Recent developments, future challenges and new research directions in LCA of buildings: A critical review

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 67 (2017) 408–416

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Recent developments, future challenges and new research directions in LCA of buildings: A critical review Chirjiv Kaur Anand, Ben Amor n Université de Sherbrooke, Civil Engineering Department, 2500 boul. de l′Université, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada J1K 2R1

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Received 14 December 2015 Received in revised form 22 August 2016 Accepted 9 September 2016

Considering the vast and rapidly growing area of buildings, LCA research is being led in numerous different areas ranging from building materials and components level to whole building analysis. This review aims to explore the application of LCA to the various areas in the buildings sector. The areas of embodied energy and building certification systems have seen the maximum growth in the most recent years. Related challenges and research opportunities from these and other areas that require research are discussed. This paper also reviews the use of LCA in buildings industry and reports the associated developments and future research opportunities. The research areas identified include, comparison issues of LCA studies, difference in calculated and actual impacts, refurbishment analysis for whole buildings, system boundary selection procedure, standard data collection procedure, missing data, embodied energy indicator, deconstruction analysis, implementation of dynamic LCA, use of LCA in industry and difference in results from LCA integrated certification and LCA of buildings. & 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Life cycle assessment Buildings Review Building certifications Building assessment tools

Contents 1. 2.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Goal and scope (G&S) definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1. Functional unit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2. System boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Inventory analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Impact assessment and interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1. Impact category selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2. Excluded and less addressed impact categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3. Comparison of results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4. Other LCA methodological challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. Beyond LCA – making LCA functional in buildings industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1. Building certifications and LCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2. Design phase and LCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3. Building design tools and LCA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6. Conclusion and outlook. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

408 409 409 410 410 410 410 411 412 412 412 412 413 413 414 414 414

1. Introduction

n

Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (B. Amor).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.09.058 1364-0321/& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Life cycle assessment (LCA) of buildings has been an extensively studied research area over the past decade because of the high environmental impacts of this sector. Various different areas of

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300 264

Papers published

250

225 201

200

for an understanding of gaps in the different stages of LCA and buildings, although these areas are interlinked and dependent on each other. Also, this review focuses only on environmental assessments. Economic and social LCA of buildings are beyond the scope of the current paper.

151

150 100

409

2. Goal and scope (G&S) definition

88

50 0 2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

Publication year Fig. 1. Buildings LCA related articles published in the last 5 years. *Publication information obtained from Scopus for the keyword LCA & buildings.

this field are subject to research in attempts to analyze and reduce its impact, making it a continuously progressing field of research. The number of publications related to buildings LCA has more than doubled in the last 5 years. About 14 review papers have been published in the area of buildings LCA from 2009 to 2014, and at least 10 review papers in 2015–2016 [1–10] to the best of the authors knowledge. These recent reviews conducted, contributed to certain focuses of buildings, such embodied energy, residential buildings, materials with intensive impacts etc. In total, about 250 building LCA papers were published in the year 2015 alone [11] (Fig. 1). The focus for a long time in buildings LCA research has been energy efficiency and associated emissions of the operational phase [2], which led to intensive research and development in the area of energy efficient operation of buildings and ultimately a shift of impacts towards the construction phase [12]. Owing to research developments in the operational phase of buildings, the focus has now shifted to the embodied energy of buildings [6,13– 15]. Another major focus area in buildings LCA is the integration of LCA in building certification systems [16–19]. However, these two categories contribute to only about 15 papers from the last year. Buildings LCA literature from 2015 contributes to different areas, such as LCA of building refurbishments [20–23], prefabricated buildings [24–26], building stocks [27–29], local indicators [30], water footprint of buildings [31], public buildings [32], etc., to name a few. Certain challenges lie in establishing LCA of buildings as a mainstream environmental assessment approach in the building industry, despite the reported interest in LCA of buildings [3]. Some issues raised related to buildings LCA research have remained unresolved even decades after the issue was first realized, due to the complex nature of these issues. These building LCA issues, however, need to be addressed to improve the quality of LCA as a reliable tool for environmental decision making in the areas of buildings. This article aims to bring forward the challenges, knowledge gaps and future areas of research in the different stages of LCA applied to buildings. In addition, this article will focus on the barriers and efforts required for wide application of LCA as an environmental assessment tool in the buildings industry. In view of the high number of publications from the year 2015, this paper will concentrate on reviewing mainly the 2015 literature, without omitting to review the gaps mentioned in the review papers from the last five years. The structure of the paper follows the 4 steps presented in the International organization for standardization (ISO) 14040 & 14044 standards [33,34]: Goal and scope definition (Section 2), Inventory analysis (Section 3), Impact assessment and interpretation (combined in Section 4). This structure is adopted

