An integrated environmental and health performance quantification model for pre-occupancy phase of buildings in China

To comprehensively pre-evaluate the damages to both the environment and human health due to construction activities in China, this paper presents an integrated building environmental and health performance (EHP) assessment model based on the Building Environmental Performance Analysis System (BEPAS) and the Building Health Impact Analysis System (BHIAS) models and offers a new inventory data estimation method. The new model follows the life cycle assessment (LCA) framework and the inventory analysis step involves bill of quantity (BOQ) data collection, consumption data formation, and environmental profile transformation. The consumption data are derived from engineering drawings and quotas to conduct the assessment before construction for pre-evaluation. The new model classifies building impacts into three safeguard areas: ecosystems, natural resources and human health. Thus, this model considers environmental impacts as well as damage to human wellbeing. The monetization approach, distance-to-target method and panel method are considered as optional weighting approaches. Finally, nine residential buildings of different structural types are taken as case studies to test the operability of the integrated model through application. The results indicate that the new model can effectively pre-evaluate building EHP and the structure type significantly affects the performance of residential buildings.     

Life cycle assessment as an analytical tool in strategic environmental assessment. Lessons learned from a case study on municipal energy planning in Sweden

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is explored as an analytical tool in strategic environmental assessment (SEA), illustrated by case where a previously developed SEA process was applied to municipal energy planning in Sweden. The process integrated decision-making tools for scenario planning, public participation and environmental assessment. This article describes the use of LCA for environmental assessment in this context, with focus on methodology and practical experiences. While LCA provides a systematic framework for the environmental assessment and a wider systems perspective than what is required in SEA, LCA cannot address all aspects of environmental impact required, and therefore needs to be complemented by other tools. The integration of LCA with tools for public participation and scenario planning posed certain methodological challenges, but provided an innovative approach to designing the scope of the environmental assessment and defining and assessing alternatives.     

A model for the sustainable selection of building envelope assemblies

The aim of this article is to define an evaluation model for the environmental impacts of building envelopes to support planners in the early phases of materials selection. The model is intended to estimate environmental impacts for different combinations of building envelope assemblies based on scientifically recognised sustainability indicators. These indicators will increase the amount of information that existing catalogues show to support planners in the selection of building assemblies.To define the model, first the environmental indicators were selected based on the specific aims of the intended sustainability assessment. Then, a simplified LCA methodology was developed to estimate the impacts applicable to three types of dwellings considering different envelope assemblies, building orientations and climate zones. This methodology takes into account the manufacturing, installation, maintenance and use phases of the building. Finally, the model was validated and a matrix in Excel was created as implementation of the model.     

Logistic sequencing for improving environmental performance using ant colony optimization

A significant portion of air pollutions in a city comes from road transport. Shorter travelling distance and less fuel consumption would logically lead to lower emissions of greenhouse gases or particulate matters, thus relieve environmental burdens. In this regard, an appropriate selection of the logistic sequence may contribute significantly to the environment. The logistic sequence for pickup and delivery services are often determined based on decision makers' experience and intuitive judgements. While life cycle assessment (LCA), a well-versed approach, can be used for quantifying the environmental loads, it is often regarded as not suitable for making routine decisions because it takes significant time and resources for data collection as well as expert knowledge for result interpretation. Additionally, the results of LCA studies focus mainly on the environmental perspective and that other decision criteria cannot be taken into account in a single evaluation process. This paper attempts to develop a practical and objective tool, by combining a simplified LCA with the ant colony optimization algorithm, that supports evaluating several decision criteria simultaneously and determining the optimal or near optimal sequence for vehicle routing on pickup and delivery activities. This fit-for-purpose approach enables decision makers to pay attention to environmental impacts during the determination of the travelling sequences. The proposed approach has been successfully performed to identify the optimal solution through benchmarking against other possible sequences, with the aim to reducing environmental impact while balancing other decision criteria.     

