Life Cycle Assessment of Building Products

New tools increase environmental transparency for verifiable sustainability

Peter J. Arsenault, FAIA, NCARB, LEED AP

Those involved in green building design and construction have recognized for some time that the materials and products used in buildings make a significant environmental impact long before they are ever installed. These impacts can include intensive amounts of embodied energy used to extract raw materials and then manufacture the product. They can also include the associated fossil fuel depletion and carbon footprint of the process, which may contribute to smog, ozone destruction and global climate change. The disposal of products at the end of their service life likewise contributes to environmental impacts through the use of energy to remove and relocate them plus the impact of disposal in landfills, incineration, or other methods. Because of these recognized impacts over the full life of products and materials, there has been increasing interest in finding a reliable method for quantifying, comparing, and documenting the comprehensive environmental impacts related to specific building products, including increased interest and focus on the use of a standardized Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) process within individual product categories. In the interest of encouraging truly greener buildings, the proposed LEED version 4 (anticipated mid-year 2013) and other green certification programs are using LCA as a more comprehensive tool to gauge and compare the environmental footprint of building materials and products.

The Emerging Life Cycle Assessment Process

A life cycle assessment (LCA) is an analysis of every component or phase of a product's manufacture and use. The life cycle begins with the so-called “cradle” of the product - the extraction of raw material and transportation to the manufacturing site, which taken together is referred to as the extraction phase. Next the manufacturing phase takes over where labor, equipment, and energy are used to create the building material or product. Once ready, it is deemed to be at the “gate” and ready for shipping. The finished products move into the construction phase by being transported to the jobsite and incorporated into the building construction. After installation and the building is placed into service, the products or materials live out their use phase, presumably doing successfully all of the things intended and holding up as expected over time. Finally, at the end of the useful service life of either the building or the product, then the end-of-life (so-called “grave”) phase emerges where decisions about disposing, recycling, or re-using are made.

Photo courtesy of CalStar Products, Inc.

Historically, the evaluation of environmental impacts over the life of a product relied upon manufacturer claims, with some additional research needed perhaps on specific aspects of a product's composition and manufacture. Now, independently conducted life cycle assessments have emerged as important tools to creating genuine transparency for comparing the true environmental attributes between similar products. This has come about through the development of several fundamental aspects which are basic to an understanding of the LCA process:

International Standards

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) (www.iso.org) has become recognized around the world for establishing LCA standards and rules. This organization, while an independent body, is actually a network of national standards organizations from many countries. In the United States, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is the member body that participates in and contributes to the standards that are promulgated under ISO. A process of global consensus is employed for these voluntary standards with the intentions of creating state-of-the-art specifications for products, services, and good practice, helping to make industries more efficient and effective, and helping to break down barriers to international trade. Since the founding of the ISO in 1947, they have published more than 19,500 International Standards covering almost all aspects of technology and business.

The life cycle phases of any material or product: extraction of raw materials, manufacturing into a finished product, construction, use in the building, and end of life disposal or recycling/re-use. Image courtesy of CalStar Products, Inc.

The published standards in the ISO 14044 family specify requirements and provide guidelines for life cycle assessment (LCA), including: definition of the goal and scope of the LCA; the life cycle inventory analysis (LCI); the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA); the life cycle interpretation, reporting, and critical review of the LCA; limitations of the LCA; relationship between the LCA components; and conditions for use of value choices and optional elements. In much the same way that building products are tested by independent laboratories for any range of other characteristics, an ISO-compliant LCA is meant to be conducted by an independent third party following the requirements of the standard, thus ensuring unbiased results and confidence by end users of the results.

Impact Categories

Environmental impacts are organized into different categories to describe the effects during a product's life cycle (or individual phases) on specific areas of concern. These impacts include things like fossil fuel depletion (embodied energy), global warming (carbon footprint), water depletion, metal depletion, and various air pollution impacts. The ISO standard requires that specific environmental impact categories must be measured and included in the LCA and subsequently reported on.

Product Category Rules (PCR)

A product category rule (PCR) is the standardized method for conducting and reporting the results of a life cycle assessment for a specific type of product within the ISO guidelines. The PCR ensures that all products in a certain category (such as concrete products or metal roofing) are measured the same way in each life cycle phase and that environmental impacts are quantified in the same way for that category. The PCR defines the functional unit measured (e.g., one cubic yard of concrete or 100 square feet of roofing material) so equal comparisons can be made between individual products. PCRs are developed using a consensus-based, collaborative, transparent process by industry experts and stakeholders, following ISO guidelines. They are then verified by an expert review panel. At present, there are not a large number of PCRs since they can be expensive to develop; however, this is starting to change, and more PCRs are being developed each year for different categories of building materials and products.

Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)

Once a product has completed an independent LCA following the appropriate product category rule, if appropriate, then an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) can be created by a manufacturer to document their overall sustainability and report the results of the verified LCA. This document is verified by a third-party expert and registered by an EPD program operator such as UL Environment (ULE) or the Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS). EPDs enable architects, building owners, and other members of the design team to make accurate direct comparisons of the environmental attributes—such as carbon footprint and embodied energy—of similar products. Hence, products can be assessed when they may have the same traditional attributes (e.g. strength, durability, cost) but need to be selected and specified based on the lowest environmental impact of interest.

Before environmental considerations became paramount, architects typically chose products based on other specific features such as aesthetics, technical performance, and price. EPDs provide more information for consideration. For instance, in addition to selecting a product based on price and color, an architect can now also choose the product with the lowest carbon footprint, or embodied energy by directly comparing products' environmental impacts as outlined in their EPDs.

When it comes to reporting impact categories in the EPDs, the ISO requires eight categories at a minimum with the PCRs defining additional impact categories, if any, that must be included. Of course, EPDs can always report more impact categories than required by the PCR. Architects should consider which impact categories are of greatest interest for their projects. For instance, while carbon footprint is likely always a concern, in the arid southwest impact on water resources also might be of particular concern.

SMaRT© Sustainable Product Certification

Beyond the ISO standard, a more stringent product certification program has been developed in this country known as the Sustainable Materials Rating Technology (SMaRT©) Consensus Sustainable Product Standard©. This ANSI standard acts as a PCR to define a category of certified sustainable products. It was developed by the Institute for Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS) and uses environmental, social, & economic criteria applied to manufactured products. (mts.sustainableproducts.com) To achieve SMaRT© certification, an ISO-compliant life cycle analysis is performed but some impact categories above and beyond those required by ISO must also be included, mostly related to human health and toxicity of materials used. Once complete, the LCA results are used together with other rating criteria to generate a LEED-style certification that is based on earning points in 6 categories:

• Safe for Public Health & Environment (PHE)
• Renewable Energy & Energy Reduction (RE&ER)
• Biobased or Recycled Materials (MATLS)
• Facility or Company Based (MFG)
• Reclamation, Sustainable Reuse & End of Life Management (EOL)
• Innovation in Manufacturing (IM)

Depending on the number of points received out of the 173 total that are possible, the product can be certified as follows:

Sustainable: 28-40 pts
Sustainable Silver: 41-60 pts
Sustainable Gold: 61-89 pts
Sustainable Platinum: 90-173 pts

Using the information from the LCA and the SMaRT© certification, the true sustainability and green attributes of a material or product become transparent and readily discernible, allowing for an informed assessment of the rated item and comparison between similar ones.

It is important to recognize that all of the parts of the process as discussed above are inherently tied together. Product category rules (PCRs) either created for a specific product type or utilizing the universal SMaRT PCR, are developed following the guidelines authored by ISO. A life cycle assessment (LCA) is then performed by an independent entity for a specific product or material according to the PCR. The PCR will identify the specific minimum impact categories that must be measured and accounted for. The results of the LCA are then used to publish an environmental product declaration (EPD) that comes from the manufacturer. When architects, engineers, or others request this EPD, then, it is a representation that the proper process has been followed to produce it. It is the EPD that ultimately is used by the design team to assess different products and materials for sustainability and to provide documentation for green building certification programs.

LCAs and EPDs have long represented the future of product evaluation for sustainable projects and materials. With growing calls for product transparency and the role transparency will likely play in LEED version 4, these tools are beginning to take their rightful place in the mainstream selection of materials. LCAs and EPDs provide standardized methods for verifying manufacturers' environmental claims and allow for accurate side-by-side product comparisons. As such, LCAs and EPDs are possibly the best way to ensure true green construction and prevent “greenwashing.”

Life Cycle Boundaries

Since EPDs present the results of the LCA, it is necessary to understand which phases of a product life cycle are included or specifically excluded for comparison purposes in the LCA and EPD report. The term “boundaries” is used to categorize the grouping of the life cycle phases, with EPDs typically showing information with one of the following three sets of boundaries:

Cradle-to-Gate

The scope of this LCA considers raw material extraction and its transportation plus the manufacturing process, including energy to create the plant's operational energy. In essence, it analyzes the product from raw material (cradle) to the point where it is ready to be shipped (gate). In basic terms, this is the portion of the life cycle that manufacturers have the most control over and can most accurately provide information on.

