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Worth knowing about LCA and EU’s framework

What is LCA?

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a holistic approach to evaluating the potential environmental impact of a building throughout its entire life cycle. This includes the environmental impact of obtaining raw materials, production of building materials, energy and resource consumption during operation and maintenance, as well as disposal and reuse of building components and materials. The method for calculating LCA is described in the standard EN15978 Sustainability in construction and building - Evaluation of environmental quality of buildings - Calculation method.

Conducting an LCA for a building requires a significant amount of data and information, including quantities and environmental data for all relevant building components. Energy consumption for the building is also included as per the energy frame calculation.

Level(s) requirements to emission

In 2021, the European Commission developed a framework for LCA calculations. The framework includes office and residential buildings and can be applied from conceptual design to as built stage. The framework aims to reduce environmental impacts from buildings and promote life cycle thinking.

There are currently no limit values for CO₂ emissions, but the framework provides a common language of sustainability for buildings, thereby giving actors in the building sector competencies regarding material emissions and contributing to broader European environmental policy objectives in the future.

Assessment period and lifespan

For calculating the climate impact, Level(s) uses a 50-year assessment period. This means that all materials that have a shorter lifespan than 50 years need to be replaced or maintained. Over the 50 years, the building's energy and heat consumption are also included.

Real-Time LCA allows users to choose different assessment periods if they wish to study the significance of materials with long lifetimes or if they want to have parallel calculations that comply with company-specific standards or other countries' varying norms and requirements.

In calculating the climate impact, the replacement of building parts and materials is taken into account, and the determination of lifetimes uses principles established in Level(s) indicator 1.2: Life cycle Global Warming Potential (GWP), Table 4.

Lifecycle phases for construction

In calculating the carbon impact according to Level(s), for new buildings, all phases are included. For major renovation of existing buildings, the "orange" phases are not included. Real-Time LCA is a tool that allows the user to choose whether to calculate emissions in accordance with the documentation of Level(s) framework, but it also allows the inclusion of fewer phases in the calculation. This enables easy parallel calculations that comply with company-specific standards or other countries' varying norms and requirements.

Worth knowing about Real-Time LCA

How does Real-Time LCA comply with legislation and requirements?

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) calculations in Real-Time LCA follow the EN 15978 standard. To document a building’s climate impact in relation to Level(s), a consideration period of 50 years is used, and the following phases are included:

• A1: Raw materials supply*
• A2: Transport*
• A3: Manufacturing*
• A4: Transport*
• A5: Construction installation process*
• B1: Use
• B2: Maintenance
• B3: Repair
• B4: Replacement
• B5: Refurbishment
• B6: Operational energy use
• B7: Operational water use
• C1: De-construction
• C2: Transport
• C3: Waste processing
• C4: Disposal
• D: Reuse, recovery and recycling potential

*Not included for renovation projects.

The climate impact is calculated for the building parts specified in Table 4 of Level(s) indicator 1.2: Life cycle Global Warming Potential (GWP).

What environmental data does Real-Time LCA use?

Real-Time LCA has several options for mapping environmental data to building materials. It is possible to use data from a product-specific Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) of a product that has been used or specified to be used. The EPD follows the standard EN15804 Sustainability of construction works – Environmental product declarations – Core rules for the product category of construction products. Additionally, there are industry-specific EPD’s that describe the average industry product and use representative data.

In Real-Time LCA there is data from EPD International https://www.environdec.com/library (https://www.environdec.com/library), and generic data from the German platform ÖKOBAUDAT https://www.oekobaudat.de/en.html (https://www.oekobaudat.de/en.html), among other data sources. In addition, there is the possibility to enter other EPDs manually.

In Real-Time LCA, data is monitored and updated with changes, additions, and other relevant information at the beginning of each month. The user can at any time see which environmental data is used in the LCA calculations, with full traceability to the source.

Conversion of various unit factors

When using environmental data, special attention must be paid to the conversion between the values that are provided based on a specific unit factor and the unit used to calculate quantities in the building models. Real-Time LCA helps to ensure this, as the conversion is done automatically between multiple units.

Area calculation (sqm)

When calculating the climate impact of a building, its area must be calculated. This includes the heated area, which forms the basis for the energy consumption during the operational phase.

Documentation of LCA

Real-Time LCA ensures that you comply with documentation requirements in accordance with Level(s) framework for Global Warming Potential. This is done through the ability to generate a report with LCA documentation.

Guides

• https://www.bakermckenzie.com/-/media/files/insight/publications/resources/global-sustainable-buildings-guide/global-sustainable-buildings-guide.pdf (https://www.bakermckenzie.com/-/media/files/insight/publications/resources/global-sustainable-buildings-guide/global-sustainable-buildings-guide.pdf)