ENSLIC BUILDING

Deliverable D3.1; 3.2; 3.3; 3.4

Date: 30/3/2010
Guidelines for LCA calculations Pages: 52

CONTRACT Nº EIE/07/090/SI2.467609

ENSLIC BUILDING
Energy Saving through Promotion of Life Cycle Assessment
in Buildings

Grant Agreement Nº - EIE/07/090/SI2.467609

GUIDELINES FOR LCA CALCULATIONS

IN EARLY DESIGN PHASES

Document ID: ENSLIC-KTH-WP3-100330-Rev10-Guidelines-ENGLISH

Authors: KTH + ALL PARTNERS’ CONTRIBUTIONS
Status: Finished
Distribution: All Partners
File ID: ENSLIC-KTH-WP3-100330-Rev10-Guidelines-ENGLISH
Issue date: 30/3/2010
ENSLIC_BUILDING : Energy Saving through Promotion of Life Cycle Assessment in
Buildings

Deliverable D3 Version 2010-03-30

D3.1Guidelines for LCA calculations in early design phases

D3.2Recommendations on choice of LCA indicators for
application to buildings
D3.3 Recommendations on specific LCA features
D3.4 Recommendations for communication of LCA results

What are the relations between buildings, energy use and environmental impact?

Authors :

Mauritz Glaumann, KTH

Tove Malmqvist, KTH
Bruno Peuportier, ARMINES
Christian Wetzel, CALCON
Sabina Scarpellini, CIRCE
Ignacio Zabalza, CIRCE
Sergio Díaz de Garayo, CIRCE
Heimo Staller, IFZ
Guri Krigsvoll, SINTEF
Evelina Stoykova, SEC
Sarah Horváth, EMI
Zsuzsa Szalay, EMI
Valeria Degiovanni, ECOFYS

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Table of content:
1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 3
1.1 Target groups of the guidelines .................................................................................... 3
1.2 Why performing an LCA/LCC? ................................................................................... 4
1.3 What is LCA – Life Cycle Assessment? ...................................................................... 5
1.4 Core elements of an LCA ............................................................................................. 6
1.5 What is LCC – Life Cycle Costing .............................................................................. 8
1.6 Integrating LCA and LCC ............................................................................................ 9
1.7 Current use of LCA/LCC in building applications .................................................... 10
1.8 Possible simplifications for LCA in practical building design .................................. 10
2. Application of LCA in building design ............................................................................ 11
2.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 11
2.2 The life cycle stages of a building .............................................................................. 12
2.3 The building process .................................................................................................. 12
2.4 Environmental management in building design ......................................................... 14
3. Possible integration of LCA in the building process........................................................ 15
3.1 Project development - The planning phase ................................................................ 15
3.2 Investigation phase ..................................................................................................... 15
3.3 Conceptual design ...................................................................................................... 17
3.4 Submission planning – Building components ............................................................ 18
3.5 The construction phase ............................................................................................... 18
4. Procedure for LCA/LCC calculations in building design ................................................ 18
4.1 State the purpose of the study .................................................................................... 19
4.2 Choose assessment tool .............................................................................................. 20
4.3 State the system boundaries for the assessment ......................................................... 20
4.4 State scenarios for the reference time......................................................................... 20
4.5 Define targets, references, benchmarks, etc ............................................................... 21
4.6 Describe the building ................................................................................................. 22
4.7 Collect and compile data ............................................................................................ 22
4.8 Perform the assessment .............................................................................................. 24
4.9 Present results ............................................................................................................. 24
4.10 Validate - Control the results.................................................................................... 24
5. Example on how to use the guidelines ............................................................................. 26
6. References ........................................................................................................................ 30
Appendices ........................................................................................................................... 31
Appendix 1. The ENSLIC TEMPLATE (separate excel sheet)....................................... 32
Appendix 2. The main content of the ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL 38
Appendix 3. LCA tools .................................................................................................... 39
Appendix 4. LCI databases ............................................................................................. 40
Appendix 5. Additional comments regarding deliverables D3.2-4 .................................. 41
Appendix 6. Result presentation examples catalogue ...................................................... 43

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1. Introduction
How does a new design affect the future energy cost and environmental impact of the
building? What measures are most important to take in order to perform an energy-efficient
refurbishment? Knowledge about this is possible to gain from life cycle assessment (LCA)
and calculation of life cycle costs (LCC). With the ongoing development including energy
certification schemes, environmental labelling, the climate change debate, etc. the interest for
a life cycle perspective of buildings is increasing steadily. The demands among clients,
municipalities and property developers for more sustainable buildings are also becoming
stronger.

LCA/LCC is sometimes looked upon with suspicion. Barriers for implementation for instance
include prejudices about the complexity and arbitrary results, accuracy, problems regarding
interpretation of results and too high costs to perform it. LCA tools that are well integrated
with standardised softwares used by e.g. architects are also still rare. To this date, the demand
for similar assessments has been low. This demand can be expected to increase. Concerning
the other barriers these guidelines aim at bridge most of them by providing a basic lesson in
what LCA is, what it can be used for and how it can be performed, all adapted to the design
process of buildings.

