Abstract
How we design human settlements has a profound influence on society’s environmental pressures. This chapter explores the current state of LCA applied to two scales of human settlements; individual buildings and the built environment , where the built environment is understood as a collection of autonomous buildings along with the infrastructure and human activity between those buildings . The application of LCA to buildings has seen growing interest in recent years, partly as a result of the increased application of environmental certification to buildings. General findings are that the use stage of the building tends to dominate environmental impacts, though as buildings become increasingly energy efficient, life cycle impacts shift towards other stages. LCA of built environments has been a useful supplement to mass-based urban environmental assessments, highlighting the importance of embodied environmental impacts in imported goods and showing interesting trade-offs between dense urban living and the greater purchasing power of wealthy urbanites. LCAs of human settlements also face difficult challenges; the long use stage (often decades) introduces high uncertainty regarding the end-of-life stage; evolving electrical mixes throughout the use stage; gaps in consumption data at the city level. This chapter endeavours to elucidate the strengths, research needs and methodological shortcomings of LCA as applied to buildings and the built environment, showing that they can act as complimentary tools to help society’s shift towards a sustainable future.
References
Bachmann, C., Roorda, M., Kennedy, C.: Developing a multi-scale multi-region input–output model. Econ. Syst. Res. 27, 172–193 (2014)
Basbagill, J., Flager, F., Lepech, M., Fischer, M.: Application of life cycle assessment to early stage building design for reduced embodied environmental impacts. Build. Environ. 60, 81–92 (2012). doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2012.11.009
Blengini, G.A., Di Carlo, T.: The changing role of life cycle phases, subsystems and materials in the LCA of low energy buildings. Energy Build. 42, 869–880 (2010). doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2009.12.009
Chen, S., Chen, B.: Network environ perspective for urban metabolism and carbon emissions: a case study of Vienna, Austria. Environ. Sci. Technol. 46, 4498–4506 (2012). doi:10.1021/es204662k
Chester, M., Pincetl, S., Allenby, B.: Avoiding unintended tradeoffs by integrating life-cycle impact assessment with urban metabolism. Curr. Opin. Environ. Sustain. 4, 451–457 (2012). doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2012.08.004
Cole, R.J., Kernan, P.C.: Life-cycle energy use in office buildings.pdf. Build. Environ. 31, 307–317 (1996). doi:10.1016/0360-1323(96)00017-0
Collinge, W.O., Landis, A.E., Jones, A.K., et al.: Dynamic life cycle assessment: framework and application to an institutional building. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 18, 538–552 (2013). doi:10.1007/s11367-012-0528-2
Decker, E.H., Elliott, S., Smith, F.A., et al.: Energy and material flow through the urban ecosystem. Annu. Rev. Energy Environ. 25, 685–740 (2000). doi:10.1146/annurev.energy.25.1.685
Fragkias, M., Lobo, J., Strumsky, D., Seto, K.C.: Does size matter? Scaling of CO2 emissions and U.S. Urban Areas. PLoS One 8, 1–8 (2013). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0064727
Frischknecht, R.: LCI modelling approaches applied on recycling of materials in view of environmental sustainability, risk perception and eco-efficiency. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 15, 666–671 (2010). doi:10.1007/s11367-010-0201-6
Goldstein, B., Birkved, M., Quitzau, M.-B., Hauschild, M.: Quantification of urban metabolism through coupling with the life cycle assessment framework: concept development and case study. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 1–14 (2013). doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/035024
Heinonen, J., Kyrö, R., Junnila, S.: Dense downtown living more carbon intense due to higher consumption: a case study of Helsinki. Environ. Res. Lett. 6, 034034 (2011). doi:10.1088/1748-9326/6/3/034034
Heinonen, J., Säynäjoki, A., Junnonen, J.-M., 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? Build. Environ. 95, 116–125 (2016). doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2015.09.006
Hillman, T., Ramaswami, A.: Greenhouse gas emissions footprints and energy use benchmarks for eight U.S. cities. Environ. Sci. Technol. 44, 1902–1910 (2010). doi:10.1021/es9024194
Jones, C., Kammen, D.M.: Spatial distribution of U.S. household carbon footprints reveals suburbanization undermines greenhouse gas benefits of urban population density. Environ. Sci. Technol. 48, 895–902 (2014). doi:10.1021/es4034364
Kalmykova, Y., Harder, R., Borgestedt, H., Svanäng, I.: Pathways and management of phosphorus in urban areas. J. Ind. Ecol. 16, 928–939 (2012). doi:10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00541.x
