SLiCE: An Open Data Model for Scalable High-Definition Life Cycle Engineering, Hotspot Analysis and Dynamic Assessment of Buildings.

Abstract Building construction and operation are responsible for around 40% of global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. To identify emissions reduction and removal potentials as well as wider environmental impacts, researchers, policy, and decision makers need comprehensive life cycle sustainability assessment insights on individual buildings and building stocks at large. This article proposes a data model for scalable, high-definition life cycle analysis of building – the SLiCE data model – as a promising solution to overcome the limitations identified for existing models. The article conceptualizes the problem within the Space-Time-Indicator Nexus; presents the proposed SLiCE data structure; and showcases practical uses of SLiCE data for environmental hotspot analysis as well as for dynamic assessment of climate impacts. The open SLiCE data model and SLiCE hotspot analysis tool are henceforth available for implementation within life cycle assessment of building and building stocks, enabling comprehensive insights on buildings’ environmental impacts across spatiotemporal scales. Software and data availability The SLiCE building data model as well as the presented implementation in the SLiCE hotspot analysis prototype are open source and available with this article. The SLiCE hotspot analysis, implemented as an IPython Jupyer Notebook with interactive widgets, tool is available on Github (https://github.com/mroeck/slice_hotspots/), with the submission pre-release published via Zenodo (https://zenodo.org/badge/latestdoi/645859866). All items are published under a GNU General Public License v3.0. We encourage you to review, reuse, and refine the model and scripts and share-alike. Preprint (not peer-reviewed) Röck M, Passer A, Allacker K. “SLiCE: An Open Data Model for Scalable High-Definition Life Cycle Engineering, Hotspot Analysis and Dynamic Assessment of Buildings.” 2023, Preprint DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.836924

Model for the environmental impact assessment of neighbourhoods

In order to move towards a sustainable built environment, modern cities need to be planned and organized differently, focussing not only on the characteristics of individual buildings but also on the relations between buildings and infrastructure works. Based on an existing Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method for buildings, this paper proposes a model to assess the environmental impact of building clusters, together with the required road infrastructure. A hierarchic assessment structure, using the principles of the “element method for cost control” and a subdivision in different scale levels, is presented and methodological issues are discussed. To illustrate the methodology, abstract neighbourhood models are compared consisting of different dwelling types and the related amount of road infrastructure. The results revealed substantial environmental impact differences between the analysed alternatives, showing the importance of optimizing the layout and density of neighbourhoods.status: publishe

Investigating the Energy Efficiency, Environmental and Daylighting Performance of Coated Glazing

Facades are a crucial interface between exterior and interior conditions and greatly influence the architectural quality of buildings. Glass plays an important role in the building envelope by providing daylight, views and ventilation and hence can contribute significantly to indoor environmental quality and impact occupants’ comfort and well-being. Glass also plays an important role in the energy balance of the envelope and hence in both energy loads and environmental performance of a building. In order to avoid high energy consumption, reduce environmental impact and increase the quality of the space selecting the appropriate size and type of glazing along with the orientation and shading based on the building’s function, the climatic conditions, site and occupants’ needs are a fundamental part of early design stage decisions and are difficult to change later on. The challenge is to improve the building quality by providing a balance between energy efficiency, comfort and saving resources. To reduce energy consumption through glazing taking into account the thermal insulating properties is insufficient, it is also necessary to consider the coatings impact on the physical properties of glass regarding radiation. Coatings are often used to improve the thermal insulation, solar control, acoustic insulation of glazing in order to reduce heat loss, maximize solar gains in winter and minimize it in summer and improve indoor environmental conditions. Multiple configurations of coatings are available on the market to date. The goal of our study is to determine the impact of coated glazing on the energy performance, daylighting and the environmental performance of buildings where occupants spend substantial time inside. This paper incorporates an integrated performance analysis method and presents an energy analysis, daylighting and a life cycle assessment (LCA) study of several coated glazing for patient rooms in Belgium

Land use impact assessment in the construction sector: an analysis of LCIA models and case study application