During the G&S definitions, the aim of the LCA, its intended audience and also its applications must be defined, in addition to the scope of the study. The latter includes defining the function of the assessed building, the functional unit (FU) and the system boundaries. 2.1. Functional unit A variety of functional units is used today in LCA of buildings [35]. They are found to be based on floor area or building elements such as roof or weight of the materials, which in some cases can lead to ignoring the impact of the building as a whole [19] or the impact of the building based on its other functions. Results based on functional units related to a particular building material or product LCA may not be representative of all the impacts from a building as a whole. Multiple functional units have also been adopted for a single case study. Verbeeck & Hens [36] for example, used Kg, m, m2, m3 and kWh as functional units to represent the whole building [36]. Meter square and total house are reported as the most used functional units in case of residential buildings [3,37]. Besides area, the functional units volume [24] and heat delivery [38], heated floor area [39] are also used as functional units depending on the goal of the LCA. Another proposed approach includes used of different functional units for passive products & active equipment, which can later be integrated into whole building LCA [40]. Since buildings incorporate various products with varying lifetimes it has therefore been suggested to calculate the service lifetime with stochastic data, along with uncertainty analysis of service life of products, to reduce risk [41]. This approach is recommended as it is observed that the service life (building's lifespan) has more impact on the building compared to the characteristics of the products [41]. For reliable estimations of service lives of products, the research by Straub, A. [42] suggests the use of data format according to ISO 15686-8 [42], using factor method to calculate the service life of a building based on building product service lives. However, no consensus on the procedure exists. The use of different functional units hence is a factor contributing to challenges in comparison of building LCA results. Buildings are also analyzed for different time periods. In general, lifetime is assumed and not based on a calculation method. It may be based on a survey from lifetime data of old buildings [43] or widely used lifetime for a particular type of buildings or the lifespan main material of the building [23]. Building lifetime, in most cases, is a variable and analysis based on this variable is recommended to be subjected to a sensitivity analysis [43]. Lifetime assumptions are made for 100 years or 25–50 years, or analyzed for the time period of one generation, reducing the uncertainty in operational results from future generations [36]. These assumptions can introduce a noticeable amount of error. In order to improve the accuracy of buildings LCA via enhanced accuracy of building lifespan, Aktas et al. [44]conducted a statistical analysis of U.S. residential buildings and reported 61 years as the average lifetime of a building [44]. The lifetime of a building may be affected by the lifetime of building elements and also by market demands which may require restructuring or demolishing the building before its useful lifetime [45]. Factors as such lead to

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estimating impacts very different than the actual impacts. 2.2. System boundaries Cradle to grave is the most popular system boundary adopted in buildings LCA [3]. There can be several bases for selecting a system boundary for a buildings LCA. The impact of cut-off criteria on most impact categories is quite uncertain due to lack of justifications [46]. For a holistic analysis system boundaries are suggested to be based on a life cycle based risk assessment for energy conservation systems in buildings [47]. A framework for such an analysis has been proposed [47], with a general structure adaptable to other types of buildings, with some modeling changes. This framework was only able to include secondary data and was not able to include all LCA details, proposing this as the future work in this area.