Life cycle assessment of a railway tracks substructures: Comparison of ballast and ballastless rail tracks

The increase of train speed and axle load is an essential goal to make the railway transport more and more competitive for passengers and freights. On this basis, the unevenness of the railway track is crucial for the safety of the railway due to the high speed of the vehicle. Although ballasted tracks represent by far the most used railway track substructure, in recent years the modernization process has led the development of the ballastless track substructures.In deciding between the use of ballasted or ballastless track substructure there are many important technical, economical and environmental factors that have to be addressed. Based on the above, the principal objective of this study was to evaluate the environmental impact of different railway track substructures including ballast, cast-in sleeper and embedded track systems on the short, medium and long term. To accomplish this task, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was carried out throughout the entire life cycle of the railway infrastructure by using the ReCiPe (H) method. Although such approach is commonly included in the environmental assessment of building products and buildings, it was rarely applied in the analysis of the environmental impacts of railway track substructure.Thus, the result of these LCA showed that ballasted tracks cause the lowest environmental impact for service lives of up to 75 years. On the other hand, the embedded track beds cause the highest environmental impacts, regardless of their service life. The highest contributor for the environmental impacts of the track beds was the steel production.The results of this study will provide relevant environmental information for engineers and decision makers to select the most adequate railway track substructures for addressing issues related to the pursuit of sustainable development.     

LCA Integrated ANP Framework for Selection of Sustainable Manufacturing Processes

In recent times, the focus of sustainable development has been shifted toward the process domain to achieve greater environmental benefits. Improved sustainability in the process domain can be achieved by selecting sustainable process or through improvement studies. In this study, sustainability performance of injection molding (IM) and selective laser sintering (SLS) processes are compared to select the sustainable process. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been widely accepted for assessing the environmental performance of manufacturing process. However, the problem with LCA is the interpretation of impact category scores when comparing alternate processes. Therefore, an effort has been made to integrate analytical network process (ANP) methodology with LCA in which LCA methodology calculates the impact score and ANP computes the Single Point Process Sustainability Score (SPPSS) to compare alternate processes. Based on the inventory data collected for higher production rates, SPPSS for IM and SLS processes are computed as 0.038 and 0.068, respectively. Based on the score, IM has been identified as a sustainable process for higher production volume. Hence, the practical usability of the proposed methodology is validated by the study. This study also appreciates the application of ANP along with LCA for decision making in the real-time scenario.     

Life cycle assessment of two sustainable and old neighbourhoods affected by climate change in one city in Belgium: A review

Aware of the strong population growth expected in the coming years in cities, it is imperative to evaluate the impact of this new concentration on the environment, health and power consumption. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the most appropriate method to quantify these different impacts. The aim of this study is to carry out the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) in two sustainable and old neighbourhoods located in Belgium, while comparing different environmental impacts; but also, to determine the most important source of environmental change at the neighbourhood scale. This study begins with a strong review on LCA in residence buildings and neighbourhoods since 1996 up to 2018.Then followed by the assessment and comparison of the climate variation in six different periods (past, current, 2020,2050,2080 and 2100).In the same line, three scenarios (A2, B1 and A1B)were associated to several models of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We have combined three simulation tools, such as ALCYONE, COMFIE-PLEIADES and nova-EQUER. The main results showed the twelve environmental impacts studied in this research that does not always evolve in the same way. Indeed, it was noticed that the CO2 emissions were up to 36.6% higher in an old neighbourhood than in a sustainable one; while the energy demand was estimated at 62.6% and 37.4% in an old and a sustainable one, respectively. Good planning of the public space will play an important role to reduce in average up to 15% the eutrophication in both neighbourhoods. Globally, the renovation of residential buildings is very important, indeed, it allows mitigate in average up to 30% of environment impacts in both neighbourhoods.     

Environmental product declarations in accordance with EN 15804 and EN 16485 — How to account for primary energy of secondary resources?