1.1 Target groups of the guidelines

These guidelines are directed to you as a practitioner who work in early design phases of
building developments or refurbishment projects and want to achieve energy saving and
environmental improvements with regard to the entire life time of the building. Since LCA
and LCC are accounting methods some input data are necessary. Here it is implied that at
least some rough quantitative data regarding building dimensions, orientation, window design
and choice of basic building materials are available.

Architects and other consultants are the main target group of these guidelines since they are
the ones who may perform an LCA assessment. However, clients such as property developers
and urban planners are also targeted since these groups can demand better buildings and
assessments to prove this.

When developing these guidelines three levels of performing an LCA was considered:
• Basic – basic calculations in excel sheets with simple input and output only covering
one or a few environmental impacts. No or very little experience is demanded
• Medium – LCA calculations done with help of building tools like Ecosoft, EcoEffect,
Equer, Legep, Envest, Beat etc. Some experience and exercise is required to use these
tools.
• Advanced – General and comprehensive LCAtools like SimaPro, Gabi, etc. A lot of
experience is needed to handle these softwares on a building level. These tools
demand much training and profound understanding of LCA models. They might not
even be suited for application in early design phases.

The goal for these guidelines is to support advancement on the two lower levels, i.e. get
inexperienced people to start to make simple LCAs and later on try the buildings tools.
Advanced LCA calculations will therefore not be discussed more.

This Guideline report starts with summarizing LCA and LCC and then outlines the system for
environmental management in design where LCA/LCC can be used. To understand the

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possibilities for how and when to apply LCA it is important to have a clear picture of the
building process. A recommended step-by-step procedure for performing an LCA is
summarised in the end.

1.2 Why performing an LCA/LCC?

LCA provides better decision support when optimising environmentally benign design
solutions that consider the impacts caused during the entire life-time of the building. Thus, the
quality of buildings in a long-term perspective can be improved. It can for example provide
better grounds for deciding on questions like:
• Which are the best combination of building materials in the facade?
• Which load bearing structure is most environmentally benign for this building?
• What energy sources should be chosen for this building?
• What thickness of the insulation would be optimal?
• How much do solar collectors reduce the environmental impact in this case?
• What does recyclability of a certain technical solution mean?
• What environmental targets would be suitable for this project?

Further, there are a number of other arguments for getting to know more about LCA and how
it can be utilised:
• In a number of European countries, The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive
includes environmental information in energy certificates, particularly CO2 emissions.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) can serve with this information.
• For commercial actors, LCA supports CSR (Cooperate Social Responsibility)
strategies and enables reporting environmental performance which supports the value
of good-will.
• There are increasing examples in the world on different types of economic incentives
such as loans and subsidies connected to sustainability of buildings.
• Not only the amount of energy use is considered but also the energy embodied in
building materials, transports and the advantage of recycling are evaluated.

In addition, a good short-term economic performance of a product (e.g. because of low

production cost) might proof to be uneconomical in the long run through high maintenance
costs that occur during the whole lifespan. Especially for buildings, the lower construction
costs commonly cannot guarantee the minimum of the total lifetime costs. Even a building
with higher construction cost doesn’t have to be more economic than a normal one in the use
stage. Therefore, it is economically reasonable for the building owner or investor to identify
the cost effectiveness of different investment choices through the whole lifespan already in
the early decision phase. In this way, the optimal cost performance of property would be
achieved and the risks of unexpected depreciation could be minimized. Life Cycle Costing
(LCC) is an extensively used cost management method in production industry to survey the
development of costs of a product during its whole life cycle - from the product idea to the
end of life. LCC is currently also increasingly adapted by property owners or investors to
evaluate alternatives for projects.
Finally, an important argument to perform LCC as well as LCA is to identify the
consequences of the project or building, no matter if it is about costs or environmental impact.

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Spanish case study: The new CIRCE building in Zaragoza.

1.3 What is LCA – Life Cycle Assessment?

LCA is a technique for assessing the environmental aspects and potential impacts associated
with a product, by
• compiling an inventory of relevant inputs and outputs of a product system;
• evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with those inputs and
outputs;
• interpreting the results in relation to the objectives of the study.

LCA studies the environmental aspects and potential impacts throughout a product’s life (i.e.
cradle-to-grave) from raw material acquisition through production, use and disposal. The
general categories of environmental impacts needing consideration include resource use,
human health and ecological consequences (ISO 14040). By performing an LCA you get
quantitative information about the buildings contribution to for instance climate change and
depletion of resources, which can be compared with the same information for other buildings.

The principle of LCA calculations is simple. For each life cycle stage you investigate the
amounts of materials and energy used and the emissions associated with processes. The latter
are multiplied with characterisation factors proportional to their power to cause environmental
impact. One specific emission is chosen as the reference and the result is presented in
equivalents with regard to the impact of the reference substance (table 1).

