The path to zero impacts: environmental building declarations based on LCA

Author(s): R. Keith Killpack, D.E. Burgoyne
Paper category: symposium
Book title: International Symposium on Life Cycle Assessment and Construction – Civil engineering and buildings
Editor(s): A. Ventura and C. de la Roche
Print ISBN: 978-2-35158-127-8
e-ISBN: 978-2-35158-128-5
Publisher: RILEM Publications SARL
Pages: 231 – 238 (+ 4 pages of appendixes)
Total Pages: 12
Language: English

Abstract: As government agencies and green building professionals set out on the road toward zero environmental impacts from their buildings, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is playing an important role as a method to evaluate and quantify these impacts. LCA has historically been applied to examine individual products, materials or systems. Now, in accordance with a new national standard being developed under the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) process, open-source guidelines are being provided to measure, compare and track the environmental impacts of entire building facilities during their lifetime. These quantified results can be summarized in the form of an Environmental Building Declaration (EBD), which addresses the full spectrum of environmental impacts associated with all aspects of a building’s life and use including site and location, building design and construction, operations and maintenance, occupancy and building use, transportation, and end-of-life. EBD results can be used by building designers and operators to measure and improve environmental performance over time, to choose from among building material options, and to measure success under LEED and other international green building rating systems. A pilot study, which examined the impacts of a newly constructed California state building, is summarized.

Keywords: buildings, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), impact, declaration, Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)

Online publication: 2012
Publication Type: full_text
Public price (Euros): 0.00