Using Life Cycle Assessment to Inform Decision-Making for Sustainable Buildings

Abstract

Because the student residences of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel built in 1973 are not adapted to current comfort standards, the university decided to construct new accommodation facilities at the border of the campus. However, besides demolition, there was no strategy on how to deal with the existing ones. In the search for a more sustainable strategy, the university's administration assigned the TRANSFORM research team to define various design strategies and to assess the long-term environmental consequences in order to select the best strategy by the use of Life Cycle Environmental Assessment. Current Life Cycle Environmental Assessments generally include maintenance, repair, replacement and operational energy consumption during use, but do not include future refurbishments. However, it is likely that their impact cannot be neglected either. Therefore, this article offers a framework which takes future refurbishments into account, in addition to the standard use impacts: initial and end-of-life impact. We report on the construction assemblies, the results of the assessments conducted and the advice provided. The results confirm that the impact of future refurbishments cannot be neglected. In addition, we observed that there were significant environmental savings when transforming the residences compared to new construction, and long-term benefits of a design enabling the reuse of building elements.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Different Kinds of Concrete Containing Waste for Sustainable Construction

“…As discussed by several authors and in detail by [3] the main component of concrete is cement, which releases significant quantities of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) into the atmosphere [4]. In other words, the production of concrete has a notable impact on the environment, and environmental problems are known to be quite serious in the construction industry [5][6][7][8]). …”

Expandable Houses: An Explorative Life Cycle Cost Analysis

“…DfC is a design and construction strategy based on the principle that the requirements and aspirations of society and users on our built environment will always change [15]. These changing requirements are, among others, changing standards, family composition, changing patterns of life and an evolving work environment [16]. The aim is to make a building easily adaptable during its lifetime and, in this study, to design dwellings to become life-cycle houses that truly support changes.…”

“…According to Kirchherr et al [17], who identified 114 different CE definitions, a circular economy can be defined as "an economic system that is based on business models which replace the 'endof-life' concept with reducing, alternatively reusing, recycling and recovering materials [...] with the aim to accomplish sustainable development [...]." In this regard, previous studies have shown that applying a design that anticipates the whole life cycle of a building has the potential to decrease its environmental impact [16] because integrating adaptability promotes less material consumption and less demolition waste [18], as buildings are reconfigured instead of demolished and rebuilt. Moreover, a house that is initially designed to adapt to changing lifestyles is expected to have lower adaptation costs [19].…”

Transition Towards a Net Zero Carbon Built Environment

“…For the fifth phase of the assignment, the assessment, the design guidelines for 'design for change' on the element level developed by the Flemish agency for waste management (OVAM) based on Vandenbroucke [7] were used. Nine criteria are differentiated in three aspects: interface, which focuses on the interaction between components, holds the criteria 'reversibility', 'simplicity', and 'speed'; components, which focuses on the features of the parts, holds the criteria 'compatibility', 'durability', and 'manageability'; and composition, which focuses on the whole, holds the criteria 'independence', 'pace-layering', and 'prefabrication'.…”