Table 1. Calculation of environmental impacts according to LCA.

Input data Output result

Amount x Emissions x Characterisation factor = Equivalents
MJ alt kg x g/MJ alt g/kg x fsubstance = g equivalents
From Building From database From database

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For example, 1 MJ combusted oil is associated with the following emissions and the resulting
gram equivalent CO2 which represents the contribution to global warming when CO2 is given
the characterisation factor 1,0:

Emissions mg/MJ Characterisation factor

Carbon dioxid CO2 90 000 x 1 = 90 000
Methane CH4 4 x 25 = 108
Laughing gas N2O 1 x 298 = 179
g equivalents CO2 per MJ 90,3

The number of equivalents summed up for each environmental impact (impact category) can
further be normalised and weighted to arrive at an aggregated result. The marked area in
Table 1 is the core of each assessment method (in this case building tool). Different tools may
use different characterisation factors and different emission data if production processes and
combustion technique differs. These tools also use different normalisation and weighting
methods which naturally can cause different results.

The possibility to easily acquire building data improves steadily with modern CAD-tools, use
of Building Information Models and improved data bases. A simplified LCA tool may include
a generic database with emission data for a limited amount of building materials and energy
carriers. Preferably data are retrieved from EPDs (Environmental Product Declarations),
which are Type III declarations (third party control, ISO 14025). The EPDs can be generic,
preferable in early design or decision phase, or specific, preferable for documentation. More
sophisticated LCA calculations need access to larger international databases like Ecoinvent.

Figure 1. Illustration of the life cycle stages of a building and input data for LCA

1.4 Core elements of an LCA

Although striving for simplifications to attract new groups of LCA users, some key elements
are needed to perform an LCA which are described in the international standard EN-ISO
14040. Although stressed that there is no single method for conducting LCA studies it is
expected that an LCA includes the following features:

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 • Goal and scope definition
• Inventory analysis
• Impact assessment
• Result interpretation

During the goal and scope definition, a functional unit (the unit to which the environmental
impact is related) and system boundaries (the boundaries for what will be included in the
assessment) must be defined in relation to the purpose of the study. Data quality requirements
should be addressed. At least two life cycle stages must be included, for instance production
of building materials and operation of the building, to justify talking about a life cycle
approach.

The definition of the functional unit is particularly important when different products, or in
this case, different buildings are compared. In the European standardisation process
Sustainability in Construction (CEN 350), it is recommended to call it functional equivalent at
building level in contrast to functional unit at the product (building material) level. For a
residential building, the functional equivalent may be described as: A building designed for
90 residents at a specific location, which fulfil national regulations and requirements
regarding comfort, health, safety, energy demand etc. over a presumed life time, e.g. 80 years.
This definition can naturally vary but most important, comparison can only be done when the
functional unit or functional equivalent is the same for both objects or solutions that are
compared. However, benchmarking can be done even though the functional equivalents are
not equal, as long as the results are transformed into indicators for a comparable functional
unit, for instance CO-eq/work place/year, or MJ/m2 residential area. Such examples are
provided in the ENSLIC case study report.

Figure 2. Illustration of the actions performed in a life cycle assessment (ISO 14042)

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Further, the inventory analysis is the process of compiling the necessary data for the
assessment. In the next step, life cycle impact assessment, the calculations described in table 1
take place. The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) has some mandatory elements according
to ISO 14044:

• Selection of impact categories, category indicators and characterisation models

• Assignment of LCI results (classification)
• Calculation of category indicator results (characterisation)

These elements are in general already decided on if you use a simplified LCA tool or a
building tool.

1.5 What is LCC – Life Cycle Costing

Life Cycle Costing (LCC) is a tool for assessing the total cost performance of an asset over
time, including the acquisition, operation, maintenance and disposal cost. Its primary use is in
evaluating different options for achieving a client’s objectives, where those alternatives differ
not only in their initial costs, but also in their subsequent operational cost.

LCC is often used to decide the total cost for the building over its life time. To have an idea of
the future cost of a building can then be used for instance for setting rent levels if these are
cost based. The regulation for public procurement also indirectly require LCC calculations,
since LCC and not only the investment cost should be taken into account in tendering
processes.

LCC is central to the current international trend to achieve better value for money from the
buildings and constructed assets we produce and use. The focus today has shifted to
minimising both life cycle costs and the environmental impact (Davis Langdon 2007). The
benefit with a LCC is that you can study the pay back time for the whole life cycle of different
building products and design solutions.

There are a few different standards on LCC e.g. on international level the "ISO 15686-5:2008
- Buildings and constructed assets -- Service-life planning -- Part 5: Life-cycle costing"; and
on national level e.g. the Norwegian Standard NS3454 Life Cycle costing and "German
Facility Management Association (GEFMA)-Guideline 220: Life cycle costing" to guide and
to regulate the calculation methodology for LCC for buildings.
Despite some different approaches all regulations have in common to group the expenses in
the life cycle of a building into the following cost groups:

• Cost for investment, construction

• Cost for annually occurring energy use, operation, maintenance and repair
• Cost for non-annually occurring refurbishment and replacement
• Cost for end of life, demolition and disposal

Due to the commonly used assumption that the price-increase rate in the energy sector differs
from the increase rate in other sectors, the cost for energy are sometimes separated from other
regular cost during the use stage.

