What is Lifecycle Assessment

WHAT IS LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method of evaluating the environmental impact of products or services across their 'lifecycle'.
What does LCA measure?

LCA measures the environmental impact of products by analysing all the inputs (ie raw materials, water, energy) and outputs (ie the end product, waste, emissions) that occur as a result of that product being manufactured, transported, 'built' or assembled, used and maintained, and eventually, disposed of.

Why is this important?

According to the Australian Sustainable Built Environment Council (ASBEC) the building sector is responsible for almost a quarter, or 23 per cent , of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. More than 50% of those emissions come from residential housing. The source of these emissions is the energy we use to live in our homes (heating, cooling, lighting, TVs etc).

The unknown factor in ASBEC's research is how many emissions exist within the building fabric itself (ie walls, floors, roofs etc). To date, the 'embodied energy' of the buildings has not been substantially quantified. As Australia continues to evolve its understanding of carbon emissions and improve the performance of our buildings it is likely embodied energy (or more accurately, embodied emissions) will be under the spotlight. The only way to substantially quantify embodied emissions is using the LCA methodology.

At its most basic level an LCA is a measure of building material and construction efficiency. Despite that, LCAs can differ in what they actually measure, even if they do follow the ISO 14040 Standard. See Total v Partial Life Cycle Assessment below.

Who sets the standard?

The International Standards Organisation (ISO) sets world-wide standard for many activities, including Life Cycle Assessment.  Although not all LCAs have to follow these standards, it is necessary to do so before publishing any comparative results.

Recognising the need to address the total life cycle of product and to fully understand the environmental impact of building and occupying houses, Think Brick Australia has used an international best practice total Life Cycle Assessment methodology to more accurately compare the advantages and disadvantages of different building materials.

In a first for our industry, Think Brick Australia commissioned energy consultants Energetics to conduct an ISO 14040 fully compliant and peer reviewed total Life Cycle Assessment to quantify the environment impact of clay brick.

View the results and conclusions or alternatively read the full report . Visit the Think Brick Australia blog to comment and read more information on the methodology used and the policy implications of the findings.

Total v Partial Life Cycle Assessment

As highlighted in the image at the top of this page, there are four different LCAs that can be undertaken. According to the ISO 14040 standard, all of these are correct. The problem this creates is that comparing different building materials LCAs requires ensuring they are a like-for-like comparison.

To date, most building material LCAs only use what is commonly referred to as a 'cradle to gate' methodology (illustrated in green). This assesses the environmental impact of the building material within the 'boundary' of the product's extraction and manufacture. (See the detailed methodology discussion for more information on the subject of 'boundaries').

Other LCAs go further and use what is commonly referred to as a 'cradle to grave' methodology (illustrated in blue and orange) for either the single unit of building material, or a section of that material assembled in a building (ie a square metre of wall).

While this is a more complete analysis of environmental impact, it does not recognize that building materials directly influence the operational emissions of a building (predominately through heating and cooling).

As such, a Total Life Cycle Assessment is required. As illustrated in pink, this methodology uses thermal modeling to quantify the operational emissions from living in a building. Given that the operational emissions can contribute nearly 90 percent of the total emissions from a building it is fundamental to include these emissions when analyzing the environmental impact of buildings.
 
This is why Think Brick Australia has undertaken an international best-practice, fully compliant and peer reviewed LCA study to quantify the total environment impact of not only clay bricks, but also buildings made using clay bricks. For a more detailed discussion of the methodology, see Think Brick Australia's LCA Methodology