Life Cycle Assessment

Carbon and Cost Accounting

Using Life Cycle Assessments, it is relatively simple to reduce time spent in investigating trade-offs between sustainable alternatives and cost effectiveness.

By using this methodology, we can benchmark multiple designs that can not only be more sustainable to construct, but have lower upfront costs. With the additional benefit of lower lifetime running costs, and lower end of life environmental impacts, the benefits of LCA’s are clear to see.

Environmental Impacts

LCA assesses several environmental impact categories, with Global Warming Potential (GWP) being the most widely recognized. This is measured in kg co2e, and the GIA of the building has a kg co2E per m² score attached to it, as well as other environmental impacts such as ozone depletion potential, and acidification potential.

Whole Life Costs

LCA’s model the entire life costs of the project, to include raw materials, construction, operation, refurbishment and decommissioning.

Stakeholder Engagement

Alignment and collaboration between various stakeholders in the construction industry is crucial to decarbonization since no stakeholder can achieve this alone. Using a structured LCA system bring together designers, investors, developers and product manufacturers to achieve a common goal.

Environmental Product Declarations

These are a type of LCA which provide a descriptive analysis of the environmental performance of an individual product over its entire life-cycle. Producing and using EPD data is an essential component in a project LCA.