Vocabulary
Terms and definitions on affordable and sustainable housing *
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)
Area: Design, planning and building
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a standardised method to comprehensively quantify environmental impacts due to the production of goods and services, used to inform decision-making for building designs. Measurable indicators include Global Warming Potential (GWP), acidification, eutrophication, and water use to name a few (European Commission, 2010). LCA can be used to account for all input and output flows related to the entire building life cycle, from raw material acquisition, manufacture, use and maintenance (e.g. while the building is occupied), to the deconstruction and beyond End-of-Life phase (Sartori et al., 2021).
Calculating an LCA requires information for building products and processes usually found in the Bill of Quantities, this includes the type of material and its density combined with the amount of material, measured in either volume or area. The European standard EN 15978 (2011) provides guidance for the calculation method, which breaks down the life cycle into phases A to D, these are: A Production and Construction, B Use, C End-of-Life, and D Beyond End-of-Life. It should be noted however, that it is difficult to compare different buildings using LCA, as methodologies and assumptions vary, impacting results (Ramboll, 2023). An LCA that includes stage D is known as a ‘cradle-to-cradle’ assessment, this supports a circular approach and considers scenarios relating to the building after its ‘useful service life’. It is crucial for stakeholders to consider the beyond End-of-Life impacts when planning and designing housing to support the circular economy transition, primarily through promoting future material reuse.
LCA is an increasingly core component of sustainability assessments for buildings following demand for transparency from the construction industry and trends in performance-based design (Sartori et al., 2021) and now features within the European Level(s) framework (Dodd & Donatello, 2020), and BREEAM and LEED assessments. The European Commission advocates for LCA, describing it as the "best framework for assessing the potential environmental impacts of products" (European Commission, n.d.). LCA therefore plays an increasingly prominent role in supporting EU policy and meeting the ambitions of the Green Deal and related initiatives, such as the Circular Economy Action Plan (European Commission, 2020). At the national level, several European countries utilise LCA to regulate embodied carbon, with other countries expected to follow suit in the coming years (Röck et al., 2022).
Created on 30-09-2024
Read more ->
* This vocabulary consists of definitions of key terms related to the combined research conducted by the 15 early-stage researchers. Each term has multiple definitions, each connected to one of the three main research areas: Design, Construction and Planning; Community Involvement; and Policy and Funding.
The joint construction of this vocabulary allows the researchers' projects to be interwoven. As such, the vocabulary is a tool for conducting transdisciplinary research on affordable and sustainable housing.
Entries are reviewed by RE-DWELL researchers and supervisors. The vocabulary is updated regularly.