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GEN 51
Life Cycle Assessment – Application in Building
Tim Grant and Dominique Hes
Centre for Design, RMIT
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is an internationally recognised and standardised (International Standards Organisation 1997) approach for assessing the environmental impacts of consumption and production. LCA is seen as the only method for evaluating and comparing alternatives, based on the environmental performance over the life of the alternative, that is, from material extraction through to use and disposal. Carrying out an LCA of an entire building can be a time consuming and costly process. This can be aided by some general rules of thumb and accessible computer tools. Although complex, LCA is being implemented by organisations such as Bovis Lend Lease in Australia and in countries such as the Netherlands as part of planning requirements.
LCA has been actively used for buildings for the last 12 years with specialised tools being developed in the Netherlands, United States, Canada and more recently in Australia. This note aims to provide an overview of how LCA is being applied in the building area, and to give practical guidance on using LCA and other life cycle approaches.
Key words
Life Cycle Assessment, building design, life cycle decision making