Sustainable Construction Technologies

Life-Cycle Assessment

Vivian Y. Tam, Khoa N. Le

• Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780128117507
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Construction & Architectural Engineering
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Sustainable Construction Technologies: Life-Cycle Assessment provides practitioners with a tool to help them select technologies that are financially advantageous even though they have a higher initial cost. Chapters provide an overview of LCA and how it can be used in conjunction with other indicators to manage construction. Topics covered include indoor environment quality, energy efficiency, transport, water reuse, materials, land use and ecology, and more. The book presents a valuable tool for construction professionals and researchers that want to apply sustainable construction techniques to their projects. Practitioners will find the international case studies and discussions of worldwide regulation and standards particularly useful.

• Provides a framework for analyzing sustainable construction technologies and economic viability
• Introduces key credit criteria for different sustainable construction technologies
• Covers the most relevant construction areas
• Includes technologies that can be employed during the process of construction, or to the product of the construction process, i.e. buildings
• Analyzes international rating systems and provides supporting case studies

Chapter 1

Introduction

I.M. Chethana S. Illankoon¹, Vivian W.Y. Tam^1,2, Hoda Karimipour¹ and Khoa N. Le¹, ¹School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia, ²College of Civil Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China

Abstract

This chapter introduces life cycle of a building. There are different stages in building life cycle and these can be classified into various aspects. There are managerial and technological decisions to be taken within the building life cycle. Therefore, this chapter provides a classification for building life cycle and the factors to be considered in each stage of building life cycle.

Keywords

Building life-cycle; construction; green building; sustainability

1.1 Introduction

This chapter introduces life cycle of a building. There are different stages in building life cycle and these can be classified into various aspects. There are managerial and technological decisions to be taken within the building life cycle. Therefore, this chapter provides a classification for building life cycle and the factors to be considered in each stage of building life cycle. There are many criteria considered for sustainable buildings or green buildings. With the development of green buildings, a yardstick was required to evaluate green buildings’ performance, (Crawley and Aho, 1999) and therefore in 1990, Building Research Establishment Environment Assessment Method (BREEAM) was established as the first green building assessment tool (Building Research Establishment [BRE], 2018). Ever since there had been lot of tools developed. However, there are seven main criteria used in majority of the green assessments namely; Site, Energy, Water, Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ), Material, Waste and pollution, and Management (Illankoon et al., 2017). The remaining chapters of this book focus on these criteria and the sustainable technologies for respective criteria.

Chapter 2, Sustainability in Project management, of this book focuses on the management approaches for sustainability. This chapter discusses on the innovative approaches of sustainable management and life-cycle assessment. Although conventional buildings consume nearly 40% of primary energy production globally, green buildings substantially reduce energy consumption on a per square foot basis and they also focus on IEQ (MacNaughton et al., 2018). Therefore Chapter 3, Management, discusses the sustainable technologies for IEQ and Chapter 4, Indoor Environmental Quality, focuses on embodied and operational energy. Chapter 5, Life Cycle Energy Consumption of Buildings; Embodied 1 Operational, of this book looks into the novel approach of sustainable procurement and transport of construction material. This chapter discusses on the current approaches, new combinatorial approach of procurement of construction material, and finally discusses on various case studies. Similarly, Chapter 7, Sustainable Procurement and Transport of Construction Materials, also focuses on material, specifically on cement and cement based material, steel, aluminum, insulation, bricks, and ceramic tiles. Chapter 6, Energy: Current Approach, and Chapter 8, Sustainable Water Use in Construction, focus on sustainable water use and emissions, respectively.

These novel and effective technologies need to be adopted into construction to derive results. Therefore, Chapter 9, Material, discusses on the sustainable construction technology adoption in detail. Lean principles in construction are discussed in Chapter 10, Emissions, of the book. Finally, Chapter 11, Sustainable Construction Technology Adoption, illustrates on bridging the sustainable construction technologies and heritage with a novel approach to conserve the built environment.

1.2 Significance of Construction and Building Sector

Construction industry plays a major role in a country’s economy. The construction industry is one of the backbones of the economy of many countries (Cheung et al., 2001). It provides unique products with significant value. There are two main branches of construction industry, namely building sector and the infrastructure development. These two sectors consume many renewable and nonrenewable ecological resources were harvested, extracted, and productively used (Tatari and Kucukvar, 2012). Building sector satisfies certain social amenities such as houses, schools, hotels, religious and cultural centers, recreational facilities, etc. Infrastructure development provides base for economic activities and transactions by means of developing roads, airports, harbor bridges, etc.