In principle the LCC can also be calculated with many formal capital appraisal methods such
as accounting rate of return, net present value, internal rate of return or equivalent annuity.
Nevertheless the most suitable and widely used calculation method is the Net Present Value

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(NPV) which discounts and sums up all the future cash flows to values of today. NPV is a
standard method to evaluate long-term projects. The NPV method is sometimes simplified by
LCC in the case that all future cash flows are outgoing (investment) and the following
formula can be used :
T
c o = ∑ (1c+ti )t , where
t =0
c0: the present value
ct: the cash flow
t: the time period of the cash flow
T: the end of time periods
i: the discount rate

The inventory of building data for use in LCA can also be used in LCC but here you need
complementary information on €/MJ and €/kg.

Spanish case study: New residential building in Valdespartera – Zaragoza

1.6 Integrating LCA and LCC

Since both LCA and LCC is based on life cycle thinking assuming a certain life time for
materials and the building they are suitable to combine giving simultaneously both potential
life cycle costs and environmental impacts for alternative designs. This combination may for
instance be used for:

• Choice of alternative technical solutions

• Identifying the technical solution that meets an environmental target to the least cost
• Recount environmental impact into costs
• Evaluate an building investment

It can be seen that LCC and LCA can either be used alongside each other in a broader
evaluation process, or either process can form an input into the other (Davis Langdon 2007).

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1.7 Current use of LCA/LCC in building applications
In the building sector few professionals today have deeper knowledge about LCA. Some
people in most European countries have extensive experience from developing or using
building specific LCA tools. The simplest and probably most common building related
application up to current date is the use of LCA for comparing the environmental impacts of
different building materials. Concerning LCC, the main use so far is probably for deciding on
alternative installations in buildings.

1.8 Possible simplifications for LCA in practical building design

The complexity and uncertainties of LCA results is often seen as main barriers to more
frequent use of LCA. It is natural that if unreliable data is used, unreliable results will be the
output. However, rough estimates of the environmental impacts over the life cycle are still
better than to ignore these impacts. But in early design stages it is important not to trust small
differences in result. For coming up with rough estimates there are a number of possible
simplifications which can be done with the aim to promote LCA to wider user groups:
• simplify the acquisition of building data by focusing on larger building elements, skip
transports etc.
• simplify the inventory analysis by focusing on the most important substances that
contribute to a certain impact category, skip or simplify the end-of-life of the building,
only use generic emission data etc.
• simplify calculations by focusing on only a few impact categories.
• reduce the time of the building data acquisition by improved CAD softwares.

Since calculations are performed by computers, simplified calculations are of less importance
than to simplifying the tool interface and usability. Data acquisition is the most prominent
problem since buildings contain a huge amount of different materials and the availability of
quality assured production data is restricted. When the aim is to simplify, questions like which
data for which life cycle stage is more important than others are important to tackle. How to
communicate clear and useful results is also a very important question since this is the key to
demand for LCAs.

Right: German case study: Heinrich-Lübke-Settlement

in Frankfurt, built in 1977.

Left: Swedish case study: New offices in Gävle

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2. Application of LCA in building design
2.1 Introduction
LCA was mainly developed for designing products with low environmental impacts. As
products, buildings are special since they:
• have a comparatively long life
• undergo changes often (especially offices and other localities)
• often have multiple functions
• contain many different components
• are locally produced
• are normally unique (seldom are many of the same kind)
• cause local impacts
• are integrated with the infrastructure, i.e. physical system boundaries are not obvious.

This implies that making a full LCA of a building is not a straight forward process like for
many other consumer products.

A general problem when applying LCA in a design process is that in early design phases the
options for choosing different solutions are many and subsequently data on the products,
which is needed for LCA calculations, is scarce. Later in the process, when more decisions
have been taken, better LCAs are possible to perform but then the possibilities to utilise the
result for alternative designs are restricted, fig 3.

Quantity
Options

Knowledge -
LCA precision

Time – the design process

Figure 3. General illustration of the relation between choice options and product data availability during a
design process.

There are different ways to overcome this problem. It concerns mainly ways to get improved
information about alternative options early in the design process and to speed up calculations
of rough results. A toolbox with already calculated results is one possible solution.
Introducing facilities to easily create alternative options and extract data with new computer
programs (BIM- Building Information Modelling), is another.

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2.2 The life cycle stages of a building
If making an LCA or LCC of a building by definition it shall cover the whole life cycle of a
building. This means that generic facts about the environmentally impacting activities related
to each stage of the life cycle are needed already from the beginning. According to CEN 350
the building´s life cycle stages include: product stage, construction stage, use stage and end-
of-life stage.