As a core product category rule (PCR), EN 15804 defines rules for conducting the life cycle assessment (LCA) of building products in the context of environmental product declarations (EPDs). This European standard is complemented by EN 16485, which provides further guidance for specific aspects for the LCA of wood and wood-based construction products. For all life cycle stages under consideration, the renewable and non-renewable primary energy employed for energy generation or material use is accounted for. Furthermore, the inputs and outputs of secondary materials (SM), renewable secondary fuels (RSF) and non-renewable secondary fuels (NRSF) have to be reported. Especially in the end-of life stage as well as in the production stage, the standards do not exactly rule the accounting method of the primary energy contained in SM, RSF and NRSF. As both standards leave room for interpretation, we wrote this discussion article to introduce this issue to the LCA community and to present our developed accounting specifications. In general, we consider EN 15804 and EN 16485 as helpful tools for the LCA of building products. We hope that our ideas on certain aspects contribute to a better understanding of the standards, possibly leading to further improvement in the course of the standardization process.     

A hybrid model of external environmental benefits compensation to practitioners for the application of prefabricated construction

As the creators of the external benefits of prefabricated construction implementation, the government, real estate developers, and homebuyers have the right to allocate the external benefits. However, there is no effective quantitative method for achieving this goal. Therefore, this study aims to develop a quantitative analysis model for the reasonable allocation of the external benefits among the creators. The externality theory and bargaining theory were introduced to this study as the research foundation. Through literature review, the environmental benefit quantification index was defined. A bargaining model including Game 1 and Game 2 was designed for determining the external benefits allocation ratios for each player. In Game 1, the government was considered as the agent of homebuyers to conduct the bargaining game with real estate developers. Game 2 reflected the bargaining game process between the government and homebuyers for sharing the ratio of external benefits achieved from Game 1. The powerful position in bargaining game and discount factors of each player were considered as the critical factors influencing the distribution ratio because the value will change with the development of prefabricated construction. A prefabricated construction building was selected as a case to illustrate the applicability of this proposed model. The distribution result is that the government, the real estate developers, and homebuyers should share the external benefits of prefabrication implementation by 38%, 35%, and 27% respectively. This study contributes to aiding the creators to achieve optimal benefits allocation and thus motivates the enthusiasm of practitioners in prefabricated construction implementation.     

The contribution of sensor-based equipment to life cycle assessment through improvement of data collection in the industry

Within the paradigm of “Industry 4.0”, data collection and management acquire new relevance. In this context, the introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the manufacturing field allows to develop information systems able to offer the possibility of using a large amount of data collected from heterogeneous sources in real time. The information thus obtained is functional not only to the attainment of an industrial development but also for evaluation and improvement of its sustainability. For example, the benefit obtainable for the life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology from the new digital configuration is represented by a greater specificity of data that wireless sensors networks (WSN) measure and transmit in a continuous way.This paper explores the benefit of using a sensor for the evaluation of the environmental impact, in particular for LCA, in an Italian company producing chemical formulations. The machinery electric consumption directly measured data is compared with the same data estimated with mathematical models. It highlights how much different approach of data measurement and calculation can affect the LCA results. The detection of the energy variable related to a single machine for a particular process, which has been described in the paper, represents a first step towards the implementation of a WSN, proposed by Scatol8 srl, to be used to produce in a more sustainable way.     

Dynamic global warming impact assessment integrating temporal variables: Application to a residential building in China

