Activity-based Methodology for Life Cycle Assessment of Building Construction

Session 14 Paper 3, CIBSE ASHRAE Technical Symposium, Imperial College, London, UK
18th and 19th April 2012

Building stakeholders cannot easily quantify the sustainability impacts of constructed facilities. They lack information to perform effective analysis, management, and decisionmaking. In part, this is due to inadequate tools and methods to assess building life cycle impacts from design through construction. Currently available methods lack interoperability
between design, analysis, and management software and life cycle inventory datasets that enable full life cycle assessment (LCA). To methodically manage the reduction of life cycle environmental impacts of buildings during construction, it is necessary to link environmental targets with modern construction management methods. This work
develops a construction activity-based computational framework to enable stakeholders to reliably and efficiently construct dynamic life cycle models. Methods have been developed for time dependent impact budgets to provide construction managers and building owners a basis for process control. Specifically, the components developed are: (A) time dependent impact accrual budgets during construction and (B) impact measurement during construction. These benchmarks are used to determine whether a specific project is above or below expectations, similar to a cost and schedule variance analysis. An industry project is used as a case study implementation of this framework. This integration provides an LCA modelling platform for management of environmental footprint during construction.