Experiences with LCA in the Nordic Building Industry – Challenges, Needs and Solutions

Schlanbusch, Reidun Dahl; Fufa, Selamawit Mamo; Häkkinen, Tarja; Vares, Sirje; Birgisdóttir, Harpa; Ylmén, Peter

doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2016.09.106

Cited by 45 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Neglecting to design through a lifecycle perspective can however result in "problem-shifting", ending with spending more resources upfront than the ones saved through sustainability measures [30]. Although Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) are considered effective tools to support decision-making and control the sustainable design of products as well of more complex building systems [31,32], performing an LCA is often considered complex, time-consuming, and expensive in the building industry [33]. LCAs are, whenever required, performed in the final design stages or even after the construction [34][35][36] with significant environmental impacts [31,37].…”

Section: Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…LCAs are, whenever required, performed in the final design stages or even after the construction [34][35][36] with significant environmental impacts [31,37]. This lack of integration of LCA in the design process is due to a number of challenges: the presence of multiple stakeholders, little design standardization of complex products with multiple functions [33,34], and the inherent complexity of LCAs that involves that the topic is usually addressed by specialists. As highlighted by a number of studies, LCA must be integrated in the building design process as soon as possible, already from the early design stages, by diffusing the use of flexible easy-to-use tools integrated with databases of up-to date digital data [34,37,38].…”

Section: Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additional background information was therefore collected through sources in the form of reviews of LCA and environmental impacts of buildings [29,31] implemented with reviews of principles and calculation methods [35,61]. Areas of potential development, recurring issues and future challenges were identified both through a review [62] and reports on case-studies [33,35]. Sources discussing the use of available simulation and design tools-mainly BIM [34], parametric [63] and evaluation frameworks [38]-set the base for identifying LCA design parameters on building scale.…”

Section: Background Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review and Mapping of Parameters for the Early Stage Design of Adaptive Building Technologies through Life Cycle Assessment Tools

2019

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Adaptive Building Technologies have opened up a growing field of architectural research aimed at improving the overall building performance, ensuring comfort while reducing operational energy consumption. Focusing on flexibility over short timeframes, these new technologies are however rarely designed within the broader frame of sustainability over their entire lifecycle. How sustainable these zero energy technologies really are is yet to be established. The purpose of the research is to develop a flexible easy-to-use Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool to support creative innovation and sustainable design choices in the early concept and design stages of Adaptive Building Technologies. This paper reports on the results of the first step of the research, providing a mapping in terms of structure and contents of the parameters involved in the design of these technologies. Addressed from a holistic point of view, the elements of the system were defined though a qualitative approach: relevant parameters were collected through document analysis, reviewing the state-of-the-art technology through online databases as ScienceDirect, Scopus, MDPI, ResearchGate, and organized according to hierarchy and relevance in the different life cycle stages. As a result, the paper identifies (1) relevant parameters defining the design of Adaptive Building Technologies; (2) materials, processes and concepts specific to the design of these technologies, as compared to conventional building technologies; (3) issues and knowledge gaps to enable successive research phases; (4) specific actions in each life cycle stage for designers and producers to optimize the design of the technology. The mapping graphically and hierarchically organizes the elements of the system within a flexible structure to be implemented and integrated over time, as the technology evolves, to support parametric design and enable alternative design concepts to arise within a cradle-to-cradle perspective.

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Section: Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gapmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Background Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Review and Mapping of Parameters for the Early Stage Design of Adaptive Building Technologies through Life Cycle Assessment Tools

2019

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“…It showed that these future scenarios have a major impact on LCA results. Schlanbusch et al [27] studied LCA's challenges and needs from a Nordic perspective. Wijnants et al [28] studied life cycle environmental impacts for open renovation systems for single-family houses and Oviir [29] studied the LCA impact on the Estonian building standard.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life Cycle Assessment of Building Renovation Measures–Trade-off between Building Materials and Energy

2019

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The scope of this study is to assess how different energy efficient renovation strategies affect the environmental impacts of a multi-family house in a Nordic climate within district heating systems. The European Union has set ambitious targets to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030. There is special attention on reducing the life cycle emissions in the buildings sector. However, the focus has often been on new buildings, although existing buildings represent great potential within the building stock in Europe. In this study, four different renovation scenarios were analyzed with the commercially available life cycle assessment software that follows the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) standard. This study covers all life cycle steps from the cradle to the grave for a residential building in Borlänge, Sweden, where renewable energy dominates. The four scenarios included reduced indoor temperature, improved thermal properties of building material components and heat recovery for the ventilation system. One finding is that changing installations gives an environmental impact comparable to renovations that include both ventilation and building facilities. In addition, the life cycle steps that have the greatest environmental impact in all scenarios are the operational energy use and the building and installation processes. Renovation measures had a major impact on energy use due to the cold climate and low solar irradiation in the heating season. An interesting aspect, however, is that the building materials and the construction processes gave a significant amount of environmental impact.

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“…A large change late in the process will be more expensive to implement than a similar change during the design stage. However, calculating the environmental impact is more difficult earlier in the process, due to uncertainty and a nearly limitless number of design options, and also due to a lack of tools for early design stages [10]. Thus, on one hand, there is a high potential to reduce costs and environmental impact in the design stage.…”

Section: Background: Reducing the Carbon Footprint Of Buildings And Nmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Zero Emission Buildings (ZEB) to Zero Emission Neighbourhoods (ZEN): A Mapping Review of Algorithm-Based LCA

2018

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Abstract:The building industry is responsible for approximately 40% of energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union (EU). The most efficient way of reducing a building's environmental impact is addressing it in the design stage. Here, design freedom is the greatest, but uncertainty is high and there is a nearly limitless number of design options. Based on experiences with zero emission buildings (ZEB) and zero emission neighbourhoods (ZEN), a mapping review has been conducted to analyse how parametric life cycle assessment (LCA) and algorithms have been used to address neighbourhoods, buildings, and construction materials. Results have identified a general gap of knowledge regarding the use of parametric LCA models for decision-support purposes, demonstrated by the substantial focus on analytical methods compared to procedural methods. Implications for the evolution from ZEB to ZEN are twofold: (i) an integrated approach with multiple tools and methods is required, and (ii) further development of algorithms in the tool are needed to address complexity, sensitivity, and uncertainty. This study is expected to foster the development of algorithmic approaches to improve the ZEB tool as a decision-support tool. Further research should address the key questions of when and how.

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Experiences with LCA in the Nordic Building Industry – Challenges, Needs and Solutions

Cited by 45 publications

References 8 publications

Review and Mapping of Parameters for the Early Stage Design of Adaptive Building Technologies through Life Cycle Assessment Tools

Review and Mapping of Parameters for the Early Stage Design of Adaptive Building Technologies through Life Cycle Assessment Tools

Life Cycle Assessment of Building Renovation Measures–Trade-off between Building Materials and Energy

From Zero Emission Buildings (ZEB) to Zero Emission Neighbourhoods (ZEN): A Mapping Review of Algorithm-Based LCA

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