Study in a Governmental Organization on Application of LCA to Infrastructure Development

Abstract

Objective. In this paper, we give an overview about a new LCA method for infrastructure development. The objective of the method is to introduce the idea of LCA to decision-making systems of infrastructure development. By applying LCA in each decision-making procedure, environmental loads are thought to be reduced efficiently and wholly. Results and Discussion. The method and the inventory database have the following characteristics: (1) covering all the related activities, (2) based on material quantities, (3) having clear evidence, (4) categorizing emission coefficients from perspective of those concerned with infrastructure development, (5) able to reflect site oriented data, and (6) updated annually. Several estimations of CO 2 emissions for construction technologies showed that the developed method calculates almost all of the CO 2 emissions using the appropriate emissions coefficients. Applying the developed method, we find significant and efficient way to reduce environment loads. Conclusions. The developed method has good applicability except the following cases: (1) taking into account the environmental loads in using phase of infrastructure, (2) reflecting site conditions unexpected at decisionmaking moment. We must take care with emissions factors of steel and cement. The emissions factor of steel can change if we adopt "multi-step-recycling-scenario". The CO 2 emissions of cement can change if we consider the effect of CO 2 uptake by cement hydrate.