A Life Cycle Assessment of Two Residential Buildings Using Two Different LCA Database-Software Combinations: Recognizing Uniformities and Inconsistencies

Traditionally, the emissions embodied in construction materials have not been considered important; however, they are becoming crucial due to the short time-frame in which the emissions should be reduced. Moreover, evaluating the environmental burden of construction materials has proven problematic and the reliability of the reported impact estimates is questionable. More reliable information from the construction sector is thus urgently needed to back and guide decision-making. Currently, the building sector environmental impact assessments predominantly employ commercial software with environmental impact databases and report results without knowledge about the impact of the software/database choice on the results. In this study, estimates for the embodied environmental impacts of residential construction from the two most widely used life cycle assessment (LCA) database-software combinations, ecoinvent with SimaPro software and GaBi, are compared to recognize the uniformities and inconsistencies. The impacts caused by two residential buildings of different types, a concrete-element multi-story residential building and a detached wooden house, both located in Finland, were assessed, including all building systems with a high level of detail. Based on the ReCiPe Midpoint method, fifteen impact categories were estimated and compared. The results confirm that the tool choice significantly affects the outcome. For the whole building, the difference is significant, around 15%, even in the most widely assessed category of Climate Change, and yields results that lean in different directions for the two cases. In the others, the estimates are entirely different, 40% or more in the majority of the categories and up to several thousand percentages of difference. The main conclusion is that extensive work is still urgently needed to improve the reliability of LCA tools in the building sector in order to provide reliable and trustworthy information for policy-making.

[1]  Manfred Lenzen,et al.  Economic, energy and greenhouse emissions impacts of some consumer choice, technology and government outlay options , 2002 .

[2]  Manfred Lenzen,et al.  Hybrid life cycle assessment (LCA) will likely yield more accurate results than process-based LCA , 2018 .

[3]  Jaime Solís-Guzmán,et al.  LCA databases focused on construction materials: A review , 2016 .

[4]  Benedetto Rugani,et al.  A comprehensive review of carbon footprint analysis as an extended environmental indicator in the wine sector , 2013 .

[5]  Gian Andrea Blengini,et al.  Energy-saving policies and low-energy residential buildings: an LCA case study to support decision makers in Piedmont (Italy) , 2010 .

[6]  Gjalt Huppes,et al.  System boundary selection in life-cycle inventories using hybrid approaches. , 2004, Environmental science & technology.

[7]  Sébastien Lasvaux,et al.  Comparison of generic and product-specific Life Cycle Assessment databases: application to construction materials used in building LCA studies , 2015, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

[8]  Helen Lewis,et al.  Packaging for sustainability , 2012 .

[9]  Theodoros Theodosiou,et al.  Embodied energy in residential buildings-towards the nearly zero energy building: A literature review , 2016 .

[10]  Roland Clift,et al.  Comparison of currently available european LCA software , 1997 .

[11]  F. Chapin,et al.  Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity , 2009 .

[12]  André Stephan,et al.  A model for streamlining and automating path exchange hybrid life cycle assessment , 2018, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

[13]  Stefan Olander.  Life Cycle Assessment in Built Environment , 2012 .

[14]  Seppo Junnila,et al.  Pre-use phase LCA of a multi-story residential building: Can greenhouse gas emissions be used as a more general environmental performance indicator? , 2016 .

[15]  Hanna Pihkola,et al.  Comparison of different normalised LCIA results and their feasibility in communication , 2013, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

[16]  Robert H. Crawford,et al.  Hybrid life cycle inventory methods – A review , 2018 .

[17]  Karli Verghese,et al.  Selecting and Applying Tools , 2012 .

[18]  Anna Forsberg,et al.  Tools for environmental assessment of the built environment , 2004 .

[19]  Daizhong Su,et al.  Comparison of Different Life Cycle Impact Assessment Software Tools , 2013 .

[20]  A. Horvath,et al.  Can life-cycle assessment produce reliable policy guidelines in the building sector? , 2017 .

[21]  Anthony G Fane,et al.  Life Cycle Assessment for desalination: a review on methodology feasibility and reliability. , 2014, Water research.