3. Inventory analysis LCI of buildings is known to be very complex due to the numerous materials and processes involved, including the dynamic nature of the operation of buildings. Operational phase has received a great deal of importance in comparison to the construction phase where there are challenges such as missing data, hard to find data and various different calculation methods adopted, unusable or restrictions to change data due to confidentiality [3,48]. The construction phase inventory data for LCA of a whole building is largely dependent on the LCA data of building components and materials. In addition, there are a number of factors that affect the inventory of the different phases of a building’s LCA in each case, including design, stakeholder criteria, cost, environmental targets, user behavior etc., to name a few [45,49]. Building inventory data is obtained from building industry, databases or environmental product declarations (EPD). In addition to the source of the data, the age & data collection method also contribute to the variations in building inventory data. These variations have been reported to be significant enough to impact the decision making based on LCA results, also causing difficulty in comparison of building LCA's [15]. Variations have been reported in generic data for products and EPD's [50]. One reason for these variations is the lack of a standard data collection method for buildings LCA. Also, the current ISO standards guidance for data collection seem insufficient. To fix the issue of data variation, Dixit et al. [51], pointed out the need for a standard methodology for embodied energy calculation given the number of issues arising while complying solely with ISO standards [51]. Data quality indicators are also helpful in this case. There are data quality indicators in databases. Peng at al. [52], suggest the need for data quality check at product level also using EPD's [52]. In addition to the issue of variation and lack of scientifically accepted methodology, there is missing data also, reported by various authors [45,53] especially in the design phase [52], leading to more assumptions. The urgency of the need for this data is being expressed for about 2 decades, however, the issue still remains unaddressed. Practitioners and developers often face the issue of selecting the right data in cases where data is missing. Existing data of different locations is adapted to suit the case in question for the LCA of a building. The quality of such data is still of concern and in need of verification. In relation to this issue, Silvestre [48], proposed guidelines for selecting relevant databases based on the goal and scope of the LCA.

4. Impact assessment and interpretation 4.1. Impact category selection Similar to LCA's in other fields, energy and emissions are the most popular metrics used in the building LCA publications. Energy & GHG emissions may not be the most impact intensive indicators in all studies [46]. For example, in their research on building stocks retrofitting, Mastrucci et al. [54], from their analysis of building stocks reported consumption of abiotic resources responsible for a higher environmental impact than Global Warming Potential (GWP) for retrofitting. For a large number of building LCA's, the basis of choice of particular impact categories is not always clearly stated. In buildings LCA, the basis of choice of indicators often depends on what is easily comprehendible by the stakeholders involved, in comparison to what may be more relevant to the goal. Various issues have been pointed out with impact category selection, including lack of standardization, lack of data to support the appropriate assessment of the category, no relevance of the category to the study and lack of consideration of the impact category in LCA tool or method [5,55]. These issues lead to not accounting for certain impacts by LCA practitioners [56], leading to neglect certain impact categories that may be essential. Shrestha et al. [57], proposed a protocol intended to provide all factors contributing to direct or indirect environmental impacts (for energy and GWP) from building insulating materials. A standardized calculation methodology to determine these impacts including avoided impacts is also described. Various building LCA studies have concentrated on determining which product or process in a system contribute the most to the environmental impact. For example, Blom et al. [58], compared various scenarios to determine which environmental impact categories are impacted by electricity and gas usage in Dutch dwellings; Wang et al. [59], used decomposition analysis and Economic Input-Output (EIO) LCA to determine the factors influencing carbon emissions from China's residential sector and Zhou et al. [60], investigated data mining as a tool to determine the relationship between impacts and building material. Application of such methodologies to all building materials could aid in including the relevant impact categories. Various LCA tools are available today to estimate the life cycle impact of buildings. Tables 1 and 2 present the list of LCA tools used for life cycle assessment of Buildings. Table lists generic LCA tools & Table 2 lists building specific LCA tools. The indicators energy & GHG (Greenhouse gases) that may be calculated using a particular software are broadly indicated in the tables. The availability of the impact category in an LCA software depends on the impact assessment methodology available to the software. Popular software such as GaBi & SimaPro provide a wide range of methodologies from energy assessment & water footprints to diverse impact category assessments. The methods can be customized based on the scope of the LCA. Some models may include limited methodologies. For example, EIO-LCA includes Tool for Reduction and Assessment of Chemicals and Other Environmental Impacts (TRACI) TRACI methodology and few impact indicators. Athena & BEES are popular for buildings assessment among building specific LCA tools. The building specific LCA tools also report impacts similar to generic LCA software but they may not provide a range of impact assessment options. For example, Athena provides footprint results similar to TRACI impact categories [61], LEGEP, includes radiation & acidification indicators in addition to energy and GWP [62]. Some of the building specific LCA tools may have the advantage of importing data from building design tools. This feature could be very useful to mainstream LCA tools that are not integrated with design tools. On the other hand building specific LCA tools could benefits with multiple impact assessment

