Comparative life cycle assessment of passive and traditional residential buildings’ use with a special focus on energy-related aspects

Lewandowska, Anna; Noskowiak, A.; Pajchrowski, G.

doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2013.09.002

Cited by 31 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…According to Houlihan et al [43], Iddon et al [39], Rossi et al [38], Rosselló-Batle et al [60], if the assessment is focused on comparing embodied and operational impacts, life-cycle stages definition is centered on product stages and energy consumption during use module. In other cases [3,[31][32][33]35,36,40,41,44,45,62,61,105], if the assessment is focused on environmental impact during the life-cycle; product, construction, use and demolition are mostly included, while loads and benefits are hardly considered. It is also detected in Gervasio et al [42] that early stages of design assessments are focused on products, construction, use -partially-, and demolition stages.…”

Section: Life Cycle Stages and Scenario Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Simplification in life cycle assessment of single-family houses: A review of recent developments

Soust-Verdaguer

Llatas

García-Martínez

2016

Building and Environment

128

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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is globally recognized as one of the most complete methods for environmental assessment of buildings. Literature assumes that its applications in the building sector are prejudiced regarding complexity and difficulty. However, simplification is necessary, since it can facilitate LCA application in buildings. Moreover, growing interest on reducing environmental impact in the building sector, as well as the relevance of single-family houses on CO2 emissions have become key points on the wide spread of LCA.Therefore, this paper presents a research study about simplification in LCA recent studies applied to singlefamily houses. The review focuses on 20 cases that were analyzed according to ISO 14040, ISO 14044, EN 15978, and EN 15804 standards. The main objective was to identify the simplification strategies assumed in each paper, to clarify and to help to promote further developments on LCA. This paper examines system boundary definition, data sources, life cycle phases included, and environmental impact indicator calculated in case studies. Results show the variety of simplifications identified. They affect physical model definition, life cycle scenario definition and communication of results. In most cases, the functional unit was the complete building, the life cycle scenario definition included production, use and demolition phases, and the most considered environmental impact indicator was GWP. Finally, new challenges and recommendations were defined in order to establish common criteria to develop simplification strategies that allow results comparability in LCA of single-family houses.

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Section: Life Cycle Stages and Scenario Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the Building process major uncertainties were identified, because of the need to define processes adapted to case studies. [35,36,43]. Ecoinvent databases represents one of the most complete and widely used databases as other authors indicated [47,48].…”

Section: Life Cycle Inventory (Lci) Phasementioning

confidence: 99%

Simplification in life cycle assessment of single-family houses: A review of recent developments

Soust-Verdaguer

Llatas

García-Martínez

2016

Building and Environment

128

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“…This highlights the fact that construction materials with suitable life cycle and functionality help to lower the long-term impact of the RB on the environment by efficient energy savings, contrary to using materials with a short life cycle. The result corresponds with results of the above mentioned studies [3,14,31]. A simple change to several construction materials can cause a reduction in the environmental impact of buildings [32,33].…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 54%

“…Similarly, Chau et al [13] state that selection of materials for recycling or reuse in a building and the optimum number of reuses of a particular material considerably influence the impact of buildings on the environment within life cycle assessment. The studies of Pajchrowski et al [3] and Lewandowska et al [14], comparing houses made from bricks and wood, confirm that the main source of negative impact on the environment, in the long-term usage phase, is represented by the energy consumption in the residential building (RB) life cycle. According to Sartori and Hestnes [10], the energy demand in buildings during their life cycle are direct (construction, operation, reconstruction, and demolition) and indirect (production of materials required for construction of a building).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Quantification of Improvement in Environmental Quality for Old Residential Buildings Using Life Cycle Assessment

et al. 2016

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Abstract:In Slovakia, 35% of buildings are older than 50 years but most newer buildings built before 1990 have greater energy consumption. Some other countries also have similar problems. The growing importance of energy saving in buildings can be, in the case of new and old residential buildings (RB), achieved by lowering thermal energy consumption most often by application of polystyrene insulation on the external walls and roof and the exchange of wood window frames for PVC (polyvinyl chloride) windows. The novelty of the article for Slovakia and some other central European countries consists in using the life cycle assessment (LCA) method for the objective assessment of the environmental benefits of the selected systems of wall insulation, as well as of energy savings in various time intervals of insulation functionality (up to 20 years). LCA software SimaPro (LE Amersfoort, The Netherlands) was used with ReCiPe and IMPACT 2002+ assessment methods to quantify the total environmental impact at selected endpoints and midpoints (IMPACT 2002+) of basic structural materials of an RB and its energy demand-heat consumption (hot water heating, central heating) before the application of insulation and thermal energy saving (TES) after application of insulation to its external walls, roof, and the exchange of windows. The data we obtained confirmed that the environmental impact of the polystyrene insulation of external walls, roof, and exchange of windows of one residential building (RB) in the first year after insulation is higher than the reduction caused by achieving a TES of 39%. When taking a lifespan of 20 years into consideration, the impact over the life cycle of the building materials is reduced by 25% (global warming: −4792 kg CO 2 eq; production of carcinogens: −2479 kg C 2 H 3 Cl eq; acidification: −12,045 kg SO 2 eq; and aquatic eutrophication: −257 kg PO 4 P-lim). The verified LCA methodology will be used for comparative analysis of different variants of thermal insulation of buildings, and their functionality in the long term, while taking into account local specifics and the preparation of environmental product declarations.

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“…However, a static GWP intensity of a MJ of electricity was assumed in this study. The impact of a national electricity mix on a buildings environmental life cycle impact has been highlighted [24,28] and its future decarbonisation [69]. Thus, as the national electricity grid becomes further decarbonised over the coming years, the impact on the proportion of EC in the lifecycle GWP emissions of the buildings will increase and the impact of renewables on OC savings will decrease [45].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lifecycle environmental and economic performance of nearly zero energy buildings (NZEB) in Ireland

Goggins

Moran

Armstrong

et al. 2016

Energy and Buildings

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Comparative life cycle assessment of passive and traditional residential buildings’ use with a special focus on energy-related aspects

Cited by 31 publications

References 12 publications

Simplification in life cycle assessment of single-family houses: A review of recent developments

Simplification in life cycle assessment of single-family houses: A review of recent developments

Quantification of Improvement in Environmental Quality for Old Residential Buildings Using Life Cycle Assessment

Lifecycle environmental and economic performance of nearly zero energy buildings (NZEB) in Ireland

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