Climate warming is a global concern, and buildings have been recognized as a major contributor because the carbon emissions during their entire life cycles constitute a large share of the total value (almost 40% globally). Many life cycle assessments of buildings have been conducted to quantify the associated global warming impacts. However, few studies have considered the potential temporal variation over the long lifetimes of buildings. In this study, various temporal variables were combined to evaluate the dynamic life cycle global warming impact of a residential building in China. First, annual material and energy consumption data throughout the entire life cycle were acquired from questionnaire survey, statistical reports and literatures. Five dynamic variables (household size, usage behavior, replacement and improvement of components, waste treatment, and energy mix) and their effects on consumption levels were considered. Second, a dynamic inventory analysis tool (DyPLCA) was used to transform the temporal consumption data into dynamic greenhouse gas quantities. The global warming effects of these emissions were quantified using a dynamic characterization tool (DynCO₂). Finally, emission reduction targets for future decades were used to weight the severities of the impacts at different times. The dynamic instantaneous and cumulative global warming impacts of the building were calculated. Dynamic and static assessment results were compared. We also analyzed the contribution of each dynamic variable to the final results and found that the dynamic variables had very different effects (ranging from −42.00% to 45.34%). This study provided an operable dynamic assessment model and available dynamic data for the global warming impact assessment of buildings in China.     

Healthcare Building Sustainability Assessment tool - Sustainable Effective Design criteria in the Portuguese context

Tools and methods to improve current practices and quality in the healthcare building sector are necessary to support decision-making at different building life cycle phases. Furthermore, Healthcare Building Sustainability Assessment (HBSA) Methods are based on criteria organised into different levels, such as categories and indicators. These criteria highlight aspects of significant importance when designing and operating a sustainable healthcare building. To bring more objectivity to the sustainability assessments, the standardisation bodies (CEN and ISO) proposed core indicators that should be used in the evaluation of the environmental, societal and economic performances of buildings. Nevertheless, relying on state of the art analysis, it is possible to conclude that there are aspects of major importance for the operation of healthcare buildings that are not considered in the HBSA methods.Thus, the aim of this paper is to discuss the context of sustainability assessment methods in the field of healthcare buildings and to present a proposal for the incorporation of Sustainable-Effective Design (SED) criteria in a new HBSA method. The used research method is innovative since in the development of the list of sustainability criteria it considers the opinion of main healthcare buildings' stakeholders, the existing healthcare assessment methods and the ISO and CEN standardisation works in the field of the methods to assess the sustainability of construction works. As a result, the proposed method is composed of fifty-two sustainability indicators that cover the different dimensions of the sustainability concept to support decision making during the design of a new or retrofitted healthcare building in urban areas.     

Towards a more holistic sustainability assessment framework for agro-bioenergy systems — A review

The use of life cycle assessment (LCA) as a sustainability assessment tool for agro-bioenergy system usually has an industrial agriculture bias. Furthermore, LCA generally has often been criticized for being a decision maker tool which may not consider decision takers perceptions. They are lacking in spatial and temporal depth, and unable to assess sufficiently some environmental impact categories such as biodiversity, land use etc. and most economic and social impact categories, e.g. food security, water security, energy security. This study explored tools, methodologies and frameworks that can be deployed individually, as well as in combination with each other for bridging these methodological gaps in application to agro-bioenergy systems. Integrating agronomic options, e.g. alternative farm power, tillage, seed sowing options, fertilizer, pesticide, irrigation into the boundaries of LCAs for agro-bioenergy systems will not only provide an alternative agro-ecological perspective to previous LCAs, but will also lead to the derivation of indicators for assessment of some social and economic impact categories. Deploying life cycle thinking approaches such as energy return on energy invested-EROEI, human appropriation of net primary production-HANPP, net greenhouse gas or carbon balance-NCB, water footprint individually and in combination with each other will also lead to further derivation of indicators suitable for assessing relevant environmental, social and economic impact categories. Also, applying spatio-temporal simulation models has a potential for improving the spatial and temporal depths of LCA analysis.     

A critical review of building environmental assessment tools

Since the field of environmental assessment tools for buildings is vast, the aim of this study is to clarify that field by analysing and categorising existing tools. The differences between the tools are discussed and the current situation within the tools is critically analysed. However, the comparison of the tools is difficult, if not impossible. For example, the tools are designed for assessing different types of buildings, and they emphasise different phases of the life cycle. In addition to environmental aspects, sustainable building includes economic and social aspects. The shift from green building to sustainable building and the future requirements are challenging for building environmental assessment tools. Furthermore, the benefits of using the tools should be analysed — how the tools and their results have affected decision making?     

