IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v6y2013i8p3901-3921d27706.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Use of LCA as a Tool for Building Ecodesign. A Case Study of a Low Energy Building in Spain

Author

Listed:
  • Ignacio Zabalza

    (Research Centre for Energy Resources and Consumption (CIRCE), Campus Río Ebro, University of Zaragoza, Mariano Esquillor, 15–E50018 Zaragoza, Spain)

  • Sabina Scarpellini

    (Research Centre for Energy Resources and Consumption (CIRCE), Campus Río Ebro, University of Zaragoza, Mariano Esquillor, 15–E50018 Zaragoza, Spain)

  • Alfonso Aranda

    (Research Centre for Energy Resources and Consumption (CIRCE), Campus Río Ebro, University of Zaragoza, Mariano Esquillor, 15–E50018 Zaragoza, Spain)

  • Eva Llera

    (Research Centre for Energy Resources and Consumption (CIRCE), Campus Río Ebro, University of Zaragoza, Mariano Esquillor, 15–E50018 Zaragoza, Spain)

  • Alberto Jáñez

    (Research Centre for Energy Resources and Consumption (CIRCE), Campus Río Ebro, University of Zaragoza, Mariano Esquillor, 15–E50018 Zaragoza, Spain)

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how to achieve energy savings in the construction and operation of buildings by promoting the use of life cycle assessment techniques in the design for new buildings and for refurbishment. The paper aims to draw on the application of a specific methodology for low energy consumption, integrated planning, environmental performance evaluation of buildings, and design for sustainability and LCA techniques applied to buildings. The ENergy Saving through promotion of LIfe Cycle assessment in buildings (ENSLIC) methodology based on LCA for use in an integral planning process has been promoted to stakeholders who require a means to optimize the environmental performance of buildings. Feedback from the stakeholders has facilitated the creation of simplified LCA guidelines, a systematic approach guiding the user through the alternative options regarding software choices, their strengths and weaknesses, the databases available, the usefulness of different indicators, aggregation, definition of limits and options for simplifying the process. As a result, this paper presents the applied results of a case study where this methodology is implemented serving as an energy savings evaluation tool for decision makers, end-users, professionals involved in the different stages of construction, etc. Finally, it is demonstrated how LCA can facilitate comparisons between different buildings, showing the influence of all variables on a building’s life cycle environmental impact and showing the potential for energy savings. Removing market barriers to sustainable construction is actually stricter and this is good news for promoting higher energy efficiency in buildings.

