What is the whole life cycle of buildings?
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the best method for examining the embodied carbon of buildings because it considers the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with their production, transportation, construction, use and eventual disposal.
The construction industry is increasingly interested in reducing the environmental impact of the buildings they build and design.
Life cycle assessment systematically evaluates multiple environmental impacts, including embodied carbon or greenhouse gas emissions, of a product, activity, or process over its entire life cycle, involving but not limited to manufacturing, transportation, construction, and end-of-life.
National Guidelines for Whole-Building Life Cycle Assessment, produced by the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), provides comprehensive instruction for the practice of life cycle assessment applied to buildings based on relevant international standards. The guide was the result of input from a large stakeholder group.
The goal is to harmonize the practice of whole-building life cycle assessment (wbLCA) across different studies and assist in the interpretation of and compliance with relevant standards. The guidelines will be periodically updated, as methods and standards evolve.
The purpose of this document is to:
- instruct wbLCA practitioners to assure quality and comparability of their results,
- enable the calculation of reliable baselines or benchmarks,
- support LCA-based compliance schemes in green building programs and policy, and
- assist in the development and use of wbLCA software.
The national guidelines fill a big gap in the practice of whole-building LCA. It interprets relevant standards, provides detailed instructions, addresses comparability and benchmarking, and more. It is NRC’s intention to pursue adoption of the document as a national standard.
This document will go a long way towards improving quality and consistency of practice. Green building programs and policy can now point to this as a reference for their LCA provisions.