Construction industry is different from other industries due to its unique characteristics such as different types of products, stakeholders, processes, and operating environments (Waidyasekara and Silva, 2014). The products are one-off in nature and usually it is developed based on the client’s requirement. Even the procurement of the product is a lengthy process and not an off-the-shelf arrangement. The life span of buildings depend on series of factors such as quality of components, design level, work execution level, indoor environment, outdoor environment, usage conditions, and maintenance level (Langston, 2011). Considering all these facts when assessing the life cycle of a green building Green Building Council of Australia (2015), considers at least a 60-year period of time. Infrastructure development is also a section of construction industry. It has a “knock on” effect on the economic development of a country and it requires public financial resources as well (Kumaraswamy and Zhang, 2001). Further, government expenditure on infrastructure is enormous because it is capital-intensive (Babatunde, 2018). The construction industry is influenced by the government taxes (Zainal et al., 2016) and the economic condition (Tumanyants, 2018).

The design of the building needs to be set up catering the client or the developer’s requirements. Further, there are many decisions to be taken regarding the structure, material, and especially the cost of the building. As mentioned earlier, initial costs for buildings are higher. Therefore, except for iconic structures, all most all the building designs significantly focus on the cost impact. Developers always focus on the initial cost of the building.

Design stage is very crucial for the development of the building in an efficient and effective way. The design of the building has a severe impact toward the better functioning of the building. Apart from that, during this stage the materials are also selected. The selection of materials is very much important as it has a significant impact over the cost as well as the environment. Each year, as an example, building construction around the world alone consumes about 40% of the raw stone, gravel, and sand; about 25% of virgin wood and account for about 40% of the energy; and about 16% of water. (World Watch Institute, 2015). This signifies the impact on environment if the necessary material and better designs are not selected within the design stages.

As mentioned earlier, buildings have longer life spans. When a building functions, it consumes a lot of energy for lighting, air conditioning, water heating, and so on. Further, it also generates emissions in terms of foul air, waste water, carbon dioxide, etc. US Green Building Council Research Committee (2008) indicates that US buildings are responsible for about 38% of CO₂ emissions, about 71% of electricity consumption, about 39% of energy use, about 12% of water consumption, and about 40% of nonindustrial waste. This signifies the impact of the buildings toward the environment and the natural resources.

There are certain social impacts visible in ineffective building designs. Sick building syndrome is one of the mainly discussed topics. It includes series of symptoms such as fatigue, frequent headaches, and dryness in skin among workers in modern office buildings and the World Health It includes series of symptoms such as fatigue, frequent headaches, and dryness in skin among workers (Ghaffarianhoseini et al., 2018) and World Health Organization estimates that between 10% and 30% of the occupants of these buildings are affected by this (Lyles et al., 1991). Wong et al. (2009) carried out a survey to report the frequency of residents getting these symptoms for selected building. According to the results, more 30% of the respondents reported that the symptoms were related to their built environment (Wong et al., 2009). As the name itself suggests, this is medical condition affecting occupants of a building, attributed to unhealthy or stressful factors in the working environment such as fresh air ventilation rates, temperature, humidity, dust, and the microbial content of the air (Burge, 2004), which is basically due to a poor design. Therefore, by now there is a need to develop quality buildings, which are resource efficient, energy efficient, environmentally and socially sustainable.

1.3 Green Buildings and Its Life Cycle

There are a lot of definitions put forward to define green buildings. The most recent and widely used definitions are given in Table 1.1. According to Table 1.1, green buildings are structures that are environmentally friendly with efficient use of energy, water, and other resources and providing a better living and working environment for the occupants.

Table 1.1

Recent Definitions on Green Buildings

References	Definitions
World Wildlife Fund (2015)	Physical structure that uses a design and planning process that is environmentally responsible and resource efficient
US Environment Protection Agency (2014a)	Practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource efficient throughout a building’s life cycle from siting to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation and deconstruction. Further, this practice of green buildings and complement the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort
Robichaud and Anantatmula (2011)	Green building is a philosophy and associated project and construction management practices that seek to: (1) minimize or eliminate impacts on the environment, natural resources, and nonrenewable energy sources to promote the sustainability of built environment; (2) enhance the health, well-being and productivity of occupants and whole communities; (3) cultivate economic development and financial returns for developers and whole communities; and (4) apply life cycle approaches to community planning and development
Hoffman and Henn (2008)	Green building is a term encompassing strategies, techniques and construction products that are less resource intensive or pollution producing than regular construction
US Green Building Council (2007)	Efficient building with savings in energy costs of 20%–50% are common through integrated planning, site orientation, energy-saving technologies, o...