Energy and carbon footprint assessment of production of hemp hurds for application in buildings

Construction is considered as one of the most relevant sectors in terms of environmental impacts, due to the significant use of raw materials, fossil energy consumption and the consequent Greenhouse Gases emissions. The use of unconventional and environmentally-friendly materials and technologies is worldwide recognised as a key factor to enable the decrease of material and energy consumption in buildings. Between natural/sustainable materials, those using hemp products and by-products (fibres and hurds) have rapidly widened their field of application in the building industry, mainly because of their good hygrothermal and acoustic insulation properties. Moreover, the usage of these materials allows high carbon storage due to the CO₂ sequestration during the agricultural phase.This study represents an energy and environmental assessment of hemp crop cultivation in France, carried out through a Life Cycle Assessment approach, showing positive and negative contribution related to the different life cycle phases. The total CF evaluated through the IPCC, 2013 GWP 100 method (IPCC, 2013) is equal to 0.975 kgCO₂eq, in view of a CO₂ uptake of −1.29 kgCO₂eq. So, it is understood that the total CF results therefore lower than the CO2 uptake due to the biogenic carbon captured and stored during hemp growth. The total Energy Footprint, instead, was calculated in 17.945 MJ. The Upstream phase came out as the main contributor to the impacts. A sensitivity analysis was performed to explore changes in results related to main inputs assumptions and, in particular, the environmental benefits associated with the replacement of conventional fertilisers (ammonium sulphate) with organic matter were highlighted.     

A decision-support system for sustainable urban metabolism in Europe

Urban metabolism components define the energy and material exchanges within a city and, therefore, can provide valuable information on the environmental quality of urban areas. Assessing the potential impact of urban planning alternatives on urban metabolism components (such as energy, water, carbon and pollutants fluxes) can provide a quantitative estimation of their sustainability performance. Urban metabolism impact assessment can, therefore, contribute to the identification of sustainable urban structures with regards, for example, to building types, materials and layout, as well as to location and capacity of transportation and infrastructural developments. In this way, it enables the formulation of planning and policy recommendations to promote efficient use of resources and enhance environmental quality in urban areas.The European FP7 project BRIDGE (sustainaBle uRban plannIng Decision support accountinG for urban mEtabolism) has developed a decision-support system (DSS) that systematically integrates urban metabolism components into impact assessment processes with the aim of accurately quantifying the potential effects of proposed planning interventions. The DSS enables integration of multiple spatial and non-spatial datasets (e.g. physical flows of energy and material with variables of social and economic change) in a systematic manner to obtain spatially defined assessment results and to thus inform planners and decision-makers. This multi-criteria approach also enables incorporation of stakeholders' perceptions in order to prioritise decisive assessment criteria. This paper describes the methodological framework used to develop the DSS and critically examines the results of its practical application in five European cities.     

Circular economy application for a Green Stadium construction towards sustainable FIFA world cup Qatar 2022™

The construction industry is responsible for a significant amount of raw material consumption and environmental footprints. Therefore, sustainable construction became a hot topic, which strives to reduce material consumption, limit constructional waste disposal, and decrease contribution to climate change. In line with Qatar's commitment to organizing a sustainable FIFA World Cup in 2022, this study aims to conduct an environmental life cycle assessment (LCA) for the construction of the Education City Stadium. The work presented here provides the first empirical LCA for analyzing the environmental and economic impacts of circular economy application in a World Cup stadium. In this research, the cyclopean concrete (CYC) methodology was utilized, which incorporate the site excavated boulders with the concrete mix to cast the under-raft foundation of the stadium. This approach was compared to the conventional concrete (CC) casting approach to assess the extent to which the newly developed methodology can reduce the environmental and economic burdens. The obtained results have shown a 32% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions when adapting the CYC approach. Thus, the CYC holds a strong promise to achieve the required structural behavior with a low-cost alternative material from existing waste products in Qatar and a lower environmental impact than the CC.     