Suggested Citation

  • Ignacio Zabalza & Sabina Scarpellini & Alfonso Aranda & Eva Llera & Alberto Jáñez, 2013. "Use of LCA as a Tool for Building Ecodesign. A Case Study of a Low Energy Building in Spain," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(8), pages 1-21, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:6:y:2013:i:8:p:3901-3921:d:27706
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/6/8/3901/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/6/8/3901/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anna Laura Pisello & Michael Bobker & Franco Cotana, 2012. "A Building Energy Efficiency Optimization Method by Evaluating the Effective Thermal Zones Occupancy," Energies, MDPI, vol. 5(12), pages 1-22, December.
    2. Cassandra L. Thiel & Nicole Campion & Amy E. Landis & Alex K. Jones & Laura A. Schaefer & Melissa M. Bilec, 2013. "A Materials Life Cycle Assessment of a Net-Zero Energy Building," Energies, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-17, February.
    3. Yohanis, Y.G. & Norton, B., 2002. "Life-cycle operational and embodied energy for a generic single-storey office building in the UK," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 77-92.
    4. Malmqvist, Tove & Glaumann, Mauritz & Scarpellini, Sabina & Zabalza, Ignacio & Aranda, Alfonso & Llera, Eva & Díaz, Sergio, 2011. "Life cycle assessment in buildings: The ENSLIC simplified method and guidelines," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1900-1907.
    5. Nässén, Jonas & Holmberg, John & Wadeskog, Anders & Nyman, Madeleine, 2007. "Direct and indirect energy use and carbon emissions in the production phase of buildings: An input–output analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1593-1602.
    6. Cho, Young Sang & Kim, Jeom Han & Hong, Seong Uk & Kim, Yuri, 2012. "LCA application in the optimum design of high rise steel structures," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 3146-3153.
    7. Chen, T.Y & Burnett, J & Chau, C.K, 2001. "Analysis of embodied energy use in the residential building of Hong Kong," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 323-340.
    8. Susanna Toller & Anders Wadeskog & Göran Finnveden & Tove Malmqvist & Annica Carlsson, 2011. "Energy Use and Environmental Impacts of the Swedish Building and Real Estate Management Sector," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 15(3), pages 394-404, June.
    9. Castell, Albert & Menoufi, Karim & de Gracia, Alvaro & Rincón, Lídia & Boer, Dieter & Cabeza, Luisa F., 2013. "Life Cycle Assessment of alveolar brick construction system incorporating phase change materials (PCMs)," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 600-608.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maghsoud Amiri & Mohammad Hashemi-Tabatabaei & Mohammad Ghahremanloo & Mehdi Keshavarz-Ghorabaee & Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas & Arturas Kaklauskas, 2021. "Evaluating Life Cycle of Buildings Using an Integrated Approach Based on Quantitative-Qualitative and Simplified Best-Worst Methods (QQM-SBWM)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-28, April.
    2. Zhuyuan Xue & Hongbo Liu & Qinxiao Zhang & Jingxin Wang & Jilin Fan & Xia Zhou, 2019. "The Impact Assessment of Campus Buildings Based on a Life Cycle Assessment–Life Cycle Cost Integrated Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-24, December.
    3. Rui Jiang & Rongrong Li, 2017. "Decomposition and Decoupling Analysis of Life-Cycle Carbon Emission in China’s Building Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-18, May.
    4. Antonio Ángel Rodríguez Serrano & Santiago Porras Álvarez, 2016. "Life Cycle Assessment in Building: A Case Study on the Energy and Emissions Impact Related to the Choice of Housing Typologies and Construction Process in Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-29, March.
    5. Edward Majewski & Anna Komerska & Jerzy Kwiatkowski & Agata Malak-Rawlikowska & Adam Wąs & Piotr Sulewski & Marlena Gołaś & Kinga Pogodzińska & Jean-Loup Lecoeur & Barbara Tocco & Áron Török & Michele, 2020. "Are Short Food Supply Chains More Environmentally Sustainable than Long Chains? A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of the Eco-Efficiency of Food Chains in Selected EU Countries," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-26, September.
    6. Wang, Ping & Wang, Jinman & Qin, Qian & Wang, Hongdan, 2017. "Life cycle assessment of magnetized fly-ash compound fertilizer production: A case study in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 706-713.
    7. Serik Tokbolat & Farnush Nazipov & Jong R. Kim & Ferhat Karaca, 2019. "Evaluation of the Environmental Performance of Residential Building Envelope Components," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-10, December.
    8. Francesco Pomponi & Bernardino D’Amico & Alice M. Moncaster, 2017. "A Method to Facilitate Uncertainty Analysis in LCAs of Buildings," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-15, April.
    9. Adriana Estokova & Marcela Ondova & Martina Wolfova & Alena Paulikova & Stanislav Toth, 2019. "Examination of Bearing Walls Regarding Their Environmental Performance," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-27, January.
    10. Milena Stevanovic & Karen Allacker & Stéphane Vermeulen, 2019. "Development of an Approach to Assess the Life Cycle Environmental Impacts and Costs of General Hospitals through the Analysis of a Belgian Case," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-18, February.
    11. Gemina Quest & Rosalie Arendt & Christian Klemm & Vanessa Bach & Janik Budde & Peter Vennemann & Matthias Finkbeiner, 2022. "Integrated Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Power and Heat Supply for a Neighborhood: A Case Study of Herne, Germany," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-21, August.
    12. Joanna Rucińska & Anna Komerska & Jerzy Kwiatkowski, 2020. "Preliminary Study on the GWP Benchmark of Office Buildings in Poland Using the LCA Approach," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(13), pages 1-18, June.
    13. Rongrong Li & Rui Jiang, 2017. "Moving Low-Carbon Construction Industry in Jiangsu Province: Evidence from Decomposition and Decoupling Models," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-14, June.
