A Review of Life Cycle Assessment Tools for Measuring the Environmental Impact of Building and a Decision Support Framework for Choosing Among Them

9 pages•Published: December 11, 2023

Tran Duong Nguyen and Pardis Pishdad-Bozorgi

Abstract

The increased environmental concerns in recent decades have resulted in examining waste emissions, resource utilization, and resource depletion. A holistic environmental assessment should consider all these factors. Researchers, policymakers, and companies are paying more attention to environmental management. As a result, organizations are developing their environmental practices to enhance environmental management throughout the building life cycle. Contemporary life cycle assessment (LCA) stands out as a reliable and comprehensive method that effectively communicates such benefits to stakeholders and offers them more leverage. LCA is increasingly being used to assess how construction processes affect the environment and minimize these impacts. There is a need for research on the use of LCA tools in buildings, which is a key point and a solution to facilitate environmental management practices and transform the construction industry. Based on a literature review, the research studies LCA tools for quantifying buildings' environmental impact and provides a decision support framework for choosing LCA tools. The paper aims to analyze the current uses of LCA in construction, present LCA tools, compare applied tools in buildings, and explore three commonly used LCA tools for building studies. Moreover, this research explores that managing the database is one of the most significant issues with current LCA tools. It suggests that building information modeling (BIM) and LCA integration is an approach that might facilitate and simplify data management for LCA analysis throughout all building life cycles. This study's results will assist project stakeholders in choosing the appropriate tools and selecting the most environmentally friendly products at different building life cycle stages (i.e., design, construction, and maintenance) for the project's success.

Keyphrases: building construction, environmental impact of buildings, lca applications, life cycle analysis, life cycle assessment tools

In: Tom Leathem, Wes Collins and Anthony Perrenoud (editors). Proceedings of 59th Annual Associated Schools of Construction International Conference, vol 4, pages 816-824.

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/h43w
	https://doi.org/10.29007/pcmw

BibTeX entry

@inproceedings{ASC2023:Review_Life_Cycle_Assessment,
  author    = {Tran Duong Nguyen and Pardis Pishdad-Bozorgi},
  title     = {A Review of Life Cycle Assessment Tools for Measuring the Environmental Impact of Building and a Decision Support Framework for Choosing Among Them},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of 59th Annual Associated Schools of Construction International Conference},
  editor    = {Tom Leathem and Wes Collins and Anthony Perrenoud},
  series    = {EPiC Series in Built Environment},
  volume    = {4},
  publisher = {EasyChair},
  bibsource = {EasyChair, https://easychair.org},
  issn      = {2632-881X},
  url       = {/publications/paper/h43w},
  doi       = {10.29007/pcmw},
  pages     = {816-824},
  year      = {2023}}

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