A Hybrid LCA Approach to Quantify the Environmental Impacts during Construction

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The developmental path taken globally over the past few decades has been ultimately detrimental to the health of our surroundings leading to problems of excessive natural resource depletion, waste generation and environmental stress through harmful emissions. The construction industry being a major contributor to these problems, now faces increasingly restrictive environmental conservation and protective, laws, and regulations. Yet at present, there has been a lack of sufficient, credible and reliable quantitative indictors, metrics and/or data on the actual benefits of sustainable construction. In particular, reduction of environmental effects during construction activities has been one of the main issues facing stakeholders. To address this problem, this study identifies materials and energy flows during construction and develops a method to quantify and measure environmental impacts during raw materials extraction, production, fabrication and installation. By using a Hybrid Life Cycle Assessment approach, this paper provides a detailed assessment of both direct and supply chain impacts. The results quantify and compare the two floor systems in terms oftheir environmental impacts.

Site-specific environmental impact assessment as a basis for supplier selections – exemplary application to aluminum

“…In this regard, life cycle analysis (LCA) has found broad application both in corporate and in governmental context (Beaussier et al, 2019;Breun, 2016;Hendrickson et al, 1997;Zamagni et al, 2013). In a holistic approach, LCA comprises the quantification of environmental effects and consequential burdens of the entire product or process life cycle starting from the original raw material extraction to the recycling or disposal at the end-of-life stage (Guinée et al, 1993;Hendrickson et al, 1997;Kndungu and Molavi, 2014;Roy et al, 2009;Sonnemann et al, 2004;Suh et al, 2004). In the ISO standard 14040, the principles as well as a standardized guidance for the conduction of LCA is defined (International Standards Organisation, 2006a).…”

“…In scientific literature, three LCA methods are distinguished: the process method (bottom-up), the inputoutput analysis (top-down) and hybrid methods. The process method is based on the determination of all product specific input output flows (material and energy flows) by means of a flow diagram according to a defined functional unit (Kndungu and Molavi, 2014;Sonnemann et al, 2004). The input-output approach makes use of national, economic input-output data combined with environmental impacts at sector level, while an interdependency of economic sectors is presumed (Leontief, 1970).…”

“…In order to carry out a normalization of the LCI dataset (Roy et al, 2009), the functional unit was determined as one t of raw aluminum. This is a crucial performance measure in LCA which enables a comparability among aluminum producers (Bieda et al, 2015;International Standards Organisation, 2006b;Kndungu and Molavi, 2014), as raw aluminum represents the output product of the examined aluminum plants.…”

Integrating site-specific environmental impact assessment in supplier selection: exemplary application to steel procurement

“…LCA constitutes a holistic approach, which quantifies environmental effects by taking the whole life cycle of a product or process (inputs and outputs from raw material exploitation to the end-of-life recycling) and the resulting burdens on the environment (Guinée et al 1993;Hendrickson et al 1997;Kndungu and Molavi 2014;Roy et al 2009;Sonnemann et al 2004;Suh et al 2004) into account. A global standard with a general procedure including respective guidelines was published by the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) within the context of the Environmental Management Standards (EMS) (Suh et al 2004).…”

“…In the past, two methods were distinguished and frequently discussed in literature: the process method (bottom-up) and the input-output analysis (top-down). In the process method, all environmental input and output flows of product specific processes are determined and quantitatively described by a process flow diagram and the defined functional unit (Kndungu and Molavi 2014;Sonnemann et al 2004). In contrast, the top-down input-output approach, which was developed by Leontief in 1936, assumes an existing interdependency among sectors of an economy and uses economic input-output data of a nation in combination with sector-level environmental impacts (Bilec et al 2006;Leontief 1936;Suh et al 2004).…”