LIFE CYCLE AND LIFE CYCLE COSTING ASSESSMENT

1.1. DESCRIPTION Life Cycle Assessment is a useful tool for monitoring the impact of materials, components and the whole building, mainly in environmental terms, at all stages of the life cycle, from production to end of life. The LCA is used at the same time to make choices between design alternatives, with the support at the same time of the Life Cycle Costing Assessment, which is useful for evaluating the investments, returns and economic benefits that can be derived from different construction interventions. 1.2. RELEVANCE FOR CIRCULAR BUILDINGS The LCA is extremely useful for making conscious design choices in terms of environmental impact: by going to consider all phases of the life cycle of the building or one of its components, one is able to use the results of this assessment both to make the best design choices from the point of view of the circularity of resources (according to the principles of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle), and to identify parts of the building or operations on it that undermine, for example, the efficient use of energy or materials; with respect to this last point, the LCA is able to lead to a rethinking of the building or a refurbishment of problematic parts of it. 1.3. INNOVATION ASPECTS The innovation of LCA lies not so much in the procedure and the basic idea, which have been recognised for years as valid for assessing the sustainability of products and buildings: the real transformation that needs to take place in the construction sector is its systematic integration into decision-making processes. To achieve this requires the collaboration of all stakeholders: first there must be the commitment of manufacturers to provide information on the impacts generated in the manufacture of building materials; then it is the turn of designers to integrate this same data into the BIM model to observe how the impact of the building changes in relation to design choices and identify the best solution from this point of view. Finally, there must also be the involvement of the bodies in charge of dealing with the end of life of materials: they too are asked to make the best choices for circularity by evaluating different scenarios of reuse, recycling, recovery or disposal. The LCC in turn is an innovative tool that allows, thanks to empirical tools and financial models, to monetise the benefits: it would be opportune that the figures involved in the life cycle assessment of investments be educated on the potential of this tool and implement it, so that choices are made counting also the benefits deriving from circularity choices, which are usually considered as an investment.

2.1. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS - Use of software such as OpenLca for the assessment of individual materials or reference to databases such as EcoInvent - Evaluation of the entire building based on the LCA results of the individual materials or components involved - Preference for manufacturers who are able to provide EPDs of the products of interest to facilitate the LCA calculation of the entire building - Realisation of the LCA following the steps provided in ISO 14040/44 after choosing a system boundary suitable for the situation to be analysed - In the LCC for the evaluation of market opportunities, also consideration of incentives and tax breaks resulting from circularity choices - Use of the LCA on reuse materials to promote their reuse in other buildings and demonstrate the advantage in comparison with the same virgin materials

3.1. BENEFITS - Identification of the most impactful processes or materials and more sustainable alternatives at the earliest design stage - Verification of compliance of design choices with environmental regulations - Identification of opportunities for innovation and quantitative demonstration of their potential - Evaluation and comparison of interventions on existing buildings, with quantification, including monetary quantification, of their benefits - Increase in the use of innovative and low-impact materials in buildings compared to traditional materials that appear worse on the LCA - Quantification of the actual benefit linked to circularity choices and best practices - Makes it possible to compare possible end-of-life scenarios for the building 3.2. COMPLEXITIES - Complexity in dealing with entire buildings due to the large number of different materials and components involved - Impossibility very often to extend already made calculations to several buildings - Lack of complete database coverage of all production processes and especially the processing of demolition materials - Limitation of the LCA in assessing easily quantifiable impacts, not allowing for complete circularity indices - Need to adapt the scenarios already present in the calculations to the real situation and possibility of underestimates resulting from assumptions and simplifications - Need to rely on empirical tools for monetising impacts