The typical life cycles of concrete are shown in this diagram with the boundary of “cradle to gate” indicated. If the transportation of that concrete were added to the analysis, it would become “cradle to job.” If the entire life of the concrete was being assessed, it would include all phases including construction, use, and end of life, making it a cradle-to-grave LCA. Image courtesy of CalStar Products, Inc.

Cradle-to-Job

This version of an LCA accounts for everything in the cradle-to-gate assessment and adds in the transportation to the jobsite. Obviously there is some variation here given the distance of the manufacturing location to any given jobsite, so some assumptions need be made. There will also be differences in the weight or size of different products that will impact the transportation impacts. Nonetheless, typical shipping conditions can be identified in PCRs that allow reasonable comparisons, and the maximum distances can be determined based on the number of plants and their geographic locations. For example, products that are available from multiple plants around the USA are likely to have less jobsite transportation impact than those made only in one overseas location.

Cradle-to-Grave

This is a full LCA that addresses all life cycle phases beginning with cradle-to-job described above plus construction/ installation, use in the building over time, and the end-of-life phases. Some generalizations and average conditions obviously need to be assumed for the later phases since they are speculative about the future, but it is again the role of a PCR to help identify and narrow down those choices so fair comparisons can be made.

The boundary sets described above are an important element in life cycle assessment and associated EPDs. The PCR specifies what boundaries should be used in the LCA for measurement (such as cradle-to-gate or cradle-to-grave). Simply put, it defines where the assessment starts and stops. Does the LCA consider the electricity used to power the plant and also the energy required to create that electricity? Does the EPD include cradle-to-grave impacts (all life cycle phases) or only cradle-to-gate impacts (raw material extraction and manufacturing phases) but not construction, use, or end-of-life phases? Any of these may be valid, but it is important to know what set of boundaries is being used when looking at different EPDs. From an architect's perspective, the most versatile EPDs present impacts by each of the life cycle phases, which allow us to compare environmental impacts with appropriate boundaries in mind. This is important if one manufacturer has published a cradle-to-gate EPD and another has published a cradle-to-grave EPD. In this situation, for a meaningful comparison the user should look at cradle-to-gate impacts, as that is the information available for both products.

Comparing Green Building Products

Design decisions are often made early regarding the basic materials and products that become part of the building. The best way to ensure that a green construction system is being used and to compare green building products objectively is to request EPDs right up front during the early design process. This is particularly true when considering basic products or materials such as comparing a concrete building to a masonry building or whether to use steel, aluminum, or other metals. Later in the design and documentation process, it is also appropriate to request EPDs from different manufacturers for the same product type to identify any specific differences between one compared to another. It is also now quite appropriate to specify products based on specific declared environmental criteria such as limits on carbon footprint or embodied energy. And of course, making EPDs a required submittal in the project specifications is the best way to verify that the materials used in construction match those specified.

Regardless of the points in time that the comparisons are done, the ideal method is to review multiple EPDs at once and compare them side by side. For a true “apples to apples” comparison, it is important that each of EPD is based on the same PCR since that will set the guidelines and assumptions of the LCA as well as define the functional unit of the material. It is also critical that the EPDs each address the same LCA boundaries so that products can truly be compared on an “apples to apples” basis and selected based on having the lowest actual environmental impacts.

Obviously the use of EPDs makes the green comparison of products rather straightforward and informs decision-making throughout the design and construction process. However, what do we do when we need to compare products where EPDs are not available? In that case, we need to look at the analysis of materials provided by generic LCAs. The best known and commonly available way to do that is to use the BEES Online (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability) database developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Engineering Laboratory. This is a very useful tool that can be used for generic LCAs based on consensus standards and is designed to be practical, flexible, and transparent. BEES Online, aimed at designers, builders, and product manufacturers, includes actual environmental and economic performance data for 230 building products. BEES measures the environmental performance of building products by using the life cycle assessment approach specified in the ISO 14040 series of standards. All stages in the life of a product are analyzed: raw material acquisition, manufacture, transportation, installation, use, and recycling and waste management. Economic performance is also measured using the ASTM standard life-cycle cost method, which covers the costs of initial investment, replacement, operation, maintenance and repair, and disposal. Environmental and economic performances are combined into an overall performance measure using the ASTM standard for Multi-Attribute Decision Analysis. For the entire BEES analysis, building products are defined and classified according to the ASTM standard classification for building elements known as UNIFORMAT II.

