental indicators and global costs. The analysis is performed for a typical Hungarian single-family house subject to retrofit.

scholarly journals 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

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 2898
Author(s):  
Rakhyun Kim ◽  
Myung-Kwan Lim ◽  
Seungjun Roh ◽  
Won-Jun Park
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Impact Analysis ◽  
Impact Categories ◽  
Environmental Impact Analysis ◽  
Apartment Buildings ◽  
Environmental Impact Categories ◽  
Weight Percentile

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.

Der Umsatz-Nachhaltigkeitsindex*/The Turnover-Sustainability-Index

2016 ◽  
Vol 106 (03) ◽  
pp. 136-140
Author(s):  
R. Miehe ◽  
M. Wiedenmann ◽  
T. Prof. Bauernhansl
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Sustainability Index ◽  
Behavior Based ◽  
Comparative Examination

Die Ökobilanz hat sich als Instrument zur Bewertung der Umweltauswirkungen von Produkten und Prozessen durchgesetzt. Dennoch stellt ihre Durchführung Nutzer immer wieder vor Herausforderungen. Der Fachartikel präsentiert einen Ansatz für eine vergleichende Betrachtung der ökologischen Auswirkungen des unternehmerischen Handelns auf Basis der jeweiligen Unternehmens- und Branchenumsätze. Der Umsatz-Nachhaltigkeitsindex soll als Konzept für ein Benchmark für Unternehmen einer Branche dienen.   Life Cycle Assessment has prevailed as an instrument to evaluate the environmental impact of products and processes. Its execution, however, poses a challenge to operators. In this paper, we present an approach for a comparative examination of environmental impacts of industrial behavior based on the turnover of companies and their equivalent sectors. The Turnover-Sustainability-Index serves as a benchmark for companies within a sector.

scholarly journals Reuse of Barley Straw for Handmade Paper Production

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alma Delia Delia Román Gutiérrez ◽  
Juan Hernandez Avila ◽  
Antonia Karina Vargas M. ◽  
Eduardo Cerecedo Saenz ◽  
Eleazar Salinas-Rodríguez
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impact ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Waste Treatment ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Barley Straw ◽  
Handmade Paper ◽  
Organic Solid Waste ◽  
Organic Solid ◽  
Spent Grain

Usually in the manufacture of beer by fermentation of barley, in both industrialized and developing countries significant amounts of organic solid waste are produced from barley straw. These possibly have an impact on the carbon footprint with an effect on global warming. According to this, it is important to reduce environmental impact of these solid residues, and an adequate way is the recycling using them as raw material for the elaboration of handmade paper. Therefore, it is required to manage this type of waste by analyzing the environmental impact, and thus be able to identify sustainable practices for the treatment of this food waste, evaluating its life cycle, which is a useful methodology to estimate said environmental impacts. It is because of this work shows the main results obtained using the life cycle analysis (LCA) methodology, to evaluate the possible environmental impacts during the waste treatment of a brewery located in the state of Hidalgo, Mexico. The residues evaluated were barley straw, malt residues and spent grain, and at the end, barley straw was selected to determine in detail its environmental impact and its reuse, the sheets analyzed presented a grammage that varies from 66 g/m2 and 143 g/m2, resistance to burst was 117 to 145 kpa, with a crystallinity of 34.4% to 37.1%.

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