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411

Table 1 Generic LCA tools applicable to building LCA cases. Name

Indicators included

Website

Building LCA Reference

GaBi SimaPro Umberto NXT LCA software

C, E, GHG C, E, GHG C, E, GHG

[58] [59] [60]

OpenLCA TEAM™ 5.2 EIO-LCA (Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment) Boustead Model

C, E E, C C, E, GHG

http://www.gabi-software.com/canada/index/ https://simapro.com/about/ https://www.ifu.com/en/umberto/environmental-management/umbertonxt-lca/? gclid ¼CNX_99WJ4s0CFQFahgoddPgKPg http://www.openlca.org/products http://ecobilan.pwc.fr/en/boite-a-outils/team.html http://www.eiolca.net/

[3] [61] [62]

E, GHG

http://www.bousteadconsulting.co.uk/products.htm

[63]

*(C-Cost, E-Environmental impacts, Green House Gases - GHG).

Table 2 Building specific LCA tools. Name

Indicators included

Website

Athena (Impact Estimator for Buildings) LEGEP-Life cycle Assessment Envest 2 ECOSOFT BeCost BEES (Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability) EQUER EcoEffect ECO-BAT 4.0

E, C, C, E E, C,

http://www.athenasmi.org/our-software-data/impact-estimator/ http://legep.de/? lang ¼en http://envestv2.bre.co.uk/account.jsp http://www.ibo.at/de/ecosoft.htm http://virtual.vtt.fi/virtual/proj6/environ/ohjelmat_e.html http://www.nist.gov/el/economics/BEESSoftware.cfm/

GHG E E C E, GHG

E, GHG E, GHG E

http://www.izuba.fr/logiciel/equer http://www.ecoeffect.se/ http://www.eco-bat.ch/index.php? option¼ com_ content&view¼ article&id ¼64&Itemid¼ 61&lang ¼ en

*(C-Cost, E-Environmental impacts, Green House Gases - GHG).

methodological options, such as provided in mainstream LCA tools. 4.2. Excluded and less addressed impact categories Certain impacts of buildings are either currently not covered at all or not considered much in LCA of buildings. One such impact is the rebound effect. An example of rebound effect is the increase in an individual’s economic activities due to profitable efficiency measures that may cause environmental impacts in other sectors [63]. Time value of carbon is another factor that is ignored in LCA of buildings [64]. The time value of carbon in LCA incorporates in the analysis, the carbon mitigation targets to be achieved in a particular time frame. Accumulated carbon emissions increase the rate of warming, making timely mitigations of carbon crucial. Other such known impacts include water consumption in households [63], indoor air quality [40], variation of physical properties with time, biogenic carbon emissions, aging, change in use of building [2], pollutants from materials during use phase [65] land use and toxicity [28], and consideration of local impacts [63]. One reason for these impacts not being addressed well or at all could be the lack of development or consensus on the assessment methods of these impacts [40] or lack of sufficient awareness of a particular impact [65]. Renovation or retrofitting changes made to a building during it life course [23], especially in the case of large-scale assessments [27] should be a part of the recurring embodied energy but it is less considered. This may cause uncertainty in the prediction of the building's impacts. A few LCA studies have been conducted on retrofitting's [21] to analyze options for an existing building, for refurbishments at material level [20] as well as at whole building level [22], to find optimum solutions, using dynamic thermal