Purpose: Land use is a potentially important impact category in LCA studies of buildings. Three research questions are addressed in this paper: (1) Is land use a decisive factor in the environmental impact of buildings?; (2) Is it important to include the primary land use of buildings in the assessment?; and (3) How does the environmental performance of solid structure and timber frame dwellings compare when assessed using different available models for quantifying land use impacts? Methods: This paper compares several operational land use impact assessment models, which are subsequently implemented in an LCA case study comparing a building constructed using timber frame versus a solid structure. Different models were used for the different research questions. Results: The results reveal that different decisions may be supported by LCA study results, depending on whether or not and how land use is included in the assessment. The analysis also highlights the need to include the footprint of the building in the assessment and to better distinguish building locations in current land use impact assessment models. Conclusions: Selecting land use assessment methods that are most appropriate to the goals of the study is recommended as different models assess different environmental issues related to land use. In general, the combination of two land use assessment methods for buildings is recommended, i.e. soil organic matter (SOM) of Milà i Canals and Eco-indicator 99.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

The European Commission Organisation Environmental Footprint method: comparison with other methods, and rationales for key requirements

PURPOSE: The European Commission (EC) is currently developing a reference methodology for organisation environmental footprinting (OEF) in support of improving the sustainability of production and consumption. This methodological development is guided by four core criteria. Specifically, the methodology will provide for a (1) multi-criteria, (2) life cycle-based approach that considers all organisational and related activities across the value chain, (3) provides for reproducibility and comparability over flexibility, and (4) ensures physically realistic modelling. METHODS: Here, we review a subset of existing organisation environmental footprinting methods. We identify key areas of convergence and divergence between these methods, and the extent to which the methodological specifications they provide satisfy the four aforementioned criteria for a harmonised EC OEF methodology. On this basis, we specify where the EC OEF method must necessarily diverge from and/or go beyond the reviewed methods. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: We specify recommended methodological norms for, among other things, definition of the unit of analysis (the organisation) and reference flow; organisation and analytical boundaries; cut-off criteria; impact categories and models; allocation solutions; and data quality management. We further provide a rationale for the recommended alternative requirements to be adopted for EC OEF compliant studies. CONCLUSIONS: The final EC OEF methodology is foreseen to be made public in 2013.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

Consumer Footprint. Basket of Products indicator on Housing

The EU Consumer Footprint aims at assessing the potential environmental impacts due to consumption. The calculation of the Consumer footprint is based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of representative products (or services) purchased and used in one year by an EU citizen. This report is about the consumer footprint indicators of the basket of product (BoP) on housing. In order to assess the environmental impact of EU housing consumption, a LCA-based methodology has been applied to twenty-four representative dwellings (basket of products), modelled on the basis of the type of building (single or multifamily houses), the year of construction (four timeframes), and the climate zone (three zones) in which they are located. One of the main novelty of this work is the definition of twenty-four archetypes of buildings, changing the construction materials and the building specific features affecting the inventory for each archetype. The resulting baseline inventory model, referring to the year 2010, was assessed for 15 different impact categories, using the ILCD LCIA method. A sensitivity analysis has been run for some impact categories, with a selection of recent impact assessment models and factors. Results allows a wide array of considerations, as this study reports overall impact in Europe, average impact per citizen, share of impact due to dwelling typology and climate areas, as well as impact of each dwelling type per climate zone per year of construction. Single-family houses are responsible for the highest share of impacts. The same type of building has different impacts in different climatic zones, especially because cold climate requires higher input of resources for space heating. The overall results reveal that the use phase (energy and water consumption) dominates the impacts, followed by the production of construction materials. In general, electricity use and space heating are the activities that contribute the most to the overall impacts. Depending on the normalisation reference used (European or global) the most important impact category present a different relative share. However, human toxicity, respiratory inorganics, resource depletion (metals, fossils, and water), climate change and ionising radiations show the highest impacts for all the normalization references. Since many LCA study on housing are limited to the assessment of climate change related emissions, the BoP housing baseline aims at helping understanding the wider array of impacts associated to the housing system and the potential areas of ecoinnovation improvement for reducing the burden. To assess potential benefits stemming from selected ecoinnovation, the Consumer Footprint BoP housing baseline has been assessed against nine scenarios, referring to improvement options related to the main drivers of impact. The nine scenarios covers both technological improvements and changes in consumers behaviour, entailing: 1. night attenuation of setting temperature for space heating; 2. external wall insulation with an increased thickness; 3. external wall insulation comparing conventional or bio-based materials; 4. use of a solar collector to heat sanitary water; 5. floor finishing with timber instead of ceramic tiles; 6. a building structure in timber compared with concrete frame; 7. implementation of smart windows for improved energy efficiency; 8. a combination of selected above mentioned energy-related scenarios; 9. production of electricity through a photovoltaic system installed on the roof. The assessment of the selected scenarios, acting on energy efficiency, resource efficiency, renewable energy and bio-based material (scenarios 1 to 7) revealed that the potential reduction in impact for each of the eco-innovation assessed is relatively limited and that a combination of actions is needed to achieve significant improvements. Moreover, in the case of scenarios acting on the substitution of specific components of the building, the potential improvement is proportional to the relative importance of the substituted component in the baseline scenario. However, a preliminary modelling of combination of energy-related measures (scenario 8) proved to be a good way to enlarge the potential benefits coming from the selected improvements of the building stock. The results highlight as well that LCA is fundamental for unveiling trade-off between benefits associated to eco-innovation and burden arising from their implementation.JRC.D.1-Bio-econom