2.3 The building process

The process of developing a new building is commonly referred to as the building process.
This process is in general the same everywhere but details, sub-divisions of phases and terms
may differ from country to country. In general the building process can be described as in
table 2. For refurbishment projects, the same phases are followed except for that many pre-
conditions and boundaries are already fixed.

French case study: New passive building in Formerie

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 Table 2. The building process and examples of options for taking LCA-based decisions in different phases.

Phase Specifications Actors Planning

instruments
1. Project City/spatial planning authorities sets the frames Munici- Master plan
development/ for the development. pality Local plan
planning  Choice of site, orientation Land contract
phase  Costs Local Agenda
21
 Size (e.g. room allocation plans)
Local
Targets for the energy performance, environmental
environmental impact, health requirements etc. targets
are stated.
2. The developer starts the design process. Deve- Environ-
Investigation Probably this phase is one of the most important loper mental
phase phases in the building process. All project phases program
of a new building are based on specifications Early sketch
made in this phase, so here we can find the
highest potential for sustainable building design.
 Design – construction (e.g. light weight
or solid construction)
 if possible e.g. benchmarks for heating
and cooling, renewable energy sources
for the building services etc.
3. Revised preliminary design, including Deve- Sketch
Preliminary/ preliminary selection of superstructure, building loper
Conceptual materials, constructions. In this phase mainly Architect
design / design-related issues are available such as a
architects’ definition of heated/cooled areas, shape/volume
competition ratio, area and disposition of windows, building
position and orientation. It is generally still too
early to decide details about the technical
systems (HVAC) and choice of building
materials.
4. Final design for submission to building authority Architect Design
Submission for planning permission (determination of
planning superstructure, building materials,
constructions), energy certificate following the
EPBD.
5. Detailed Final selection of superstructure, building Architect Tendering
design phase materials, constructions, systems for building Consul- documents
/ services as the base for tendering for the tants Environ-
Implementati construction work. In this design phase the exact Deve- mental plan
on planning definition of all components of the building and loper
the HVAC system are addressed.
6. Now the construction work according to the Contrac-
Construction implementation plan is carried out. This should tor
phase include clear quality assurance measures for Deve-
monitoring energy and ecological performance. loper

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2.4 Environmental management in building design
Making an LCA can be looked upon as a part of an environmental management process. So it
could be integrated into the environmental management of a building process which is often
performed in a standardised way.

To illustrate this process an example is taken from Sweden. Here a kind of practice for
environmental management in the design phase has been evolved based on publications by the
Swedish Eco-cycle Council and ISO 14001. Since it is voluntary it is applied a bit differently
by different users and companies. The main ingredients are:

1. The client states the general and detailed preliminary targets

2. The designer analyses the consequences and an environmental program is settled
3. An environmental plan to implement the program is developed
4. The environmental program is interpreted in drawings and documents and an
environmental declaration is erected
5. Targets and preconditions are transferred to the building owner.

French case study: Renovation of apartment block in Montreuil.

An example of components in environmental programs that are LCA related:

General target: Contribution to climate change shall be small

Detailed target: Contribution to climate change should be less than 10 kg CO2/m2,yr
Strategies: a) reduce energy use
b) use preferably local and renewable energy
c) complement with low impact energy
Investigate: a) improved building envelop and equipment performance. Energy
recovery on ventilation and sewage.
b) solar collectors, photovoltaics, local wind energy, biofuels
c) impact of the district heating system on climate change. Buying
environmentally labelled electricity and heat.

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Confirmation: State the chosen solutions, their anticipated performance and cost. Make
an environmental declaration.

3. Possible integration of LCA in the building process

In the following ideas on useful purposes for performing an LCA to improve the building
design process are given.

3.1 Project development - The planning phase

Here the national and local regulations set the boundaries. The possibilities for the local
authorities to set specific local environmental targets vary a lot. Some municipalities are eager
to be in the forefront of sustainable development which may include environmental targets for
building and planning. Especially as land owners the possibilities improve.

In Sweden the Energy Agency underline the importance of integrating energy planning and
physical planning in order to successively expand the use of renewable energy (2003). In
Sweden there also are master plans which however are not legally binding but where it is
possible to introduce energy targets linked to physical planning and developing issues
A Swedish master plan gives possibilities to:
• State targets for renewable energy
• Show scenarios regarding replacing fossil fuels by bio fuels
• Show consequence assessments regarding scenarios
• State balances, priorities, strategies and standpoints
• Create links to business targets, social targets, environmental targets etc.

Examples of issues that the municipality can decide on are: exploitation rate, building density,
heat use density (kWh/m2, year concerning district heating), transportation grid etc.

Targets for the local plan may be formulated as:

Exploitation:
• Floor space index shall not exceed xx m2/m2 city district area .
• Energy demand should not exceed xx kWh/m2
• Parking space should not extend 0,5 per dwelling
• Distance to bus or train stop < 500 m
• No emissions from combustions, or max XX kg CO2/m2,yr
• Contribution to climate change from building materials < CO2-eqv/m2, alternatively,
limiting the total CO2 emissions over the whole life cycle may allow a more global
optimum to be reached.
• Space use efficiency for dwellings <xx m2/person

3.2 Investigation phase

Actor: municipality, developer
Town planning and design rules generally don’t demand LCA, but this is an emerging trend
with the concept of ecological urban settlement (e.g. Concerto Programme at EU level).