simulations & multi-objective genetic algorithms. At urban scale level, Mastrucci et al. [54], coupled LCA & Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to estimate the environmental impact of building stock retrofitting. More case studies are however required to build certain reference points in case of refurbished buildings. In addition, the modeling aspects for optimized refurbished scenarios need research for better communication between the multiple tools involved. Similar to refurbished cases, spatial and temporal boundaries are also less considered in buildings LCA and are suggested to be included in the boundaries to better reflect the existing situations [3,66]. Due to the high energy use of buildings, a large number of papers consider performing a life cycle energy analysis. A literature review by Ramesh et al. [67] suggests that the majority of papers concentrate on life cycle energy analysis in comparison to life cycle analysis. Life cycle energy analysis, as the name suggests, is concerned only with the energy inputs to the building [68]. The framework for the calculation of LCE in general consists of the summation of initial embodied energy, operational energy, recurring embodied energy and demolition energy [67,69,70]. The mode of calculation of LCE may differ from paper to paper. For example, Atmaca et al. [4], calculated the energy use in construction phase with the use of inventory such as ICE and the operational phase energy use using primary data from bills. Aye [71] used energy simulation software, Transient System Simulation tool (TRYSNS) for calculation of the operational energy demand. Adalberth [72] developed methods for calculations and equations for all stages of a building’s life cycle to estimate the LCE & applied it to buildings in a case study. In another technique only embodied energy of a measure that improves the operational energy of a building was measured. The methods adopted for such analyses include, energy payback ratio, energy payback time [73],

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net energy ratio [74]. Net energy ratio is based on an annual change in comparison to the energy payback ratio that takes into account the life cycle change [70]. With the availability of the listed methods and techniques, a wide application of calculation of life cycle energy estimation is made possible. However, as pointed out by Karimpour et al. [64], there is a need for more research in the area of reducing this estimated life cycle energy and application of both LCA & LCEA to traditional buildings in addition to the popular application to exemplary buildings [68]. Recent studies on building type and energy efficiency reveal the differences in the energy efficiency of different types of building [28,37,75]. There are more possibilities of use of alternatives in the design phase compared to the post-construction LCA [76]. Given the shape of the building and floor area are building design aspects, they can best be controlled during the design phase of the building [75]. The location of a building also plays an important role in reducing the per capita emissions from buildings [77]. For example, a low-energy, high-efficiency building might have higher emissions per capita if daily transportation of the person is factored in [78]. Norman et al. [79], reported approximately 60% higher emissions from low-density developments compared to emissions from high-density developments. Substantial research has been conducted with the goal of contributing towards global emission reduction. However, transportation of an occupant is a less considered factor [80]. Disregarding this factor may demonstrate underestimated calculated impacts when compared to real life or measured impacts for the location in question. Consideration of parameters such as daily transportation may aid in reducing the impacts from a city as a whole. Urban building stock analysis also helps in lowering global emissions in largescale scenarios. This analysis has so far been applied to evaluate retrofitting impacts [27]. Application to other stages of LCA of buildings may also be beneficial to achieve impacts reduction targets at a local scale. Considering the advantages of embodied energy analysis, IbnMohammed et al., [81], suggest embodied energy as an indicator for assessment of buildings. However, barriers such as methodological variations, the focus of regulations on operational energy, giving no motivation to calculate embodied energy, the time efficiency of the data collection process along with varying accuracy of the data, restrict the consideration of embodied energy as an indicator. 4.3. Comparison of results The issue of difficulty in comparison of LCA results from different studies has been highlighted in various recent studies and continues to be unresolved [5,63,82]. The system boundaries considered, use of different energy measurement and LCI methodologies, different assessment methodologies such as LCEA or LCIA [28], location of the study, use of primary versus delivered energy for calculations, age, source, and completeness of the data, technology of the manufacturing processes, consideration of feedstock energy, and temporal representativeness are a few identified parameters that impact embodied energy results [51]. In addition, the use of different impact assessment methodologies may also contribute to comparison issues [83]. With varied information, benchmarking the building LCA data is problematic. Benchmarks can not only be used for an existing building but also for new construction when alternatives designs are being compared [84]. The varied sustainability for each location is also responsible for these differences. A design or technology considered sustainable for one location combined with parameters such as user behavior, may not reflect the same sustainability in another location. Buyle et al. [63], suggested a partial solution involving calculation of impact per sq. m of useable floor

