Sustainability Assessment of a Residential Building using a Life Cycle Assessment Approach

Building and construction industry is responsible for resource scarcity, global warming impacts, land use changes and the loss of bio-diversity, which have direct and indirect socio-economic implications. Sustainable building design is thus inevitable through the selection of highly durable and less...

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Main Authors: Janjua, S., Sarker, Prabir, Biswas, Wahidul
Format: Journal Article
Published: The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering 2019
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73763
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author Janjua, S.
Sarker, Prabir
Biswas, Wahidul
author_facet Janjua, S.
Sarker, Prabir
Biswas, Wahidul
author_sort Janjua, S.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Building and construction industry is responsible for resource scarcity, global warming impacts, land use changes and the loss of bio-diversity, which have direct and indirect socio-economic implications. Sustainable building design is thus inevitable through the selection of highly durable and less energy intensive-materials that could reduce environmental degradation in an economically viable and socially acceptable manner. This paper presents the life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) framework to assess the environmental, social and economic objectives of residential buildings. Two buildings of different material compositions have been used to test this framework. Firstly, the service life of this building has been calculated as durability of building materials play a key role in enhancing resource conservation for the future generations. A factor method has been used to carry out the service life of each component of the building envelope. The minimum estimated service life of building systems is considered as the overall service life of building components. Secondly, a life cycle assessment framework utilising environmental life cycle assessment, life cycle costing and social life cycle assessment have been utilised to determine environmental, economic and social indicators of the studied buildings. All these triple bottom line indicators in this framework have been calculated on an annual basis in order to capture the advantage of increased service life of buildings. This framework will be applied to assess the sustainability performance of alternative buildings for comparative analysis and to find out the most sustainable building option.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-737632019-05-03T01:50:35Z Sustainability Assessment of a Residential Building using a Life Cycle Assessment Approach Janjua, S. Sarker, Prabir Biswas, Wahidul Building and construction industry is responsible for resource scarcity, global warming impacts, land use changes and the loss of bio-diversity, which have direct and indirect socio-economic implications. Sustainable building design is thus inevitable through the selection of highly durable and less energy intensive-materials that could reduce environmental degradation in an economically viable and socially acceptable manner. This paper presents the life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) framework to assess the environmental, social and economic objectives of residential buildings. Two buildings of different material compositions have been used to test this framework. Firstly, the service life of this building has been calculated as durability of building materials play a key role in enhancing resource conservation for the future generations. A factor method has been used to carry out the service life of each component of the building envelope. The minimum estimated service life of building systems is considered as the overall service life of building components. Secondly, a life cycle assessment framework utilising environmental life cycle assessment, life cycle costing and social life cycle assessment have been utilised to determine environmental, economic and social indicators of the studied buildings. All these triple bottom line indicators in this framework have been calculated on an annual basis in order to capture the advantage of increased service life of buildings. This framework will be applied to assess the sustainability performance of alternative buildings for comparative analysis and to find out the most sustainable building option. 2019 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73763 10.3303/CET1972004 The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering fulltext
spellingShingle Janjua, S.
Sarker, Prabir
Biswas, Wahidul
Sustainability Assessment of a Residential Building using a Life Cycle Assessment Approach
title Sustainability Assessment of a Residential Building using a Life Cycle Assessment Approach
title_full Sustainability Assessment of a Residential Building using a Life Cycle Assessment Approach
title_fullStr Sustainability Assessment of a Residential Building using a Life Cycle Assessment Approach
title_full_unstemmed Sustainability Assessment of a Residential Building using a Life Cycle Assessment Approach
title_short Sustainability Assessment of a Residential Building using a Life Cycle Assessment Approach
title_sort sustainability assessment of a residential building using a life cycle assessment approach
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/73763