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National, international and sector goals sometime contain quantifications. For example goals
for CO2 reduction - then these have to be broken down to an area or building level? Further
demands on the buildings set by the municipality depends on to which extent implementation
of national goals have been forced on them. Sometimes communities seem to be worried
about putting to rigid demands may lead to that developers move to another municipality.

Typical issues dealt with:

activity description, identifying needs target setting, causes to change, initiate a program
work. Targets have to be clear and easily understandable.

Activity description might include scenarios and societal trends, the enterprises relation to a
sustainable development and to what extent it could be expressed in actions, buildings etc.
Through the buildings an enterprise can strengthen its image towards actual and potential
customers. The activity descriptions may include scenarios, trend analyses, attitudes with
regard to sustainable development and to which extent these issues intend to be implemented
in practice.

Austrian case study:Plus energy housing

in Weiz.

A general target for energy saving could be formulated as:

1. “For the municipality, the total CO2 emissions from energy used in the built
environment shall not exceed xx in year yy. For this very project, a CO2 cap is set to
xx.

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 2. “Minimise the total energy use in the municipality measured as embodied energy in
new buildings and the need of energy for heating, hot water, cooling, ventilation and
lighting”.

Possible further development:

3. “The release of CO2 for production of equipment and heating and lighting in
individual buildings should be less than x kg CO2 equiv/m2”.
4. “The contribution to climate change, acidification, generation of radioactive waste….
etc. of individual buildings for the production and operation stages, or the whole life
cycle, should be below…..xx.

In this phase also time and cost limits are formulated. These could also be described in life
cycle terms as a complement.

3.3 Conceptual design

Here the functional, energy and environmental demands are stated. Costs are roughly
estimated.

Targets for the building may be formulated as:

1. Heat loss parameter < xx W/m2,K
2. Solar heat load factor in W/m2 or solar aperture in m2 eq. South glazing / m2 heated
area > x % in winter and < x % in summer.
3. Energy/primary energy < xx kWh/m2,yr
4. Emissions CO2 emissions < xx g/m2, yr
5. Fraction of renewables > x %

A possible goal at this phase is to investigate if a passive or low energy alternative is a

feasible option and what it means with reference to reduced environmental impact.

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Passive terrace buildings in Lindås, Sweden

3.4 Submission planning – Building components

In this phase detailed LCA and LCC calculations are possible to perform in order to make
final decisions about building materials and HVAC systems. The final results can also be used
as environmental declarations directed towards tenants and local authorities.

When using LCA and LCC for choice of individual building materials as roof and facade
surfaces, flooring etc, the contribution of these materials in relation to the buildings overall
impact has to be kept in mind. Putting too much effort into comparing options that means less
than say 5 % of the total environmental impact of a building throughout its life time, is hardly
worthwhile. To get a sense of the environmental significance of different building elements a
simplified LCA may make sense as a first step.

3.5 The construction phase

Will not be dealt with further here.

4. Procedure for LCA/LCC calculations in building design

The Enslic project recommends a step-by-step procedure for using LCA/LCC in building
design. To provide extra support and simplify comparisons in a standardised way two excel
files have also been developed.

The first file called the ENSLIC TEMPLATE (Appendix 1) contain a number of sheets
following the recommended procedure which are meant to standardise collection of data and
communication of building LCA results. Here environmental targets can also be specified.
The information includes an overview of the purpose of the assessment and the type of
building that is assessed, the quantitative assessment results, specifications of use of energy,
materials, water etc needed for impact calculations and specifications on building
characteristics and building data. Such collected information improves the transparency of the
LCA calculations and helps to interpret the result. These sheets are synchronised with the
present version of recommended LCA calculations for buildings developed by CEN working
group TC 350.

The second excel file called ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL (briefly
described in Appendix 2) is a work sheet with possibilities to make simplified LCA
calculations in a building design phase in the most basic way. Here building dimensions and
cross sections are inserted and the program calculates material amounts and their related
environmental impacts, estimates roughly yearly energy use and its associated environmental
impact when energy sources are inserted. This file normally needs to be complemented with
national data. The file can be used if one wants to test different solutions and perform very
simplified LCA calculations of these as a help in early design. This tool represents the

18
simplest possible way to apply LCA thinking and make a calculation. It is meant to be open
for use and completion and used on own risk by anyone.

