Environmental Impacts over the Life Cycle of Residential Buildings Using Different Exterior Wall Systems

Life cycle assessment and life cycle cost implications for roofing and floor designs in residential buildings

“…These studies gave an average ratio of construction to operation phase GHG emissions 1:5.5 to 1:22.5. Three other studies [10,29,30] also found similar outcomes, estimated that the operation phase accounts for around 94, 93 and 91% respectively of the total energy consumption throughout its design life (i.e. 50 years).…”

“…construction, operation, maintenance, and disposal) or part of life cycle. For example, two recent North American studies [9,10] reported LCA only for residential buildings by varying wall materials and assemblages. Two Australian studies [11,12] evaluated the LCC and LCEI considering operational phase only (e.g.…”

“…heating and cooling energy). Some studies [9,10,[13][14][15][16][17][18][19] on buildings focused on LCA only without evaluating LCC, while other studies [20][21][22] considered LCC without evaluating LCA. Relatively fewer studies [23][24][25][26] integrated both LCA and LCC in their analysis.…”

Expanding the use of life-cycle assessment to capture induced impacts in the built environment

“…Research also covers tiered hybrid LCI [107] and hybrid LCI models [65]. Process-based LCA, economic input-output LCA, and hybrid LCA are all used to determine energy use [21,27,51,58,59,[61][62][63]70]. In order to determine the amount of energy demand during the operational phase of a building, energy modeling is utilized prior to LCA analysis [68].…”

Integrated Life Cycle Energy and Greenhouse Gas Analysis of Exterior Wall Systems for Residential Buildings

“…The comparison of CML and EI'99 normalized results illustrates that the most significant categories for EI'99 are fossil fuels and respiratory inorganics, whereas marine ecotoxicity and abiotic depletion are the largest share of environmental categories for CML 2001. Kahhat et al [15] executed LCA over a single-story residential building in the United States with different exterior wall systems considering multiple environmental indicators: air pollution index, energy consumption, GWP, resource use (e.g., water, oil, etc. ), solid waste emissions and a water pollution index within a 50-year lifespan.…”