Policy trends for the sustainability assessment of construction materials: A review

A Development and Management Model for “Smart” Temporary Residences

“…In this respect, the European Commission (EC) has identified the life-cycle assessment (LCA) as the most suitable methodology that is currently available to evaluate the potential environmental impacts and the performance of construction products and buildings (Kylili and Fokaides 2017).…”

Strategies to Improve the Energy Performance of Buildings: A Review of Their Life Cycle Impact

“…The important contribution of the construction to the global energy consumption and GHG emissions stimulates the demand and development of a considerable amount of research and policies aiming at reducing buildings life cycle impacts. At the European level, the significant role of the construction sector is evident in the number of policies related to construction materials and building products within the European Strategy, including regulations, directives and initiatives [4]. On 19 June 2018, amending the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive was published [5].…”

“…305/2011, aim at: (i) establishing harmonized technical specifications on the assessment of the performance of construction products and on the use of CE marking on these; (ii) simplifying procedures for the drawing up of declarations of performance; and (iii) strengthening the criteria for verification. Directives have the objective to set buildings' requirements, both in terms of energy efficiency and performances [6,7], and of construction materials and products [4,8]. Ad hoc initiatives conclude the set of regulatory strategies targeting the building sector and they include policies regarding resource efficiency, competitiveness, circular economy as overall political, industrial and economic goals, e.g., as proposed in the LEVEL(S) framework [4,9] Consequently, there has been great focus on reducing the operational energy of buildings, which led to increasingly accurate calculation approaches and highly energy efficient building envelopes and systems [10].…”

“…Directives have the objective to set buildings' requirements, both in terms of energy efficiency and performances [6,7], and of construction materials and products [4,8]. Ad hoc initiatives conclude the set of regulatory strategies targeting the building sector and they include policies regarding resource efficiency, competitiveness, circular economy as overall political, industrial and economic goals, e.g., as proposed in the LEVEL(S) framework [4,9] Consequently, there has been great focus on reducing the operational energy of buildings, which led to increasingly accurate calculation approaches and highly energy efficient building envelopes and systems [10]. The evaluation of energy consumption and related GHG emissions resulting from the use of buildings is becoming more accurate and being applied in the design of more energy efficient building envelopes, systems and regulations.…”

“…Looking at the full building life-cycle and evaluating an exhaustive, but reasonable and targeted set of impact categories provides a complete and efficacious support to enhance scientific knowledge and policy making. In this regard, the European Commission (EC) established Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as the currently most appropriate available methodology for evaluating the performance of construction products and buildings in its policies and legislation [4], e.g., implementing the Product Environmental Footprint method (PEF) [15]. Additionally, the EC recently commissioned a study to test the applicability of the LCA-based PEF method on the building level [16].…”