The recommended procedure is:

1. State the purpose of the study

(The purpose of the assessment is defined by the goal, the scope and the
intended use of the assessment)
2. Choose assessment tool
(Basic, building, advanced)
3. State the system boundaries for the assessment
(Reference time, building stage, assessed features, data requirements etc)
4. State scenarios for the reference time
(steady state, regular retrofit, cost development etc)
5. Define targets, references, benchmarks etc
(impact, depletion, energy use, … Country or EU average, target,
6. Describe the building
(Name, type, size, location etc )
7. Collect and compile data
a) Environmental data that is not in the tool (emissions per Joule, emissions
per kg etc)
b) Building data, for example material amounts, energy use, energy source,
recycled materials, etc
8. Perform assessment
(trial and error if targets should be reached
9. Present results
(graphs, tables, analysis, eventually desired improvements etc)
10. Validate
(check results relative to purpose, check calculations, fulfillment of
requirements, sensivity analyses etc.)

All these steps ought to be documented, for example in the ENSLIC TEMPLATE, Appendix
1 (which covers an example). Chapter 5 provides an example on how to follow this guideline
procedure.

These guidelines and the templates address performing LCA of a building. However, the
principles are possible to use also for assessment of another scales, such as building
component level or city district level. Each step is commented below.

4.1 State the purpose of the study

Start with stating the purpose of the study, defined by the goal, the scope and the intended use
of the assessment. This is important since it is decisive for the interpretation of results and
possibilities to compare your calculations with others. The purpose also guides important
methodological choices and supports simplifications. In chapter 5 an example of a purpose is
given and more examples can be found in the ENSLIC case study report.

19
4.2 Choose assessment tool
For practical use, these guidelines recommend either that you use a simplified, basic tool for
LCA assessment or one of the many existing LCA tools that are adapted for assessing
buildings. For the beginner, a basic tool (e.g. excel sheet) might be preferable to start with,
such as the appended excel sheet called ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL
(Appendix 2). The advantage with more basic excel sheets is that it is easier to follow the
calculations and control the results than when more sophisticated tools are used in which a
considerable amount of decisions are already taken in the tool (like how the calculations are
performed, what to include, what to compare with, weightings, result presentations, etc.).

In Appendix 3, examples of adapted LCA building tools are listed. The choice of assessment
tool depends on requirements such as which indicators one is interested in, purpose of the
study (since some tools are more adapted to specific purposes than others), precision of the
calculation and the way in which results are presented. In practice, the tool need to be easily
accessible which means that it is often natural to choose a tool developed in the national
context where support is easily accessible.

There are also more advanced, general LCA tools, such as SimaPro and Gabi. With these
tools, the user is more free to choose certain assumptions and they contain more product data.
On the other hand, they demand much higher experience and understanding of the
methodology in order to use it and interpret the results. Since these guidelines target building
sector practitioners, advanced tools will not be dealt with further here.

4.3 State the system boundaries for the assessment

In this step, assumptions made for the study as well as the boundaries for the assessed object
need to be clarified. It is highly important that this information is clear and consistent if one
wants to make comparisons with other studies. Important decisions include:

• Choose reference time (assumed life-span of the building) - 50 years is often used as
default value since it is impossible to foresee the real life span. The relation between
impacts of the use stage and the product stage is depending on this choice. The shorter
reference time chosen the more important seems the impact from the product stage
(material production) to be. To test different reference times when making the
assessment often provides interesting information.
• Define which life cycle stages and activities should be included in the assessment –
product stage (production of building materials), construction of building, use of
building, maintenance and refurbishment, demolition, waste treatment (end-of-life
stage). etc. Decisions taken here is dependent on the data availability of the processes
taking place in these stages. A complete LCA should cover all stages. However in
practice, a simplification a minimum should be to only cover product and use stage.
• Define the delimitation of the features of the building to be assessed - such as whether
user electricity is included in the energy use or not, or which building elements that
are assessed.

4.4 State scenarios for the reference time

For the given reference time (e.g. 50 years) assumptions on scenarios about what will happen
with the building also need to be stated for instance:

20
 • Assumptions with regard to maintenance, refurbishment, etc. For each building
element that is included in the study the expected reference service life time should be
stated and what kind of actions that will take place during and after this period.
• If the end-of-life of the building is included, assumptions are needed on how different
building elements will be demounted or demolished and further treated.
• Expected occupant behaviour (normally standardised with respect to use of household
electricity, etc)
• If building user transports are included, assumptions are needed on number of
travellers going with different kind of vehicles, frequencies and distances. These
numbers in turn are depending on destinations, access to public transports, frequency
of services, age and fitness of users etc.

If LCC calculations are performed, assumptions regarding the expected development of future
costs should be stated.

4.5 Define targets, references, benchmarks, etc

To be able to interpret the results later on, targets, references and/or benchmarks to compare
with, are necessary. Here indicators are selected. If there already are specific environmental
targets decided for the project (for instance set by a municipality or the client), these may
already define what indicators need to be included in the assessment.

In the present version of the recommendations of the European standardisation group CEN
350, preferable indicators may be chosen from Table 3 below. If performing an LCA
according to the prEN 15978 , all these indicators need to be included. Additional indicators
can be found in the ENSLIC State of the art report, chapter 2, Environmental indicators. In
different building LCA tools, different indicators are usually already selected.

