Life Cycle Environmental Impacts from Refurbishment Projects - A Case Study

Environmental life cycle assessments are becoming more commonly applied in the building sector, although the methodological framework for LCA on existing buildings is not as clear as for new constructions. This paper discusses some of the temporal and allocation perspectives of refurbishment LCA studies in the context of the EN 15978 standard. By use of a refurbishment case study, the paper shows an example of the impacts associated with a larger refurbishment, a comparison with reference values for a new construction and the environmental pay-back time of the refurbishment measures implemented.