Benchmarking environmental and economic impacts from the HSR networks considering life cycle perspectives

This paper unprecedentedly benchmarks the environmental and economic impacts of notable High-speed rail (HSR) networks. The goals are to (i) point out the environmental impacts from the HSR networks and (ii) evaluate the whole life cycle cost of HSR systems. The emphasis of this study is placed on five HSR networks from five countries to depict the effectiveness of sustainable transport policies in each particular country. Both life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) models are adopted for a new critical framework capable of benchmarking the lifecycle sustainability of HSR networks. The new findings exhibit that CRC's system is the leader in energy-saving, who consumes only 67.55 GJ/km yearly, and emits lowest CO₂ at an amount of 77,532.32 tCO₂/km annually. These impressive results are stemmed from key enabling policies related to eco-friendly rolling stock design, sustainable construction, and green energy grids. With respect to the LCC analysis, the SCNF network takes advantage in the economy of scale and unleashes the lowest cost among other networks. It estimates that the SNCF network spends approximately 1,990,599.51 £/km annually at a % discount rate. The implications of these finding are discussed that the initial project has a high chance to be successful on economic than the late project due to an influence of the time value of money.     

Towards a green and fast production system: Integrating life cycle assessment and value stream mapping for decision making

Integrating environmental commitment to manufacturing concerns seems unavoidable towards a more sustainable conduct. In the contemporary scenario, Value Stream Mapping (VSM) has been bringing new perspectives into companies' economics, improving production performance, whereas Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been the most complete tool for environmental assessment. Therefore, the present study aims to propose a model based on the integration of LCA and VSM to improve environmental and manufacturing aspects of organizations, the LCA-VSM model. Possible spots for integration, overlaps between LCA and VSM and potential gains were identified. The LCA-VSM model provides a simple tool for prioritizing action measures to improve the environmental-economic performance, and unlike many existing methods, it encourages continuous improvement instead of a one-off approach. The company where a case study was conducted to test the LCA-VSM model is a manufacturer of tools and painting materials for the civil construction sector. The use of the proposed model guided actions that decreased from 5% to 15% of environmental impacts (across nine impact categories), and reduced both non-value adding (lead time went from 103.26 to 24.01 days) and value adding (cycle time went from 35.7 s to 33.75 s) time. The main contribution of this paper is providing a structured approach to a practical integration of LCA and VSM towards decision making, prioritizing action measures based on the following criteria: environmental preference, economic feasibility, and ease of implementation, aiding more eco-efficient practices.     

Numerical Model Inter-comparison for Wind Flow and Turbulence Around Single-Block Buildings

Wind flow and turbulence within the urban canopy layer can influence the heating and ventilation of buildings, affecting the health and comfort of pedestrians, commuters and building occupants. In addition, the predictive capability of pollutant dispersion models is heavily dependent on wind flow models. For that reason, well-validated microscale models are needed for the simulation of wind fields within built-up urban microenvironments. To address this need, an inter-comparison study of several such models was carried out within the European research network ATREUS. This work was conducted as part of an evaluation study for microscale numerical models, so they could be further implemented to provide reliable wind fields for building energy simulation and pollutant dispersion codes. Four computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models (CHENSI, MIMO, VADIS and FLUENT) were applied to reduced-scale single-block buildings, for which quality-assured and fully documented experimental data were obtained. Simulated wind and turbulence fields around two surface-mounted cubes of different dimensions and wall roughness were compared against experimental data produced in the wind tunnels of the Meteorological Institute of Hamburg University under different inflow and boundary conditions. The models reproduced reasonably well the general flow patterns around the single-block buildings, although over-predictions of the turbulent kinetic energy were observed near stagnation points in the upwind impingement region. Certain discrepancies between the CFD models were also identified and interpreted. Finally, some general recommendations for CFD model evaluation and use in environmental applications are presented.