In some situations, there might be one EPD published for a specific product and generic industry data might be available for other products. For example, there exists an EPD for fly ash brick, where a formal LCA was conducted by Perkins+Will. There are not yet any EPDs for clay brick even though both are in the same product category. However, a generic LCA for clay brick exists in the NIST BEES Online database. The data from the fly ash brick EPD can be compared to the NIST BEES Online data to draw some conclusions. First, however, the architect needs to delve into the data a little bit to understand the boundaries used by both the fly ash brick LCA (as presented in the EPD) and the clay brick LCA to make sure a meaningful, accurate comparison is made. In this case, the assumptions are the same for both types of bricks through the cradle-to-gate phases, but change in the jobsite-to-grave phases. Thus, the meaningful comparison is made using cradle-to-gate boundaries. The fly ash brick manufacturer reported environmental impacts by individual life cycle phase, so determining the cradle-to-gate impact from the fly ash brick EPD is relatively easy. In this way the two products can be properly compared.

In this example, a manufacturer-commissioned LCA and Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is available broken down by all life cycle phases. When comparing that EPD to a generic LCA for clay brick, however, only the cradle-to-gate comparison is valid since the assumptions and calculations are not equal for the remaining phases. Images courtesy of CalStar Products, Inc.

Even in the absence of EPDs or LCAs, it is important to gather environmental data for the products in your buildings. When no life cycle data (or questionable life cycle data) are available, it can be worth contacting product manufacturers to ask questions regarding environmental impact. Even a high-level understanding of a manufacturing process can provide some insight into environmental impact. For instance, if a product requires days of high temperature heat treatment, an architect or designer can infer that the product likely has a high carbon footprint and embodied energy. If a product requires days of washing, there is likely a large water impact from the product that can be inferred. Such inferred information can lead to the more appropriate selections that will play a significant role in reducing the environmental footprint of buildings before a single user takes occupancy. Though it can take some effort now, as stakeholders increasingly ask for environmental impact information more will become available. As the demand for independent, standardized, verified product transparency information grows, the comparison process will certainly get easier and easier.

An EPD can report the relevant environmental impacts of each of the life cycle phases of a product both in numeric tabular form and in graphic form. Images courtesy of CalStar Products

Green Certifications and LCA

The growing availability and use of LCAs and EPDs as a means to assess and compare different materials and products for green buildings has led to their growing recognition as appropriate for use in different green building and product certifications. These certifications set a performance standard and act as a benchmark for what acceptable or preferred levels should be sought in regards to environmental impacts. A summary of those certifications and their incorporation of LCA is as follows:

LEED 2009

The concept of using LCAs and EPDs is not entirely new to the LEED® rating system as developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). In the current version of LEED 2009 in the Materials and Resources (MR) category, pilot credits have been available under MRpc52 for use of an EPD in at least 20 permanently installed products in a building. This pilot credit has required at least a cradle-to-gate scope and allows the use of product-specific or industry-wide (generic) declarations. It also requires that the 20 products be sourced from at least five different manufacturers.

In addition to this pilot MR credit, Innovation in Design (ID) credits have been made available for using products with a SMaRT Certification. A Credit Interpretation Request (CIR) has been issued in regards to the SMaRT Certification, and the determination has been made by USGBC that since the certification “encourages innovation through product improvement” it is acceptable for an innovation credit provided proper documentation is provided in the LEED application. That documentation needs to show that the percentage of SMaRT certified materials must equal at least 2.5 percent of the total materials cost. The contribution to the cost analysis depends on the level of certification, with Platinum projects counting double, silver half and gold 100 percent.

LEED v4

The latest version of LEED has been in development for several years and is anticipated to be released sometime during 2013. The Materials and Resources (MR) section is proposed to have substantial revisions such that points that used to be available for regional materials and recycled content are being rolled into the points available for LCAs and EPDs. Happily, the USGBC is not asking project design teams to conduct LCAs or to become LCA experts. Instead, the project team will be able to request an EPD (or perhaps another approved form of reporting) that discloses the required LCA-based information. In essence, LEED version 4 will ask product manufacturers to gather the life cycle information on their products and to disclose relevant portions of that information in the standard EPD format. The new relevant credits affect four out of the five MR credits beyond the prerequisites and can earn up to 11 points in the process as follows:

MRc1: Building life cycle impact reduction - up to 5 points

MRc2: Building product disclosure and optimization - environmental product declarations - up to 2 points

MRc3: Building product disclosure and optimization - sourcing of raw materials - up to 2 points

MRc4: Building product disclosure and optimization - material ingredients - up to 2 points

In addition to earning points in this revamped MR section of LEED v. 4, an Innovation in Design credit remains available for use of products with SMaRT Certification.

