Life Cycle Assessment as a Major Support Tool within Multi-Criteria Design Process of Single Dwellings Located in Poland

Abstract

Life cycle assessment is an environmental method which estimates either a process or a building material within the cradle-to-grave cycle. Presently, it is one of a few tools that include all factors which may influence the environment. The authors used this tool to prove effects connected with potential efficient energy levels and a reduction in CO2 emissions within a building’s life cycle. For the purpose of our analyses, several types of single-family building were chosen and they were subjected to analysis in the fixed location of Warsaw. The research scope included a numerical analysis of the buildings concerning the level of embodied energies and the emission of greenhouse gases. The performed analysis proved that, within a 50-year cycle, the difference between the embodied energy from the best and worst building choices can amount to 14.87%, whereas a reduction in embodied carbon emissions can reach 20.65%. Each change in the building’s form and the type of building materials used, regardless of the usable area, influence the environmental impact. Therefore, this paper concludes that LCA, as a management tool, should be used cyclically as part of each phase of the design process. A multi-criteria method for selecting architectural solutions was proposed which considered minimum cumulative primary energy, minimum cumulative carbon emission and minimum cost of constructing a building.

Artificial Intelligence and Digital Tools for Assisting Low-Carbon Architectural Design: Merging the Use of Machine Learning, Large Language Models, and Building Information Modeling for Life Cycle Assessment Tool Development

“…In the modern architectural design process, there is a growing list of various environmental analyses being performed [15]. Studies show that optimizing the building form at the conceptual stage can reduce a building's carbon footprint [16], even if LCA research is still incomplete due to various guidelines and their different interpretations [17].…”

Selected Aspects of Sustainable Construction—Contemporary Opportunities for the Use of Timber in High and High-Rise Buildings

“…A case study of the environmental impact of investment projects is characterised, among others, in [10,11]. Most attention has been paid to the energy efficiency of buildings relating to their use phases and over the entire life cycle of buildings [12][13][14], as well as the energy performance of buildings with different material and functional solutions [15,16]. The issues related to sustainable energy systems are presented in [17,18], and they concern the reduction of the "embedded carbon footprint" relating to the building materials of fitting components and the load-bearing structure of buildings, among others [19][20][21][22].…”