Making sense of LCA results when evaluating multiple building designs – comparison of interpretation concepts

Božiček, David; Almezeraani, Youssef; Košir, Mitja

doi:10.1080/09613218.2023.2236254

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…Such benchmarks support the development of targets and mandatory threshold values that buildings should comply with in the long and short term, respectively [11]. Additionally, benchmarks help building stakeholders understand the environmental performance of a building in a broader context [12,13]. Hence, accurate definition of building environmental benchmarks is crucial to support building impact reduction strategies.…”

Section: Introduction 1building Environmental Impact Assessment and B...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle environmental benchmarks for Flemish dwellings

Mouton,

Ramon,

Trigaux

et al. 2024

Environ. Res.: Infrastruct. Sustain.

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To reduce the environmental effects caused by buildings, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly applied. Recently, national building regulations have implemented LCA requirements to support building life cycle impact reduction. A key element in these regulations are environmental benchmarks which allow designers to compare their buildings with reference values. This study develops bottom-up life cycle environmental benchmarks that represent conventional construction in Flanders, Belgium. The study investigates the potential of using a database of building energy performance calculations. Specifically, this study considers 39 residential buildings identified as representative of the Flemish Energy Performance of Buildings (EPB) database of 2015-2016, applying modifications to establish scenarios that are still relevant in 2025. The buildings are assessed with the Belgian LCA tool TOTEM to calculate an aggregated score based on the European Product Environmental footprint (PEF) weighting approach and including 12 main impact categories. In addition to the aggregated score, the Climate Change (CC) indicator is analysed individually.In view of the benchmarks, variations were applied to the 39 buildings in terms of heating system and materialisation. The variation in heating system included changing gas boilers to electric heat pumps to comply with upcoming (2025) Flemish building regulations. The variations in materials included three sets of conventional Flemish building element compositions that were applied to generate a wider spread of impact results as a basis for benchmarks. Benchmark values were derived through a statistical analysis of the 117 variants: a best-practice value (10th percentile), reference value (median) and limit value (90th percentile). For the environmental score, the benchmark values are 86, 107 and 141 millipoints per square meter of gross heated floor area (mPt/m²GHFA), respectively; for CC, the benchmark values are 844, 1015 and 1284 kg CO2-eq/m²GHFA. Finally, the study discusses the representativeness, implications and limitations of the final benchmarks and benchmark approach.

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Section: Introduction 1building Environmental Impact Assessment and B...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Life cycle environmental benchmarks for Flemish dwellings

Mouton,

Ramon,

Trigaux

et al. 2024

Environ. Res.: Infrastruct. Sustain.

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“…However, evaluating and comparing the environmental performance of a building solution can be challenging. The reason is that buildings are complex systems, and various design options are possible [18]. Determining the LCA study scope and its functional unit can significantly influence the LCA results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating novel building products through a building design-oriented LCA approach: Example of VIPs in terrace applications

Božiček,

Košir,

Zach

et al. 2024

IOP Conf. Ser.: Earth Environ. Sci.

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INTRODUCTION: The construction industry is considered conservative in adopting new products/technologies, and environmental characteristics are one of the most important features of novel solutions. In this context, our study aims to present a building design-oriented assessment of a novel building product by extending the functional unit scope and involving multiple realistic building design scenarios. The task will be performed using the example of vacuum insulation panels (VIPs), a superinsulation product that can be used in various building applications. The study will focus on terrace insulation applications, where VIPs are an attractive solution for building designers due to the possibility of barrier-free floor design. However, they lack environmental evaluation. METHOD: A life cycle assessment (LCA) analysis is performed on two hypothetical buildings located in Ljubljana (Slovenia) for the cradle-to-gate and operational energy life cycle stages (A1-A3 + B6 according to EN 15978). A whole-year dynamic thermal response simulation was executed using the Design Builder software. Five barrier-free terrace design scenarios that influence the embodied and operational carbon footprint (while maintaining the functional and architectural integrity of the building design) were examined. RESULTS: The study showed that although EPS insulation showed a smaller embodied carbon footprint on the product level, the building level analysis showed that using VIPs in terrace applications leads to favourable or comparable environmental impact. CONCLUSIONS: Building products can be evaluated on three functional unit levels: product, application and building. By extending the boundaries from the product/application level to the entire building level, the study provides an example of a building design-oriented approach to LCA. The complexity increases by upgrading the functional unit scope to the building level, while the results become more case-specific and less general. Ideally, a novel building product should show environmental superiority on all three levels. However, as there are almost countless design possibilities in buildings, environmental superiority (or inferiority) on the product level does not necessarily indicate superiority (or inferiority) on the building level.

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