Reuse in Environmental Impact Assessment Tools : A prospective report

Abstract

Actors in the construction industry are increasingly required to take into account the environmental impacts of building projects. Since the production stage of the building materials can comprise up to 50% of all the environmental impacts of new and low energy buildings throughout their whole life-cycle, this represents important leverage to minimise the environmental damage of the construction industry. In this regard, reusing building materials and components is a particularly efficient strategy for cutting down these impacts. Indeed, reusing existing elements prevents having to produce new ones and, therefore, avoids all the impacts related to their manufacture. Over the last few years, various organisations have developed different tools aimed at assisting project developers in assessing (and by extension improving) the environmental impact of their building. In this report, we analyse environmental impact assessment (EIA) tools from a triple perspective: set the general context and understand how they work, understand if and how they model the environmental impacts and benefits of reusing building materials, learn from good practices to foster the further adoption of reuse practices by construction professionals. The report is a deliverable of the FCRBE project, an Interreg NWE project aiming at developing reuse practices within the construction industry