area or per person. However, system boundaries, assumptions, different functional units, the level of details and LCA methods can still make a comparison of results difficult [5,63]. Other parameters that cause comparison difficulties include, building type, climate and comfort requirements, local regulations etc., the main difference being scope [35]. To date, there are no guidelines on an appropriate comparison of LCA results or internationally acceptable methods of performing an LCA [85]. There have also been many attempts to standardize functional units. However, there is no standardization achieved so far [85]. The incomparable results from an LCA, limit the ability to benchmark the results. In addition, LCA of buildings is widely performed in developed countries in comparison to developing countries, [67,86]. Calculations used for developed regions may not be useful for developing regions [52]. 4.4. Other LCA methodological challenges Some of the gaps in buildings LCA can be covered by adopting the developments in LCA such as the application of dynamic aspects. Dynamic LCA is new in the field of buildings LCA. It is suggested for tracking the potential changes in emissions over a long period [2,87]. However, there will still be the uncertainty based on how to couple these emissions over time with a time defined inventory without increasing the complexity of the LCA model. Other important factors are consideration of prospective scenarios & temporal impact such as the effect of future changes in energy mixes on the building over time [2]. Different prospective scenarios can be created, however, the uncertainty tagged to these scenarios should also be addressed.

5. Beyond LCA – making LCA functional in buildings industry 5.1. Building certifications and LCA Standards and certifications help in achieving the sustainability goals set by governments or organizations. Example, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) requires a certain percentage of energy reduction by buildings beyond an existing energy reference standard such as ASHRAE [88]. Numerous certifications to assess buildings are available today and are considered much easier to use for assessment of buildings in comparison to undertaking a full LCA. However, a better score via a certification does not necessarily imply lower environmental impacts, thus suggesting the need for integration of building certification tools with LCA [89,90]. In addition, the energy plan for one building may not work the same way for another building owing to various different factors, for example, the energy grid mix [88]. There are certifications that include LCA in their assessments at different levels. Krenier et al. [88], use LCA & Life Cycle Costing (LCC) among many other criteria in their certification system that identifies interdependencies among different criteria [88]; LEED, a popular green building rating systems provides various possibilities to attain credits for a LEED certification. LEED has evolved over the years to now include LCA. In LEED V.4, a whole building LCA can help to achieve 3 credits. Credits are made available for building material LCA as well. A minimum of 10% reduction in impacts in comparison to a baseline scenario is a criterion to obtain the credit. A minimum of 3 impacts from a list of 6 need to be considered to obtain the credits. The impacts in the 3 credits considered cannot exceed more than 5% compared to the baseline building, in order to attain the credits. Such criteria are defined for all building rating systems [91]. Green globes & German Sustainable Building Certification (DGNB), use LCA in their evaluation to grant a rating [92,93]. Haute Qualité Environnementale (HQE)

