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Taking the Time Characteristic into Account of Life Cycle Assessment: Method and Application for Buildings

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  • Yurong Zhang

    (Department of disaster prevention mitigation and construction technology, College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University of Technology, No. 18 Chao Wang Road, Xia Cheng District, Hangzhou 310014, China)

Abstract
Life cycle assessment (LCA) involves many temporal issues. It is necessary to make a clear distinction between long-term impacts and short-term impacts, especially for those structures with long service life, such as buildings. With their long service life of 50 years, a great deal of maintenance and repairs could be conducted, causing a respective environmental impact. In this paper we explored a monetization method to convert the life cycle environmental impact into a life cycle environmental cost to address the temporal issues involved in LCA by discounting. This method can facilitate decision-making when tradeoffs between current and future environmental impacts exist. Moreover, this method can be used as an effective supplement to life cycle cost and provide decision support for making trade-off between cost and environmental impact. Finally, a building located in Xiamen City, China was selected as a case study and analyzed by the proposal LCA method. The results indicated that carbon cost in the operational stage is the maximum, building material production and transportation stages are ranked second, and the amount in the demolition stage is negligible, compared with the other three stages. Additionally, with the increase of the discount rate, the carbon cost in different life cycle stages will decrease, the percentage of the carbon cost in the operational stage will gradually decrease, but the percentage of the carbon cost in building material production and transportation stages will gradually increase.

Suggested Citation

  • Yurong Zhang, 2017. "Taking the Time Characteristic into Account of Life Cycle Assessment: Method and Application for Buildings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-14, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:6:p:922-:d:100137
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    2. Christopher Barrington-Leigh & Fatemeh Behzadnejad, 2017. "Erratum to: Evaluating the short-term cost of low-level local air pollution: a life satisfaction approach," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 19(1), pages 229-229, January.
    3. Chau, C.K. & Leung, T.M. & Ng, W.Y., 2015. "A review on Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Energy Assessment and Life Cycle Carbon Emissions Assessment on buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 395-413.
    4. Christopher Barrington-Leigh & Fatemeh Behzadnejad, 2017. "Evaluating the short-term cost of low-level local air pollution: a life satisfaction approach," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 19(2), pages 269-298, April.
    5. Wang, Zhaoxia & Zhao, Jing & Li, Meng, 2017. "Analysis and optimization of carbon trading mechanism for renewable energy application in buildings," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 435-451.
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    Cited by:

    1. Christina Wulf & Jasmin Werker & Christopher Ball & Petra Zapp & Wilhelm Kuckshinrichs, 2019. "Review of Sustainability Assessment Approaches Based on Life Cycles," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-43, October.
    2. Avi Friedman, 2017. "Sustainable and Resource—Efficient Homes and Communities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-3, December.
    3. Sarah M. Jordaan & Junghun Lee & Maureen R. McClung & Matthew D. Moran, 2021. "Quantifying the ecosystem services values of electricity generation in the US Chihuahuan Desert: A life cycle perspective," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(4), pages 1089-1101, August.
    4. Patricia Schneider-Marin & Anne Winkelkotte & Werner Lang, 2022. "Integrating Environmental and Economic Perspectives in Building Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-27, April.
    5. Shu Su & Jingyi Ju & Yujie Ding & Jingfeng Yuan & Peng Cui, 2022. "A Comprehensive Dynamic Life Cycle Assessment Model: Considering Temporally and Spatially Dependent Variations," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-18, October.

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