LCA is quite established in the agriculture industry but what about the building sector? Any recommendations for reviews that have been done in this area?
I'm not an expert in LCA of buildings, however, I know many publications on the topic. Below, follows a short list of relevant publications on last few years.
Have a good study! :)
- Oscar Ortiza, Francesc Castellsa, Guido Sonnemann (2009). Sustainability in the construction industry: A review of recent developments based on LCA. Construction and Building Materials 23 (1) 28-39;
- Xiaodong Lia, Yimin Zhub, Zhihui Zhang (2010). An LCA-based environmental impact assessment model for construction processes. Building and Environment 45 (3) 766-775;
- Su Xing, Zhang Xu, Gao Jun (2008). Inventory analysis of LCA on steel- and concrete-construction office buildings. Energy and Buildings 40 (7) 1188–1193.
Many building rating systems, such as LEED or NAHB Green use LCA's to help determine the impact of using certain construction materials and the impact of the building as a whole. There are also many manufacturers of building materials that do their own LCAs. This can be a natural part of the design process, and can even reveal efficiencies and inefficiencies in the manufacturing process. Doing a comprehensive LCA is complex, and requires and new way of thinking that is just beginning to seep into the construction industry.
Thanks for the response. Yes, I have noticed that some green rating tools incorporate LCA under the materials category. But was looking for more of a cradle to cradle analysis for all building phases ( from design to construction to demolition). I think merging LCA into building information modelling has a lot of potential.
A review of LCA in the building sector was written by Joel Ann Todd - " Chapter 14: Buildings, Systems Thinking, and Life Cycle Assessment" in the "Life Cycle Assessment Handbook A Guide for Environmentally Sustainable Products," MA Curran (ed), Scrivener Wiley, ISBN 9781118099728