Developing scientifically-sound Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules: development options, challenges and implications

The Environmental Footprint (EF), launched by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in cooperation with Directorate-General for the Environment, provides general guidance for comprehensive, scientifically-sound and consistent environmental assessment of products and organisations. The aim of the EF is to ensure science-based decision support for industry and policy making. To make the general-level rules of the EF more relevant and applicable to specific product categories and sectors, the EF guides provide requirements to develop the so called PEF Category Rules (PEFCRs) and OEF Sector Rules (OEFSRs). PEFCRs and OEFSRs are seen as corner stones for consistent and robust assessments instrumental to specific environmental communication forms, namely business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) intended to be used for comparisons. The focus of this paper is on the key challenges in developing PEFCRs.JRC.H.8-Sustainability Assessmen

A review on requirements and existing qualitative tools for designing sustainable large-scale healthcare facilities: a case studiy in the context of Flanders

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Sustainability assessment of energy saving measures : a multi-criteria approach for residential buildings retrofitting—A case study of the Spanish housing stock

The building sector is well known to be one of the key energy consumers worldwide. The renovation of existing buildings provides excellent opportunities for an effective reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions but it is essential to identify the optimal strategies. In this paper a multi-criteria methodology is proposed for the comparative analysis of retrofitting solutions. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) are combined by expressing environmental impacts in monetary values. A Pareto optimization is used to select the preferred strategies. The methodology is exemplified by a case study: the renovation of a representative housing block from the 1960s located in Madrid. Eight scenarios have been proposed, from the Business as Usual scenario (BAU), through Spanish Building Regulation requirements (for new buildings) up to the Passive House standard. Results show how current renovation strategies that are being applied in Madrid are far from being optimal solutions. The required additional investment, which is needed to obtain an overall performance improvement of the envelope compared with the common practice to date, is relatively low (8%) considering the obtained life cycle environmental and financial savings (43% and 45%, respectively)

Energy simulation and LCA for macro-scale analysis of eco-innovations in the housing stock

Purpose: Energy consumption of buildings is one of the major drivers of environmental impacts. Life cycle assessment (LCA) may support the assessment of burdens and benefits associated to eco-innovations aiming at reducing these environmental impacts. Energy efficiency policies however typically focus on the meso- or macro-scale, while interventions are typically taken at the micro-scale. This paper presents an approach that bridges this gap by using the results of energy simulations and LCA studies at the building level to estimate the effect of micro-scale eco-innovations on the macro-scale, i.e. the housing stock in Europe. Methods: LCA and dynamic energy simulations are integrated to accurately assess the life cycle environmental burdens and benefits of eco-innovation measures at the building level. This allows quantitatively assessing the effectiveness of these measures to lower the energy use and environmental impact of buildings. The analysis at this micro-scale focuses on 24 representative residential buildings within the EU. For the upscaling to the EU housing stock, a hybrid approach is used. The results of the micro-scale analysis are upscaled to the EU housing stock scale by adopting the eco-innovation measures to (part of) the EU building stock (bottom–up approach) and extrapolating the relative impact reduction obtained for the reference buildings to the baseline stock model. The reference buildings in the baseline stock model have been developed by European Commission-Joint Research Centre based on a statistical analysis (top–down approach) of the European housing stock. The method is used to evaluate five scenarios covering various aspects: building components (building envelope insulation), technical installations (renewable energy), user behaviour (night setback of the setpoint temperature), and a combined scenario. Results and discussion: Results show that the proposed combination of bottom–up and top–down approaches allow accurately assessing the impact of eco-innovation measures at the macro-scale. The results indicate that a combination of policy measures is necessary to lower the environmental impacts of the building stock to a significative extent. Conclusions: Interventions addressing energy efficiency at building level may lead to the need of a trade-off between resource efficiency and environmental impacts. LCA integrated with dynamic energy simulation may help unveiling the potential improvements and burdens associated to eco-innovations. ispartof: International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment vol:24 issue:6 pages:1-20 status: Published onlin