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Life Cycle Assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool used to quantify the environmental impacts of a product or system throughout its life cycle, from material extraction and production to use and end-of-life. An LCA inventory accounts for all energy and material inputs and environmental outputs, and assesses the associated environmental impacts. The results are presented in an environmental product declaration (EPD) that follows an ISO standard format to communicate key impacts. Conducting an LCA involves defining the goal and scope, completing an inventory analysis, conducting a life cycle impact assessment, and interpreting the results.

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42 views

Life Cycle Assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool used to quantify the environmental impacts of a product or system throughout its life cycle, from material extraction and production to use and end-of-life. An LCA inventory accounts for all energy and material inputs and environmental outputs, and assesses the associated environmental impacts. The results are presented in an environmental product declaration (EPD) that follows an ISO standard format to communicate key impacts. Conducting an LCA involves defining the goal and scope, completing an inventory analysis, conducting a life cycle impact assessment, and interpreting the results.

Uploaded by

Shamsiya Khalid
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Life Cycle Assessment

A building uses energy throughout its life i.e.


from its construction to its demolition.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool used for


the quantitative assessment of a material used,
energy flows and environmental impacts of
products. It is used to assess systematically the
impact of each material and process.

What is life cycle assessment in construction?


• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method for evaluating the environmental
load of processes and products during their life cycle.
• An LCA attempts to identify the environmental effects during all stages of
its life and produces a figure (or several figures) that represent the total
environmental load.
• In a full LCA, the energy and materials used, along with waste and
pollutants produced as a consequence of a product or activity are
quantified.
The results of the LCA are presented in an environmental product declaration (EPD).

ENVIRONMENTAL PRODUCT DECLARATION (EPD)


•An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a comprehensive report that includes
an LCA developed to provide specific environmental information on a product in a
common format.

•A properly-developed EPD follows an ISO standard to report information over the entire
product life cycle with quantitative measures of key environmental impacts.

•An EPD follows a specific format described in an ISO-compliant Product Category Rule
(PCR) and verified by the PCR program operator, listing all of the impacts of a product
on the environment.

•EPDs provide information about products from cradle to grave (or cradle) such that
designers, specifiers, buyers, code officials and the general public can better understand
a product’s specific, as well as overall, environmental impact.

•EPDs make the environmental benefits of energy efficiency and other important aspects
of a given product clearer. An EPD is not a claim of environmental superiority for a specific
product
How is an LCA created?
The ISO 14040 standard provides an introduction to LCA and contains
applicable definitions and background information. The ISO 14044 describes
the process of conducting an LCA. The detailed procedure for LCA, outlined in
Chapter 2, is in accordance with the standards ISO 14040 and ISO 14044.

Conducting Life Cycle Assessments


Step 1: LCA goal & scope definition
The goal & scope definition ensures the LCA is performed consistently.
An LCA models a product, service, or system life cycle. What is important to realize is
that a model is a simplification of a complex reality and as with all simplifications this
means that the reality will be distorted in some way.

The challenge for an LCA practitioner is to develop the model in such a way that the
simplifications and distortions do not influence the results too much. The best way to
deal with this problem is to carefully define the goal and scope of the LCA study.

In the goal and scope the most important (often subjective) choices are described, such
as the reason for executing the LCA, a precise definition of the product and its life
cycle, and a description of the system boundaries.

Step 2: Inventory analysis of extractions and emissions


• energy inputs
• raw material inputs
In the inventory analysis, you look at all the • ancillary inputs
environmental inputs and outputs associated with a • other physical inputs
• products
product or service, such as the use of raw materials • co-products
and energy, the emission of pollutants and the waste • wastes
• emissions to air, water and soil
streams. This is where you get the complete picture. • other environmental aspects
Step 3: Impact assessment (LCIA)

In the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), you draw the conclusions that allow you to
make better business decisions. You classify the environmental impacts, evaluate them
by what is most important to your company, and translate them into environmental
themes such as global warming or human health.
The most important choice you have to make is the desired level of integration of the
results. This usually depends on how you would like to address your audience and the
ability of your audience to understand detailed results.

Step 4: Interpretation

During the interpretation phase, you check that your Applications


conclusions are well-substantiated. The ISO 14044 standard • Product R&D and
describes a number of checks to test whether conclusions improvement
are adequately supported by the data and by the • Strategic planning
procedures used. • Product Stewardship
• Public Policy
This way, you can share your results and • Marketing &
improvement decisions with the world without communication
any surprises.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Methods

• Process-based analysis;

• Input-Output (I-O) analysis;

• Hybrid analysis
Process-based analysis
•The process-based analysis is a methodology that documents all the processes
related to the life cycle of a product, accounting for all the inputs and outputs of each
process.
•It is no more than the sum of all the environmental impacts of products and
processes required to create a building (Moncaster & Song, 2012).

Different types of process-based


analysis
• Cradle-to-Gate: assesses the product life cycles from the extraction
to the factory gate (transportation). This analysis comprises all the
production processes - mining, raw materials extraction, processing
and manufacturing.
•The cradle to site or end of construction covers, in addition to the
cradle to gate boundary, transportation of finished product to the
construction site, on-site construction and assembly processes,
wastage disposal, etc. (Hammond and Jones, 2008).

• Cradle-to-Grave: assesses the entire life cycle of a product or process


(extraction, use and disposal);
• Cradle-to-Cradle: consist in a specific cradle-to-cradle assessment.
The disposal of the product consists in a recycling process.
Input-Output (I-O) analysis

•The I-O analysis estimates the materials, energy use and the emissions related to the
economic sector.
•This methodology considers all the inputs and outputs from the economic sector (all
the industrial sectors), which allows this model to calculate impact of products or
processes that would be omitted by other LCA processes.

Hybrid analysis

•The hybrid method was developed in order to overcome some problems present in
the first two methodologies. The hybrid methodology combines a process-based
analysis with I-O analysis. The elements of I-O analysis are replaced by more precise
data than that of the process-based analysis
Life Cycle Energy (LCE) Requirements

Embodied Energy (EE)


•Embodied energy is defined as the energy required for building’s material
production, across the supply chain, and for building construction.
•In other words, it is the energy present in the building materials as well as the
energy required to construct and to maintain buildings.
•Embodied energy can be divided in two: Initial embodied energy &Recurring
embodied energy

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