SMaRT Sustainable Product Certification

We have mentioned this program previously, but some more specifics are worth pointing out. First, it is a consensus-based certification that has been developed by industry experts and thought leaders. It requires environmental excellence in a variety of impact categories that go beyond those required by ISO. For example, no Stockholm Chemical Persistent Organic Pollutants are allowed (CFCs, pesticides, etc.). It also requires a full LCA, energy inventory, manufacturer social indicator reporting, and indications on product durability. Qualification points are earned in each of the categories and levels of recognition obtained accordingly.

Note that under the SMaRT program, EPDs alone are not a statement of environmental superiority. Instead they are statements of transparency that show quantification of the environmental impacts of a product. SMaRT Certification is, however, recognized as a statement of environmental superiority due to its extremely rigorous and comprehensive requirements. In serving as a general-purpose PCR, it also defines how products can be classified and reported under an EPD:

• Type I: Environmentally preferable product—product environmental superiority
• Type III: ISO-compliant LCA EPD—product transparency

Depending on the number of points that are earned, the further designations of sustainability are conferred (i.e., Sustainable, Sustainable Silver, Sustainable Gold, or Sustainable Platinum).

Architecture 2030 Challenge for Products

The Architecture 2030 organization is known for its call to action by architects and others to reduce the use of fossil fuels in buildings down to zero by the year 2030. That's the year by which climate scientists tell us we need to make radical progress with respect to reducing the amount of carbon we emit into the atmosphere if we want to be able to mitigate climate change. Therefore, the embodied carbon footprint of building materials and products is also an important part of the needed action. The Architecture 2030 Challenge for Products focuses solely on reducing carbon footprint compared to a product category average. It recognizes that elimination is not realistic but calls for cutting the carbon footprint of products fully in half by the year 2030. Obviously, the use of LCA and EPDs are the way to objectively and fully gauge the progress any product manufacturer is making in that regard and therefore can inform architects and others when seeking to specify products with the lowest carbon footprint.

The Architecture 2030 Challenge for Products calls for a reduction in the carbon footprint of building products compared to the average in their category over the next 17 years. Chart courtesy of Architecture 2030

The significance of this action between now and 2030 cannot be understated. Roughly speaking, through the overall lifetime of an entire building it is the building operations that will account for approximately 75 percent of energy use and carbon footprint, leaving about 25 percent embodied in the products. However, if you look at the same building in the near term, the energy and corresponding carbon footprint embodied in the building materials is a much higher ratio. This comes from the simple observation that all of the CO₂ emissions embodied in products have already been released prior to the building ever being operational, and it can take years for the emissions from operations (i.e., energy use) to catch up. In fact, the typical building can operate on the order of 15 or 20 years before its operations match the amount of embodied carbon in the products that went into it. So, a building constructed in 2010 could find in the year 2030 that its total carbon footprint up to that point in its life is made up of only 55 percent from operations while a whopping 45 percent is still attributed to the products. Hence, there is a dramatic need to reduce the carbon footprint not only of the buildings, but the products as well.

While building operations account for most of the carbon footprint of a building after 50 years, it can take 15 to 20 years before those operations match the amount of carbon embodied in the building products. Chart courtesy of Architecture 2030

Certification Example

To help illustrate how a building product can interface with these different certifications using a life cycle assessment and EPD report, let's look again at the example of the life cycle of fly ash brick. Following the appropriate PCR the typical sequence of its life cycle and inherent assumptions looks something like this:

• Cradle: Extraction and transportation of raw materials includes quarrying of sand and reclamation of fly ash plus transportation of both to the manufacturing site.
• Manufacturing/gate: Material processed using reduced amounts of energy compared to conventional clay masonry; finished material ready to be loaded onto trucks for delivery to job.
• Construction/jobsite: Transportation to jobsite; installation at building, including the mortar needed to install the bricks.
• Building Use: Service life of brick in building, including tuck-pointing the mortar once.
• End-of-life: Building demolition and recycling of some amount of material.