Kellenberger, D., Althaus, H.-J.: Relevance of simplifications in LCA of building components. Build. Environ. 44, 818–825 (2009). doi:10.1016/j.buildenv.2008.06.002
Kennedy, C.: A mathematical description of urban metabolism. In: Michael, P., Weinstein, R., Eugene, T. (eds.) Sustainability Science: The Emerging Paradigm and the Urban Environment, pp. 275–291. Springer, New York, Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London (2012)
Kennedy, C., Hoornweg, D.: Mainstreaming urban metabolism. J Ind Ecol. 16, 780–782 (2012). doi:10.1111/j.1530-9290.2012.00548.x
Kennedy, C., Cuddihy, J., Engel-yan, J.: The changing metabolism of cities. J. Ind. Ecol. 11, 43–59 (2007). doi:10.1162/jie.2007.1107
Kennedy, C., Pincetl, S., Bunje, P.: The study of urban metabolism and its applications to urban planning and design. Environ. Pollut. (2010). doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2010.10.022
Kennedy, C.A., Stewart, I., Facchini, A., et al.: Energy and material flows of megacities. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (2015). doi:10.1073/pnas.1504315112
Khasreen, M.M., Banfill, P.F.G., Menzies, G.F.: Life-cycle assessment and the environmental impact of buildings: a review. Sustainability 1, 674–701 (2009). doi:10.3390/su1030674
Lenzen, M., Peters, G.M.: How city dwellers affect their resource Hinterland. J. Ind. Ecol. 14, 73–90 (2010). doi:10.1111/j.1530-9290.2009.00190.x
Loiseau, E., Roux, P., Junqua, G., et al.: Adapting the LCA framework to environmental assessment in land planning. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 18, 1533–1548 (2013). doi:10.1007/s11367-013-0588-y
Loiseau, E., Roux, P., Junqua, G., et al.: Implementation of an adapted LCA framework to environmental assessment of a territory: important learning points from a French Mediterranean case study. J. Clean. Prod. 80, 17–29 (2014). doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.05.059
Minx, J., Baiocchi, G., Wiedmann, T., Barrett, J., Creutzig, F., Feng, K., Förster, M., Pichler, P.-P., Weisz, H., Hubacek, K.: Carbon footprints of cities and other human settlements in the UK. Environ. Res. Lett. 8, 35039 (2013) doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/035039
McLeod, K.S.: Our sense of snow: the myth of John Snow in medical geography. Soc. Sci. Med. 50, 923–935 (2000). doi:10.1016/S0277-9536(99)00345-7
Morée, A.L., Beusen, A.H.W., Bouwman, A.F., Willems, W.J.: Exploring global nitrogen and phosphorus flows in urban wastes during the twentieth century. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles 27, 836–846 (2013). doi:10.1002/gbc.20072
Nässén, J., Holmberg, J., Wadeskog, A., Nyman, M.: Direct and indirect energy use and carbon emissions in the production phase of buildings: an input–output analysis. Energy 32, 1593–1602 (2007). doi:10.1016/j.energy.2007.01.002
Ostermeyer, Y., Wallbaum, H., Reuter, F.: Multidimensional Pareto optimization as an approach for site-specific building refurbishment solutions applicable for life cycle sustainability assessment. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 18, 1762–1779 (2013). doi:10.1007/s11367-013-0548-6
Ramesh, T., Prakash, R., Shukla, K.K.: Life cycle energy analysis of buildings: an overview. Energy Build. 42, 1592–1600 (2010). doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2010.05.007
Rosado, L., Niza, S., Ferrão, P.: A material flow accounting case study of the Lisbon metropolitan area using the urban metabolism analyst model. J. Ind. Ecol. (2014). doi:10.1111/jiec.12083
Scheuer, C., Keoleian, G.A., Reppe, P.: Life cycle energy and environmental performance of a new university building: modeling challenges and design implications. Energy Build. 35, 1049–1064 (2003). doi:10.1016/S0378-7788(03)00066-5
Stewart, I., Kennedy, C., Facchini, A.: Metabolism of megacities: a review and synthesis of the literature (2014)
Tam, V.W., Li, J., Cai, H.: System dynamic modeling on construction waste management in Shenzhen, China. Waste Manag. Res. (2014). doi:10.1177/0734242X14527636
Thormark, C.: A low energy building in a life cycle—its embodied energy, energy need for operation and recycling potential. Build. Environ. 37, 429–435 (2002). doi:10.1016/S0360-1323(01)00033-6
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP): Building design and construction: Forging resource efficiency and sustainable development. Sustainable buildings and climate initiative (2012)
Wolman, A.: The metabolism of cities. Sci. Am. 213(3), 179–190 (1965)
Zhang, Y.: Urban metabolism: a review of research methodologies. Environ. Pollut. 178, 463–473 (2013). doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2013.03.052
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Goldstein, B., Rasmussen, F.N. (2018). LCA of Buildings and the Built Environment. In: Hauschild, M., Rosenbaum, R., Olsen, S. (eds) Life Cycle Assessment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56475-3_28
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56475-3_28
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-56474-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-56475-3
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)