Desire for quantitative information in a qualitative information context: induction of sustainable development via decision making in real estate and construction

Purpose Building life cycle assessment (LCA) draws on a number of indicators, including primary energy (PE) demand and global warming potential (GWP). A method of constructing a composite index of weighted individual indicators facilitates their use in comparisons and optimization of buildings, but a standard for weighting has not been established. This study investigates the use of monetary valuation of building LCA results as a way to weigh, aggregate, and compare results. Methods A set of six recent German office buildings served as a case study. For these, standard LCA and life cycle cost (LCC) calculations were conducted. Monetary valuation models from the literature were investigated as a basis for evaluation. From these, maximum and minimum valuation was chosen and applied to the LCA results for the embedded impacts of the case study buildings. The buildings' environmental costs (EC) were thereafter calculated and contributions of single impacts are analyzed. The EC-based on external costs-are subsequently compared with the life cycle costs (LCC)-based on market prices-of the respective buildings. Results and discussion Of the five standard environmental indicators used in Germany, GWP contributes approximately 80 to 95% of the overall EC. Acidification potential (AP) is the second largest contributor with up to 18%. Eutrophication (EP), photochemical oxidization (POCP), and ozone depletion potential (ODP) contribute less than 2.0%, 1.05%, and 2.4E−6% respectively. An additional assessment of the contribution of resource depletion to EC shows an impact at least as large as the impact of GWP. The relation between the EC and LCC strongly depends on the EC model used: if EC are internalized, they add between 1 and 37% to the life cycle costs of the buildings. Varying construction materials for a case study building shows that materials with low GWP have the potential to lower environmental costs significantly without a trade-off in favor of other indicators. Conclusions Despite their sensitivity to the monetary valuation model used, EC provide an indication that GWP and resource depletion-followed by AP-are the most relevant of the environmental indicators currently considered for the construction industry. Monetary valuation of environmental impacts is a valuable tool for comparisons of different buildings and design options and provides an effective and valuable way of communicating LCA results to stakeholders.

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“…2008) is applied to the LCA results. We excluded the use of other databases, as this can skew results (Mahler and Schneider 2017).…”

Section: Life Cycle Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental costs of buildings: monetary valuation of ecological indicators for the building industry

Schneider-Marin

Lang

2020

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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“…available information is not sufficient to provide accurate LCEA results unless it is estimated using engineering knowledge. Another origin of uncertainty is the range of available LCA-datasets, used as a basis for the calculations: different databases and datasets render differing results (Mahler and Schneider 2017). Moreover, buildings are generally prototypes, i.e., unlike massproduced industrial products, they are built only once.…”

Section: Life Cycle Energy Assessment In Early Design Stagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consistent management and evaluation of building models in the early design stages

Abualdenien¹,

Schneider-Marin²,

Zahedi³

et al. 2020

ITcon

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The early stages of building design involve the consideration of different design variants and their assessment regarding various performance criteria including energy consumption and costs. During the design process, the involved experts from different disciplines frequently exchange building information to develop a design that satisfies the project’s requirements and objectives. In the course of this iterative process, the building design evolves throughout multiple refinement stages. At the same time, different variants are developed. In BIM-based projects, the maturity of the design information provided by the model is expressed by the notion of Level of development (LOD). So far, however, there is no method to formally define the information requirements of a LOD. In particular, there are no means for expressing the uncertainty involved with the provided information. By contrast, despite the insufficient information available in early design stages, a BIM model appears precise and certain. This situation leads to false assumptions and model evaluations, for example, in the case of energy efficiency calculations or structural analysis. Hence, this paper presents an overview of a set of approaches that were developed to alleviate and preserve the consistency of the designed solutions. The approach includes the development of a multi-LOD meta-model, which allows one to explicitly describe the LOD requirements of each building component type incorporating the possible uncertainties, e.g. concerning the building dimensions. On the basis of this multi-LOD model, methods for evaluating a building design’s performance regarding the building’s structure and life cycle energy performance are proposed that take the defined uncertainties into account. To support the management of design variants in one consistent model, a graph-based approach is introduced. Finally, a minimized communication protocol is described to facilitate the workflow and communicate the evaluation results for supporting the decision-making process.

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Desire for quantitative information in a qualitative information context: induction of sustainable development via decision making in real estate and construction

Cited by 2 publications

References 1 publication

Environmental costs of buildings: monetary valuation of ecological indicators for the building industry

Environmental costs of buildings: monetary valuation of ecological indicators for the building industry

Consistent management and evaluation of building models in the early design stages

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