    14. Ionel-Sorinel Vasilca & Madlena Nen & Oana Chivu & Valentin Radu & Cezar-Petre Simion & Nicolae Marinescu, 2021. "The Management of Environmental Resources in the Construction Sector: An Empirical Model," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-19, April.
    15. Fabio Magrassi & Adriana Del Borghi & Michela Gallo & Carlo Strazza & Michela Robba, 2016. "Optimal Planning of Sustainable Buildings: Integration of Life Cycle Assessment and Optimization in a Decision Support System (DSS)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-15, June.
    16. Matjaž Denac & Matevž Obrecht & Gregor Radonjič, 2018. "Current and potential ecodesign integration in small and medium enterprises: Construction and related industries," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(7), pages 825-837, November.
    17. Trevino-Martinez, Samuel & Sawhney, Rapinder & Shylo, Oleg, 2022. "Energy-carbon footprint optimization in sequence-dependent production scheduling," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 315(C).
    18. Petrovic, Bojana & Myhren, Jonn Are & Zhang, Xingxing & Wallhagen, Marita & Eriksson, Ola, 2019. "Life cycle assessment of a wooden single-family house in Sweden," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 251(C), pages 1-1.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dixit, Manish K., 2017. "Life cycle embodied energy analysis of residential buildings: A review of literature to investigate embodied energy parameters," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 390-413.
    2. 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.
    3. Malmqvist, Tove & Glaumann, Mauritz & Scarpellini, Sabina & Zabalza, Ignacio & Aranda, Alfonso & Llera, Eva & Díaz, Sergio, 2011. "Life cycle assessment in buildings: The ENSLIC simplified method and guidelines," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1900-1907.
    4. Stephan, André & Stephan, Laurent, 2014. "Reducing the total life cycle energy demand of recent residential buildings in Lebanon," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 618-637.
    5. Georgiadou, Maria Christina & Hacking, Theophilus & Guthrie, Peter, 2012. "A conceptual framework for future-proofing the energy performance of buildings," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 145-155.
    6. Chandratilake, S.R. & Dias, W.P.S., 2013. "Sustainability rating systems for buildings: Comparisons and correlations," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 22-28.
    7. Dixit, Manish K. & Culp, Charles H. & Fernández-Solís, Jose L., 2013. "System boundary for embodied energy in buildings: A conceptual model for definition," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 153-164.
    8. Panagiotis Chastas & Theodoros Theodosiou & Karolos J. Kontoleon & Dimitrios Bikas, 2017. "The Effect of Embodied Impact on the Cost-Optimal Levels of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings: A Case Study of a Residential Building in Thessaloniki, Greece," Energies, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-22, May.
    9. Rai, Deepak & Sodagar, Behzad & Fieldson, Rosi & Hu, Xiao, 2011. "Assessment of CO2 emissions reduction in a distribution warehouse," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 2271-2277.
    10. Rauf, Abdul & Crawford, Robert H., 2015. "Building service life and its effect on the life cycle embodied energy of buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 140-148.
    11. Malmqvist, Tove & Glaumann, Mauritz & Svenfelt, Åsa & Carlson, Per-Olof & Erlandsson, Martin & Andersson, Johnny & Wintzell, Helene & Finnveden, Göran & Lindholm, Torbjörn & Malmström, Tor-Göran, 2011. "A Swedish environmental rating tool for buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1893-1899.
    12. Cabeza, Luisa F. & Rincón, Lídia & Vilariño, Virginia & Pérez, Gabriel & Castell, Albert, 2014. "Life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle energy analysis (LCEA) of buildings and the building sector: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 394-416.
    13. Chau, C.K. & Hui, W.K. & Ng, W.Y. & Powell, G., 2012. "Assessment of CO2 emissions reduction in high-rise concrete office buildings using different material use options," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 22-34.
    14. Golnaz Mohebbi & Ali Bahadori-Jahromi & Marco Ferri & Anastasia Mylona, 2021. "The Role of Embodied Carbon Databases in the Accuracy of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Calculations for the Embodied Carbon of Buildings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-22, July.
    15. Acquaye, Adolf & Duffy, Aidan & Basu, Biswajit, 2011. "Embodied emissions abatement--A policy assessment using stochastic analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 429-441, January.
    16. Buyle, Matthias & Braet, Johan & Audenaert, Amaryllis, 2013. "Life cycle assessment in the construction sector: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 379-388.
    17. Chandratilake, S.R. & Dias, W.P.S., 2015. "Ratio based indicators and continuous score functions for better assessment of building sustainability," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 137-143.
    18. Fu, Feng & Pan, Lingying & Ma, Linwei & Li, Zheng, 2013. "A simplified method to estimate the energy-saving potentials of frequent construction and demolition process in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 316-322.
    19. Sehee Han & Seunguk Na & Nam-Gi Lim, 2020. "Evaluation of Road Transport Pollutant Emissions from Transporting Building Materials to the Construction Site by Replacing Old Vehicles," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(24), pages 1-15, December.
    20. Wang, Ke & Yang, Kexin & Wei, Yi-Ming & Zhang, Chi, 2018. "Shadow prices of direct and overall carbon emissions in China’s construction industry: A parametric directional distance function-based sensitive estimation," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 180-193.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:6:y:2013:i:8:p:3901-3921:d:27706. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.