Comparison of Material-Technical Solution of Masonry Family House by Two Different Calculating LCA Approaches

Abstract

Building materials and constructions pose a serious impact on the environment. Applying assessment tools such as life cycle assessment (LCA), it is possible to determine the environmental characteristics of materials, specific constructions or whole buildings. Today, however, there is a large amount of software that is freely available or bound by a license agreement. This paper is aimed at on comparison of the two different LCA software to evaluate the impacts of the selected construction: freely available software and software fixed by a license agreement. The comparison within the mandatory boundaries from cradle-to–gate includes the main environmental impacts such as climate changes, acidification, and embodied energy. The findings revealed that the results for the environmental parameters of constructions differ significantly regarding some structures, even though the input database was the same.