Comparative life cycle assessment and life cycle costing of lodging in the Himalaya

Abstract

The main aim of the study is to assess the environmental and economic impacts of the lodging sector located in the Himalayan region of Nepal, from a life cycle perspective. The assessment should support decision making in technology and material selection for minimal environmental and economic burden in future construction projects.\ud The study consists of the life cycle assessment and life cycle costing of lodging in three building types: traditional, semi-modern and modern. The life cycle stages under analysis include raw material acquisition, manufacturing, construction, use, maintenance and material replacement. The study includes a sensitivity analysis focusing on the lifespan of buildings, occupancy rate and discount and inflation rates. The functional unit was formulated as the ‘Lodging of one additional guest per night’, and the time horizon is 50 years of building lifespan. Both primary and secondary data were used in the life cycle inventory.\ud The modern building has the highest global warming potential (kg CO2-eq) as well as higher costs over 50 years of building lifespan. The results show that the use stage is responsible for the largest share of environmental impacts and costs, which are related to energy use for different household activities. The use of commercial materials in the modern building, which have to be transported mostly from the capital in the buildings, makes the higher GWP in the construction and replacement stages. Furthermore, a breakdown of the building components shows that the roof and wall of the building are the largest contributors to the production-related environmental impact. \ud The findings suggest that the main improvement opportunities in the lodging sector lie in the reduction of impacts on the use stage and in the choice of materials for wall and roof

Sustainability performance of hotel buildings in the Himalayan region

“…2.1. Study design, study area and typical building types Bhochhibhoya et al (2016) compared the life cycle environmental impacts and costs of three buildings in Sagarmatha National Park and Buffer Zone (SNPBZ): a traditional building, a semimodern one, and a modern one. However, the comparison was limited to three buildings and did not allow drawing generalizable conclusions.…”

“…To give a more comprehensive picture on the environmental and economic aspects of the life cycle of Himalayan buildings, this study considers a larger sample of lodges of a different type located in all three Village Development Committees (VDC) of the Park. The same LCA modeling as in Bhochhibhoya et al, (2016Bhochhibhoya et al, ( , 2017 was applied to assess the environmental footprint and costs of all the buildings. In addition, new parameters such as heat loss rate, number of guests, and area of the lodges were measured that are then analyzed and documented in this study.…”

“…This means considering the entire life cycle of buildings and evaluating the impacts associated with the extraction, manufacturing and transportation of their construction materials, as well as the impacts of building construction, operation, maintenance and end of life stages (Ghose et al, 2017;Ortiz et al, 2009;Passer et al, 2012;Pittet et al, 2012). In this regard, tools such as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) are particularly fit for purpose (Bhochhibhoya et al, 2016(Bhochhibhoya et al, , 2017Braganca Luis, 2012;Moschetti et al, 2015). These tools can support decision-making on environmentally friendly building technologies and materials and can help to minimize the environmental impact and reduce the capital cost of buildings, ultimately making them more sustainable (Gustavsson, 2006;Passer et al, 2012;Petersen and Solberg, 2005;Zabalza Bribi an et al, 2011).…”

Houses Based on Wood as an Ecological and Sustainable Housing Alternative—Case Study

“…Based on their research, these authors also point out that the use of wood in construction contributes to a significant reduction in CO 2 production and a reduction in the use of fossil fuels needed to produce building materials and structural elements. Bhochhibhoya et al [71] conducted a study similar to ours, the environmental and economic characteristics of the comparative variants of building construction systems. The above-mentioned authors have found that the use of local building materials whose production is not energy-intensive is far more environmentally beneficial than materials whose production pollutes environmentally and draws a lot of resources.…”

Preface

“…The application of consequential LCA, which is relatively new to emerging economies, has been attempted in analyzing policy decisions showing the coming-of-age of LCA in these countries (Prapaspongsa and Gheewala 2017;Prateep Na Talang et al 2017). The combination of life cycle -based environmental and economic tools is a first step towards life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA); studies have been done using tools such as LCA, LCC, and economically extended material flow analysis (Bhochhibhoya et al 2017;Khonpikul et al 2017). Finally, a full LCSA has also been attempted considering LCA, LCC, and SLCA (van Kempen et al 2017).…”