ARC473:

Building Life Cycle

Assessment

Lecture 3: Building LCA Types, Levels

& Challenges

Instructor
Dr. Ahmed Khaled Abd El-Hameed
Sustainable Design & Resource Efficiency
Summary for Residential Buildings
 Types of LCA
Life Cycle Energy Analysis (LCEA)

Also referred to as Life Cycle Energy Assessment, is an abbreviated form of LCA that uses
energy as the only measure of environmental impact. This helps in choosing energy
efficient materials, systems, and processes for the life cycle of the building.

Carbon Accounting

Carbon accounting is the process by which CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion are
calculated. Carbon emissions factors are expressed in many forms, either expressed as a
mass of CO2 or only as the mass of carbon contained in the CO2, and may be expressed in
any unit of mass.

In case of buildings, carbon accounting would consider CO2 emissions from all life stages.
Thus, carbon accounting can be described as a narrow-scoped LCA that is only targeted to
measure the CO2 emissions for a building life-cycle.
 Types of LCA
Life Cycle Water Analysis (LCWA)

Also referred to as Life Cycle Water Assessment, is an abbreviated form of LCA that uses
water as the only measure of environmental impact. This helps in choosing water
efficient materials, systems, and processes for the life cycle of the building.

Life Cycle Management (LCM)

LCM is a framework that uses methods like LCA and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) to support
decisions leading to sustainable development.

A Life Cycle Management (LCM) approach can form the basis of an effective business
strategy by providing a framework for improving the performance of an organization
and its respective products and services.
 Types of LCA
Life Cycle Costing (LCC)

LCC provides decision support in selecting a building system or whole-building design

based on its financial benefits as opposed to LCA, in which a decision is based on the
environmental benefits of a system or design.

LCC provides a basis for contrasting initial investments with future costs over a specified
period of time, involving the systematic consideration of all relevant costs and revenues.
In the context of buildings, this consists of initial capital cost, occupation costs, operating
costs, and the costs incurred or benefited from its disposal.

LCA and LCC when used together can lead to more holistic decision making. In a given
scenario, LCA will produce results indicating the environmental impacts of different
options. The option with least impact is proposed as the best solution based on LCA
results, but this option might have a large initial cost. In such a situation, LCC can help in
selecting the most suitable option based on a limited budget and calculated payback
period, while simultaneously managing environmental impacts.
 Levels of LCA
The LCA methodology as it relates to the building industry can be pictured as operating at
one of four levels: material, product, building, or industry. Each larger level builds from
the level below and expands from the material kernel.
 Levels of LCA
Material and Product Levels

At its core, process-based LCA is defined at the material level. The primary source for
information about the environmental impact of materials is the LCI database, including
widely used building materials.

At the product level, an LCA is calculated as a collection of materials that are assembled
into a final (or intermediate) product. A quantity take-off of the product is completed,
and the emissions from each component of the products are summed. To complete a
product LCA, thorough knowledge is required of the source and quantities of materials
and the manufacturing processes of the finished product.

At the material and product levels, architects are likely to be consumers of LCA
information as is. They may use this information to guide in their material and product
selection process.
 Levels of LCA
Building Level

Building LCA, or whole-building LCA, can be thought of as a large product LCA, where the
product is the building. In this case, the architect can be the LCA expert, as the architect
understands how the building is constructed, how building materials and products flow
to the jobsite, and how the building is going to be operated over time.

Architects may themselves be the LCA practitioners, using building-specific LCA tools to
create LCAs that characterize the environmental footprint of proposed projects, either for
the purpose of meeting regulatory requirements (e.g., to stay below a specified impact
threshold) or as part of an iterative design methodology that seeks to minimize the
environmental impact of a project.
 Levels of LCA
Industry Level

At the building industry level, the Economic Input-Output (EIO) based LCA method is
probably the best tool for completing an LCA. Instead of completing a process-based LCA
of every building in the portfolio, an LCA at the building industry scale is completed by
examining industrial production and economic output data.

In this way, an LCA of an entire segment of the industry is created, but with little of the
specificity found in process-based LCAs. The EIO LCA method has been used in the
building industry to quantify the impacts of cement and steel production, suburban
sprawl and urban densification, and changes in land use, for example. LCAs created at the
industry level are more likely to be of use to policy makers and planners.
LCA in the Design Process
 LCA in the Design Process
At a building level, LCA can be used to:

 Optimise the building design to mitigate the impacts.

 Compare different structural systems, assemblies and products.
 Benchmark environmental building performance.
 Communicate to users.
 Improve environmental policies.
 Allow subsidies for retrofitting or new construction.
 Select between demolition or retrofitting.
 Authorise construction permits following the calculated environmental impacts.
 LCA in the Design Process
Pre-Design Stage Schematic Design Stage Design Development Stage
• Preliminary structural, • Comparative structural, • Detailed site plan indicating
mechanical, electrical, and mechanical, electrical, and building location and site
other engineering systems other systems analysed improvements prepared
determined
• Preliminary screening of • Review obtained from
• Estimates prepared for materials, equipment, and regulatory agencies
total project cost and fixtures carried out
annual operating expenses

Pre-Design Stage

In this design stage, a concept based on feasibility studies is prepared. LCA can help
define the environmental goals of a project.

LCA can help make decisions regarding the building footprint among several options, by
evaluating trade-offs between impacts from the manufacturing and operational phases.
 LCA in the Design Process
Schematic Design Stage

The output can include site layout, planning and spatial arrangements, elevation
treatment, construction and environmental system.

