Using life cycle assessment to derive an environmental index for light-frame wood wall assemblies

Frenette, Caroline D.; Bulle, Cécile; Beauregard, Robert; Salenikovich, Alexander; Derome, Dominique

doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2010.03.009

Cited by 55 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Actually comparisons of concrete-based and wood framework buildings, with similar insulation levels, show that wood-based buildings lead to lower embedded energy and CO 2 emission than concrete ones [11] [16][17] [20]. Similar conclusions are obtained comparing wood products with usual building materials such as brick, glass fibre insulation and extruded polystyrene in [21]. Furthermore, carbon sequestration during growth (photosynthesis) is allocated as negative emission.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Life cycle assessment of a hemp concrete wall: Impact of thickness and coating

Prétot¹,

Collet²,

Garnier³

2014

Building and Environment

170

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In a context of sustainable development and energy sparing, a life cycle assessment (LCA) may be useful to make good choices. Thus, this study concerns the LCA of an environmentally friendly material used for building construction, hemp concrete. The functional unit is first defined per square such that the wall may provide the function of bearing wall meter and its thermal performance is described by a thermal resistance of 2.78 m².K/W. The results then showed that the production phase of raw materials is mainly responsible for the environmental impact of the wall, mostly due to the binder production. It was also shown that, compared to traditional construction materials, hemp concrete has a low impact on environment. Moreover, hemp concrete contributes to reduce climate change as photosynthesis-mediated carbon sequestration and carbonation serve to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. A sensitivity analysis is performed on three criteria: wall thickness, renewal of coatings and compounds of the indoor coating.Our results show that environmental indicators evolve with wall thickness, except for the climate change indicator. It improves with thickness due to carbon sequestration and carbonation. Moreover the increase in the wall's thermal resistance with wall thickness is not taken into account in such an LCA performed at the material level. The renewal of coating slightly impacts the environmental indicator for small numbers of renewals but it leads to negative effects if they are too numerous. It appears that hemp-lime coating has a greater impact than sand-lime coating as it embeds more binder.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Life cycle assessment of a hemp concrete wall: Impact of thickness and coating

Prétot¹,

Collet²,

Garnier³

2014

Building and Environment

170

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“…Only a small number of LCA studies of dwellings have addressed a wider range of environmental impacts. Some of those studies [4][5][6][7][8][9][10] compared alternative building scenarios and are reviewed below. Peuportier et al [6] performed an LCA for three different houses in France ((i) a conventional house with concrete blocks; (ii) a house with a solar heating system; and (iii) a high-insulated wood house).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ortiz et al [7] concluded that the LCA results can support the selection of the constructive combinations with the lowest impacts. Frenette et al [10] compared five factory-built wood-frame exterior walls for a house in Quebec (Canada) concerning energy and three LCIA methods: TRACI; Impact 2002; and EI'99. Midpoint results were calculated for the mentioned methods and endpoint results were presented for Impact 2002 and EI'99.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Midpoint results were calculated for the mentioned methods and endpoint results were presented for Impact 2002 and EI'99. The goal of Frenette et al [10] was to support the selection of an appropriate environmental index to be included in a multi-criteria decision analysis evaluation. The results showed that wood framing had a small contribution to total embodied impacts.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A small number of recent LCA have studied multiple environmental impacts, often using differing life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods with non-comparable or contradictory conclusions [4][5][6][7][8][9][10]. For building LCA practitioners it is not obvious which LCIA method to choose and neither whether the interpretation of results from different methods leads to coincident or contradictory conclusions [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Life-cycle assessment of a house with alternative exterior walls: Comparison of three impact assessment methods

Monteiro

Freire

2012

Energy and Buildings

208

103

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a b s t r a c tA life-cycle (LC) model has been implemented for a Portuguese single-family house. The first goal is to characterize the main LC processes (material production and transport, heating, cooling, maintenance) assessing seven alternative exterior walls for the same house to identify environmentally preferable solutions. The second goal is to compare the results of three life-cycle impact assessment (LCIA) methods -CED (cumulative energy demand), for primary energy accounting; CML 2001 (Institute of Environmental Sciences of Leiden University) and EI'99 (Eco-indicator'99), for multiple environmental impacts -to determine the extent to which the results of a life-cycle assessment are influenced by the method applied. The results show that the most significant LC process depends on the operational pattern assumed. Regarding the assessment of the exterior wall alternatives, the results indicate the wood-wall is the preferable solution. Non-renewable CED shows results similar to abiotic depletion (CML 2001) and resources (EI'99) categories, as well as some correlation with climate change/global warming potential (GWP), acidification and eutrophication. However, no correlation was found with the remaining impact categories. Comparing CML 2001 and EI'99 categories, GWP, ozone layer depletion, abiotic depletion, acidification, and eutrophication present robust results that permit a straightforward comparison between the two LCIA methods. Nevertheless, CML results present slightly higher impacts for the use phase, while EI'99 for material production. In addition, the two LCIA methods can present inconsistent results between similar categories (different ranking of alternatives), which ultimately can influence the choice among solutions.

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New residential construction building and composite post and beam structure toward global warming mitigation

Balasbaneh

Marsono²

2017

Env Prog and Sustain Energy

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The construction industry has become one of the major sources of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, low carbon buildings have been assigned for reduction of human impact on the environment. The aim of this research is to decrease the CO2 effect from the building sector by eventually proposing a new structure for Malaysian construction with regard to the needs of this industry. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been performed to analyze the CO2 emission for the Malaysian residential single family house. Seven different materials or structures have been assessed and the result shows that timber prefabricated post and beam is the best choice due to releasing less CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. However, timber has become almost forgotten as building material for house builders in Malaysia in the last four decades. The alternative building scheme has been made by reinforced steel plate into wooden beam and column and timber wall (S8) to improve the building structure deficiency and load bearing while releasing less CO2 emissions in comparison to other buildings. New structure has been designed by steel plate sandwiched between wood members and held together with bolts in beam and post toward decreasing the percentage of improper design and to improve accuracy in the execution of timber structure. Thus, new scheme (S8) could be advised to house maker and government as a new policy to promote the sustainability in construction sector. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 37: 1394–1402, 2018

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Using life cycle assessment to derive an environmental index for light-frame wood wall assemblies

Cited by 55 publications

References 18 publications

Life cycle assessment of a hemp concrete wall: Impact of thickness and coating

Life cycle assessment of a hemp concrete wall: Impact of thickness and coating

Life-cycle assessment of a house with alternative exterior walls: Comparison of three impact assessment methods

New residential construction building and composite post and beam structure toward global warming mitigation

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