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includes a performance test to evaluate existing buildings and renovations or rehabilitations of constructions prior to 2000 [94]. Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) rating system offers extra credits for performing an LCA. The extra credits (6 for material assessment & 3 for a full LCA) help in achieving BREEAM excellent or BREEAM outstanding ratings [95]. There are proposals for integration of certifications with LCA [90] and also suggestions for improvements of these integrated certifications [85]. Improvements were suggested to LEED based on an evaluation by Al-Ghamdi & Bilec [85] in the areas of using regional energy data, shift focus to emission mitigation instead of fixed energy savings and also focusing on more savings from higher energy consuming buildings. Given the environmental impact benefits from certain precast-constructions compared to in-situ in China [23,24], suggestions for LEED include incorporation of benefits of some prefabricated constructions [91]. In addition, the inclusion of indicators of indoor pollution such as indoor air quality was also suggested. LCA integration in certifications is fairly new. More frameworks need to be developed for global and local certifications for integration of LCA into certification systems. LCA integrated building certifications LEED and Qatar Sustainability Assessment System (QSAS) were analyzed based on LCA and the findings report that the certifications overestimate the impact in some cases, for the same environmental issue [96]. LEED being internationally utilized is subject to several evaluations and comparisons with other certification systems. Asdrubali et al. [97], compared LEED with Istituto per l′innovazione e Trasparenza degli Appalti e la Compatibilità Ambientale (ITACA), an Italian certification system for residential buildings to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of both the models. The results from both models were found comparable. While the information from these comparisons is useful, it is also important to assess these certifications additionally based on a full LCA. Roh et al. [16], developed a building life cycle carbon emissions assessment program (BEGAS 2.0) to support Korean Green Building Index (GBI) certification system. Although the certification was based on some concepts of LCA, a support system was developed as buildings with certifications were found to be highly energy intensive and thus not sustainable. Verification of these integrations is crucial to avoiding high uncertainties from building certifications. 5.2. Design phase and LCA Impacts from the operational phase of buildings continue to be the highest as reported in different building LCA reviews over time [98–100]. This impact holds true for conventional building types. In the case of low-energy buildings embodied energy has been known to have high contributions up to 46% [52,75]. Similar is the case of net-zero energy buildings [21]. Net Zero Energy Building (Net ZEB) refers to a building connected to an energy infrastructure (e.g. electricity grid), with a renewable energy generation system that can produce equal or more energy required for the buildings energy consumption [101]. In a common Net Zero Energy Building framework, embodied energy is excluded from energy balance calculation [102]. Energy balance is achieved either between the amount of energy the building exported to and imported from the grid, or between energy produced and used by the building. However, when the research object shifts from a standard building to a low energy building, embodied energy shares a larger part of total energy consumption during the whole useful lifetime. With the demand for low energy buildings, the focus is shifting from use phase to embodied energy phase [103], inclusion of embodied energy in the energy analysis becomes essential in such cases. LC-ZEB (Life Cycle Zero Energy Building) is the building when both operation energy and embodied energy taken into

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account, can achieve energy balance. That is to say, the energy produced by an LC-ZEB is able to offset embodied energy across the whole lifespan and it includes annual operation energy consumption [74]. Therefore, for better functioning of the building, it is suggested to focus on the design phase of the building as well i.e., considering the impact of the building in the earliest stages of its construction [63,85]. The availability of product data for design phase in LCA of buildings seems to be scarce [76]. Malmqvist et al. [104], suggest the use of programs such as Building information modeling (BIM) to obtain data and hence rough LCA results during the design phase. They developed guidelines for professionals working in the early design phase of building construction to be able to use LCA at simplified levels. Simplification may work to encourage users, however, it should be remembered that the results reflect the level of simplification employed [105]. Wallhagen et al.,[106], show a reduction of about 50% in carbon emissions when using alternative options using simplified LCA in the early design phase. These papers agree that although a considerable amount of data has been eliminated it encourages the users in the building design area to use LCA. However, the results obtained as such may not be very reliable. To aid in reducing the complexity of buildings LCA, Lewandowska et al. [107], identified and assessed six methodological variants between the full LCA and the mandatory energy certification. The six compromise solutions included a full LCA and five other LCA solutions with different levels of simplifications of the LCA & energy certifications in comparison to a full LCA. The simplifications were applied to different areas (scope, LCI, and LCIA), combining methodological aspects of LCA and energy certifications. The simplifications included in energy certifications led to the exclusion of significant environmental impacts, up to 77.9%. Out of the 5 simplification methodologies adopted the lowest truncation was 9.1% where, transport processes, construction, demolition and final waste disposal and a majority of use phase elements were excluded. Their analysis suggests that different levels of simplification can be chosen to address different goals. Also, in a simplification, at a minimum, the inclusion of energy using appliances and LCA indicators for these appliances in an energy certification system is suggested [105]. Another aspect to consider in the design phase is the use of life cycle assessment for deconstruction. Buildings may be designed or evaluated for a certain lifetime. However, their early deconstruction may change the environmental impacts [52]. This may also mean that the evaluated impact is overestimated [49]. Tingley and Davison [108] developed an LCA tool incorporating design for deconstruction, aiming to minimize the need for natural resources by reusing the building material. 5.3. Building design tools and LCA LCA-based decision making is limited mostly to research and is not widely adopted by building practitioners due to lack of integration of LCA in routine buildings related tools, lack of LCA expertise [109] and also the fact that LCA may not be a stakeholder concern [110]. Integration of building tools with LCA may be the best way to introduce LCA in the market. Even in simplified form followed up with updates, LCA needs to be integrated into these tools to make it more useful in the industry. Shafiq et al. [111], & Peng [52] suggested the use of BIM (Building information modeling)for decision making in the design phase. With BIM there is access to all the information of building materials that can be used to calculate the impact. LCA is then used to compute the impact to the materials. Different materials can be used for modeling scenarios thus allowing to compare the impact of the use of one material versus the other. BIM, however, has only been used popularly for the use phase. Peng et al. [52],