[22]  Edgar G. Hertwich,et al.  Evaluation of process- and input-output-based life cycle inventory data with regard to truncation and aggregation issues. , 2011, Environmental science & technology.

[23]  Alice Moncaster,et al.  A comparative review of existing data and methodologies for calculating embodied energy and carbon of buildings , 2012 .

[24]  Gillian Frances Menzies,et al.  Life-Cycle Assessment and the Environmental Impact of Buildings: A Review , 2009 .

[25]  Kathleen M. Eisenhardt,et al.  Theory Building From Cases: Opportunities And Challenges , 2007 .

[26]  André Stephan,et al.  Evaluating the life cycle energy benefits of energy efficiency regulations for buildings , 2016 .

[27]  Ben Amor,et al.  Recent developments, future challenges and new research directions in LCA of buildings: A critical review , 2017 .

[28]  Kristel de Myttenaere,et al.  A comprehensive assessment of the life cycle energy demand of passive houses , 2013 .

[29]  Sébastien Lasvaux,et al.  NativeLCA - a systematic approach for the selection of environmental datasets as generic data: application to construction products in a national context , 2015, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

[30]  Seppo Junnila,et al.  A scenario analysis of the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions of a new residential area , 2012 .

[31]  Monia Niero,et al.  Review of LCA studies of solid waste management systems--part II: methodological guidance for a better practice. , 2014, Waste management.

[32]  Nydia Suppen,et al.  A Review of Environmental Life Cycle Assessments of Liquid Transportation Biofuels in the Pan American Region , 2015, Environmental Management.

[33]  Daniel Müller,et al.  Addressing sustainability in the aluminum industry: a critical review of life cycle assessments , 2012 .

[34]  Ivan Tengbjerg Herrmann,et al.  Does it matter which Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool you choose? – a comparative assessment of SimaPro and GaBi , 2015 .

[35]  Ole Jørgen Hanssen,et al.  Application of LCA as a decision-making tool for waste management systems , 2003 .

[36]  S. Thomas Ng,et al.  Comparing the midpoint and endpoint approaches based on ReCiPe—a study of commercial buildings in Hong Kong , 2014, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

[37]  E. Peereboom,et al.  Influence of Inventory Data Sets on Life‐Cycle Assessment Results: A Case Study on PVC , 1998 .

[38]  I. D. Boer,et al.  Environmental impact assessment of conventional and organic milk production , 2003 .

[39]  Walter Klöpffer,et al.  Life cycle assessment , 1997, Environmental science and pollution research international.

[40]  Morton A. Barlaz,et al.  Evaluation of life cycle inventory data for recycling systems , 2014 .

[41]  Ivo Mersiowsky,et al.  LCA’s theory and practice: like ebony and ivory living in perfect harmony? , 2012, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment.

[42]  Göran Finnveden,et al.  Lessons learned - Review of LCAs for ICT products and services , 2014, Comput. Ind..

[43]  F. Godlee.  An international standard for disclosure of clinical trial information , 2006, BMJ : British Medical Journal.

[44]  Otto Andersen,et al.  Life cycle assessments of consumer electronics — are they consistent? , 2010 .

[45]  Takeo Shiina,et al.  A review of life cycle assessment (LCA) on some food products. , 2009 .

[46]  Mark Hughes,et al.  Comparison of life cycle assessment databases: A case study on building assessment , 2014 .

[47]  S. Carpenter,et al.  Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet , 2015, Science.

[48]  Rajib Sinha,et al.  Environmental footprint assessment of building structures: A comparative study , 2016 .

[49]  Stig Irving Olsen,et al.  Normalization in EDIP97 and EDIP2003: updated European inventory for 2004 and guidance towards a consistent use in practice , 2011 .

[50]  Juha-Matti Junnonen,et al.  Input–output and process LCAs in the building sector: are the results compatible with each other? , 2017 .

[51]  Susan Selke,et al.  Life Cycle Assessment Software: Selection Can Impact Results , 2016 .

[52]  G. Schiefer,et al.  Review on Suitability of Available LCIA Methodologies for Assessing Environmental Impact of the Food Sector , 2011 .

[53]  S. Thomas Ng,et al.  A life cycle assessment model for evaluating the environmental impacts of building construction in Hong Kong , 2015 .