The impact table that results from the LCA and is reported in the EPD will show the specifics of the environmental impacts of this product through all phases of its life cycle. If a comparison were to be made just on the cradle-to-gate phases against clay masonry, then the corresponding values could be compared and assessed to determine which product held less embodied energy and had a smaller carbon footprint. The product in our example also qualifies for SMaRT certification, so it would contribute to the following certifications:

• LEED — MR points would be earned based on the results of an ISO-compliant LCA that was carried out and the third-party-verified EPD. It would also contribute to an ID point for SMaRT products.
• Architecture 2030 — The EPD results show an 84 percent reduction in carbon footprint, compared to conventional clay brick. This means that it meets the Architecture 2030 Product Challenge goal, not just for the current year (35 percent reduction by 2015), but it already exceeds the goal for 2030 (50 percent or better reduction in carbon footprint).
• SMaRT — In our example, the fly ash brick achieves very high marks under the SMaRT program earning Sustainable Platinum certification.

A comparison of both the embodied energy and carbon footprint of fly ash brick compared to clay brick. Note that the fly ash brick information is based on an EPD while the clay brick information is based on generic BEES Online data but shows a significant difference in environmental impacts in both cases. Charts and image courtesy of CalStar Products

This is just one example of course, but it shows how the use of LCAs and EPDs can help identify the true nature of different products, make their comparison much more direct, and contribute directly to green building certifications.

The following case study demonstrates the process of using EPDs for product specification:

 

Hancock Elementary School, Kiln, Mississippi

Photos courtesy of EGH Architects Architect: EGH Architects, PA Contractor: RCCI, Inc. Gross Area: 64,010 SF Cost: $13,000,000 ($2M FEMA 361) Anticipated completion: 2013 Anticipated LEED certification: GOLD Architect Sally Zahner didn't have the luxury of spending more for environmentally friendly products in the new elementary school in Kiln, Miss. Yet through smart decisions and creative designs, Hancock Elementary is on track to achieve LEED Gold certification upon its completion in 2013. Product life cycle assessment was one of the many tools Zahner used to ensure the sustainability and viability of the structure. The 64,000-square-foot school replaces an existing 50-year-old structure that was riddled with mold and crumbling in the coastal environment. The project team saved funds by capitalizing on the existing site and recovering 94 percent of the demolition waste. Zahner then employed product comparison tools for several category specifications. In comparing floor coverings, analyses showed vinyl composite tile and bio-based tile were comparable on cost and aesthetics, and both were local materials. However, bio-based tile was found to have significant advantages with respect to recycled and renewable content. In comparing fly ash brick to traditional clay brick, again Zahner found comparable pricing and looks, but selected fly ash brick for its higher recycled content, 84 percent lower carbon footprint, and 81 percent lower energy use. With the brick, Zahner was able to use a published EPD as the basis for information and comparison. For the floor covering, she requested information from the manufacturer about raw material content and other environmental attributes. While this level of product investigation required some additional work, the resulting decisions provided for better green building performance and documentation that was used to obtain additional LEED credits.

 

Conclusion

When designing green buildings, architects, engineers, and others engaged in the process have needed reliable data and solid comparative tools to use. The LCA process for products provides such a process and serves as a reference tool against which different products and materials can be compared. Benchmarking based on certification standards and quantification of the product's environmental impact is becoming necessary elements of green building design because they provide a truly transparent method of making apples-to-apples product comparisons. These accurate measurements of the environmental impacts of products and materials enable designers to reduce the overall environmental impact of the building or structure in which they are used. Therefore, this quantification and benchmarking comparison through the use of LCAs that are based on the appropriate Product Category Rules and produce reliable Environmental Product Declarations is quickly becoming the next step in green building design.

As has been often observed, if you don't measure it, you can't manage it! In this case, if you don't use the tools that quantify the environmental impacts of products, you can't design a building that is verifiably green and sustainable.

Peter J. Arsenault, FAIA, NCARB, LEED-AP practices, consults, and writes about sustainable design and practice solutions nationwide. www.linkedin.com/in/pjaarch

CalStar Products has reinvented masonry to make it more sustainable and more affordable. Our masonry products represent a significant improvement in environmental performance over fired clay and concrete products including 37% recycled content, 84% smaller carbon footprint and up to 81% less embodied energy. www.calstarproducts.com

 

This course earns LEED BD+C credits