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Table 3 Summary of Challenges and opportunities in the field of LCA of buildings. Focus area

Challenges

Research opportunities

Functional unit

Use of varied functional units causing comparison restrictions (Section Standardizing functional unit and/or developing a standard unit for re2.1) porting results for comparison purposes Difference in calculated and actual impacts (Section 2.1) Considering the market changes to a building and impact of demolition before the end of useful life Reliability of calculated service life of a building (Section 2.1) Development of methods to calculated service life of a building based on methods such as using product life time to calculate building life time

System boundaries Not much data on refurbishment analysis of existing buildings (Section More research required on whole building level 2.2) Lack of a procedure for choosing relevant system boundaries (Section Developing proposed framework based on life cycle risk assessment for 2.2) choosing a system boundary based on various identified risk factors Inventory Analysis

Uncertainty in data collection methods (Section 3) Missing data (Section 3)

Proposal of standards in addition to ISO for better guidance Development of databases to cover the gap of missing data for new and old products

Impact assessment Overall reduction of impact from use of buildings for example from a city (Section 4.2) Making embodied energy an impact indicator (Section 4.2) Comparison of building LCA results (Section 4.3) Addressing the implementation of dynamic LCA in industry and also the evaluation of suggested alternatives as a result of dynamic LCA (Section 4.4) Difference in predicted and actual impacts (Section 4.4) Beyond LCA

Use of location and daily transport of owner or consumer as indicators of assessment, ensuring there is no shift in impacts. Resolving the numerous challenges involved in making embodied energy an impact indicator especially for low energy buildings Developing a method to compare LCA results and develop benchmarks Addressing the uncertainty based on how to couple emissions over time with a time defined inventory without increasing the complexity of the LCA model. Analysis of more prospective scenarios per case, both best and worst.

Increase the use of LCA in industry (Sections 5.1 and 5.2)

1. Developing a framework for integrating local as well as global certification systems with LCA 2. Developing a framework to integrate building design tools with LCA for better flow of material as well as LCA information Varied results from LCA integrated certifications & LCA (Section 5.1) Development of verification procedure for LCA integration in certifications Improve availability of product data (Section 5.2) Working with building tools to acquire more material information Impacts based on deconstruction before the assumed life time (Section Including the design for deconstruction during for analyzing the impact 5.2)

used Ecotect along with BIM to evaluate the energy use for the operational phase of buildings. However, BIM is not yet capable of comparing alternative scenarios [112] and also has limited data on components & building elements [52]. The development of a framework for the flow of information from BIM to LCA and vice versa is an area with potential for future research.

6. Conclusion and outlook Analyzing buildings using LCA is one the most complex applications of LCA. As a result, there are various areas that require research developments and industrial collaborations to be able to maximize LCA use where it is indispensable. This review has attempted to highlight the different research areas, the state of the art as well as gaps in these areas. Most of the publications from the year 2015–2016 have been in the areas of embodied energy and integration of LCA in building certifications. Most gaps are also therefore related to these two areas but not limited to them. The identified gaps are listed in Table 3. Most of these gaps may be minimized with industrial involvement. Added industrial involvement will not only aid in developing better databases but also help with the integration of LCA in buildings industry which is essential for environmentally conscious decision-making.

Acknowledgements The authors of this work thank Chen Li (Sherbrooke university, Canada) for her support to this critical review.

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