Choices regarding selection of building products and assemblies can be made with the
help of LCA. Energy conservation measures can be also assessed by the use of LCA.

Design Development Stage

Detailed drawings are produced for coordinating structure, services and specialist
installation. Internal spaces may be detailed to include fittings, equipment and finishes.

LCA can help evaluate the life-long impacts of proposed systems. The most crucial stages
in a system’s life can be identified in terms of environmental impact, and appropriate
modifications to the system design can be proposed. Material finishes can also be
compared with the help of LCA results.
LCA in the Design Process
 Challenges in the Use of LCA
Data Collection

The lack of readily available data makes the task of conducting LCA difficult for the
architect. It is unlikely that any architect will use LCA unless the inventory analysis data
have already been collected and indexed in a way that promotes ease of use.

Further development of aggregated LCAs of building assemblies will assist architects in

constructing LCAs of buildings without the need for extensive manual data collection.

Data Quality

Data collected from single manufacturers can be unreliable and inconsistent. This may
lead to unfair comparison between two competing products.

Additions to the LCA databases by industry trade associations (instead of single suppliers),
has improved the quality of LCI data. Nevertheless, such data require third-party
validation.
 Challenges in the Use of LCA
Current Gaps in Data

 Many EPDs for products and materials already exist and are publicly available. Less
information is available for equipment and components for building installations
(plumbing, electricity, HVAC, etc.).

 A lot of installation information is not readily available.

 Maintenance and replacement data is specific to the building and is currently not
readily available. It covers a large scope of activities (cleaning, specific maintenance,
technical maintenance, replacement, etc.).

 There is a need to work on some End-of-Life scenarios. It should not be too difficult to
imagine end-of-life scenarios. This information could be used at a product level; there
is no need to make it building specific.
 Challenges in the Use of LCA
Issues with Impact Assessment Methods

LCIA is based on assumptions and extrapolations from work of scientists in many fields.
The methods used to translate inventories into impacts vary by impact category.

Impacts such as global warming and ozone depletion are estimated based on
internationally established methods. For impact categories like eco-system toxicity, the
assessment method is less consistent, as the impacts are much more complex to quantify.

Issues with Weighting

Reducing the results to a single score requires more assumptions and generalizations,
which is not found acceptable by many LCA experts. Many believe that a better approach
is to report the impacts and use their values without subjective weighting.

However, weighting is helpful in decision making as it generates a single-value result to

help decision makers understand the environmental impact of a product or design option.
 Challenges in the Use of LCA
Limited Scope

The LCA of buildings is fit for environmental impacts that can be assessed by adding them
up over the life cycle. This means that all health- and comfort-related issues are normally
not part of the LCA of buildings.

In addition, those location-dependent environmental impacts should be assessed with

additional care.

Limits to Modelling

LCA of buildings is based on modelling, as the number of different environmental impacts

that should be measured throughout the value chain is too high.

The advantage of modelling is that it gives the opportunity to assess something which is
not measurable. The limitation of modelling is that it is based on certain assumptions
which inevitably create some uncertainties.
 Challenges in the Use of LCA
Allocating Recycling Activities

Many building products and assemblies may contain recycled content. The construction
and maintenance waste may be recycled. During the demolition phase, which accounts
for the biggest share of waste, most of the waste can either be reused or recycled. By not
accounting for such activities in LCA, buildings are deprived of the recycling credits.

Benchmarking LCA

Benchmarks provide a basis for comparing the performance of a given project:

 Past performance: A comparison of current versus past performance.
 Industry average: Such as the recognized average performance of a peer group.
 Best in class: Benchmarking against the best in the industry, and not the average.
 Best practices: A comparison against certain best practices in the industry.

Some argue against benchmarking a building design based on its past performance,
requiring an established “industry average” LCA data to benchmark buildings.
EPDs for Sustainable Buildings
 Incentives for using LCA
Completing an LCA is a time and resource intensive process. LCA has been successfully
integrated into many industrial manufacturing systems because of benefits available to
the manufacturer and the consumer.

Direct monetary incentives can be defined in terms of tax credits or benefits which are
available to the manufacturer for using LCA. Consumers also receive monetary incentives
if LCA-compliant green products or technologies are available at subsidized rates.

Process enhancements that can be achieved by using LCA methodology is rewarding for
consumer product and similar industries due to the repetitive nature of production. An
improvement in one process stage affects all subsequent batches of products. Both time
and other resources are optimized, leading to monetary savings for the manufacturer.
These savings are also reflected in the market prices and thus benefit the consumer.

This is not the case with buildings where each has unique construction and operation
methods. The use of LCA with its present limitations tends to consume more time and
resources than it saves for building projects. Monetary savings for reducing emissions
are only possible if the release of emissions is taxed or limited in some way.
 LCA in Building Rating Systems
Green Globes

Green Globes recommends adopting an assembly-scale LCA during the schematic design
stage where important large-scale design decisions are made. For the contract document
stage, the rating system suggests the use of LCA for product-to-product comparison.

DGNB

DGNB promotes EPDs from operator programs to compare materials. DGNB developed an
Excel tool to calculate building LCA and compare it with reference cases. The life cycle cost
approach is also a relevant, highly weighted criterion in the DGNB assessment.

LEED

In addition to requesting 20 EPDs from five different manufacturers for additional points,
LEED promotes whole-building LCA to demonstrate a minimum of 10% reduction
compared with a baseline building, in at least three impact categories including GWP.