Table 3. Environmental indicators currently suggested in the CEN 350 standard.

Indicator Unit
Contribution to global warming Kg CO2-eq.
Destr. of the stratosph. ozone layer Kg CFC-11-eq.
Acidification of land and water sources Kg SO2-eq.
Eutrophication Kg PO4-eq.
Formation of ground level ozone Kg C2H4-eq.
Radioactive waste Kg, MJ
Use of renewable/non renewable primary energy MJ
Use of freshwater resources M3
Use of renewable/non renewable resources (other Kg
than primary energy)
Use of recycled/reused resource Kg
Material for recycling/energy recovery Kg,/MJ
Components for reuse Kg
Non hazardous/hazardous waste Kg

21
To claim that a life cycle study is performed at least two stages and one of the indicators in
table 3 must be handled. A minimum study thus may contain:

• Energy use during operation (use stage) and building material production (product
stage)
• Contribution to global warming

If you want to compare a number of alternative solutions, targets are not always necessary.
However, in all cases it may be interesting to compare to other studies or benchmarks. Targets
for the chosen indicators can be formulated as % values of a chosen benchmark or as absolute
values. Examples on targets are found in chapter 3 of this report and in the ENSLIC case
study report. Benchmarks to use may be other similar studies, current national norm values,
best practice values or targets at society or sector level. If a building tool is used for the
assessment, such benchmarks are commonly provided. The LCA study may also be used in
itself to find reasonable levels of targets for a project.

Hungarian case study: Design of new terrace house in Herend

4.6 Describe the building

In the next step, the building under study need to be described as detailed as possible
depending on how far the building process has come. It includes information about building
size, type, etc. An important issue here is to state facts regarding the functional equivalent,
that is information about the function of the building such as type of use of the building,
number of users and requirements regarding indoor air quality, thermal climate, safety, etc.. If
comparing with other buildings these criteria need to be fulfilled in both cases. The
information inserted here forms the basis for the calculations and it is important that it is
updated if there is a need for making changes during the study.

4.7 Collect and compile data

There are two types of data that are necessary for making the calculations, 1) building specific
data such as amounts of building materials and energy use, and 2) emissions related to the
production of the building materials and energy, (which normally is included in the LCA
tools). In the conceptual design phase, data on energy and material use can either be estimated
or preliminary decided by using softwares such as Sketch-up and Revit with alternative

22
default solutions. This is also possible in some of the existing building tools, such as Equer. In
other cases, estimations of u-values and material amounts are necessary from early sketches.
In the basic tool ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL, the amount of building
materials, u-values and energy use during operation is estimated automatically when building
specifications are inserted. These include for example building dimensions and information
on cross sections. Even though the purpose of the study is to explore environmentally benign
design alternatives, it is necessary to have some data on energy and material use as a start for
the calculations.

In order to calculate environmental impacts from the building, data regarding emissions
related to the production, use and end-of life of different building materials and energy
production is also necessary. Most LCA tools include databases with such production data,
however if one wants data for a specific item or when national data is expected to be different
from average EU data, this data may need to be collected separately. This can also be the case
if you are not satisfied with using average data for a country or EU, which is the normal data
type that the tools include in their databases. When collecting own data it is important to make
careful documentation, for instance according to the recommendations made by ISO 14040,
so that they can be used in the future. With the increasing numbers of Environmental Product
Declarations (EPD) for different products, such data can be gained from these EPD´s.

Swedish case study: Design of new residential building block in Sollentuna - Stockholm

In the basic Enslic excel tool ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL, a default set
of such data (Swedish data) is included which can be used as a start for the beginner. It can
also be exchanged for more country specific data.

Data uncertainty is a major concern when making LCA calculations. Regarding building data
the main issue is to gather enough information for a trustworthy assessment. For the emission

23
data, the main issue is data quality. ISO 14040 states data quality requirements in general
terms including time-related, geographical and technological coverage, precision,
completeness and representativeness. For simple life cycle approaches these requirements are
hard to fulfil but data taken from large and well-known databases are at least documented
and/or evaluated with reference to quality. When finding data for instance for a specific
building material for which an EPD is lacking (true for most materials) the most important
thing is to report assumed deficiencies and the data source which makes controls possible.
Such a transparency facilitates discussions about the uncertainty of data and associated results
and thereby stimulates the use of better data. Databases with emission data is developing
continuously. In appendix 4, a list of databases commonly used is given.

4.8 Perform the assessment

Once assumptions are made, boundaries for the study delimited and data collected, the
calculations are made.

If using the basic excel tool ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL, CO2-
equivalents (contributions to climate change) are calculated automatically once the data on
material and energy use has been inserted in this excel file. This tool also enables testing
different amounts of energy and material use and different technical solutions and making
comparisons with regard to the result in CO2-equivalents.

The more advanced building tools also calculate impacts automatically, but enables many
more options of result presentations, calculations of many more indicators, comparisons with
other buildings and weighted results.

4.9 Present results

The results of the LCA can be presented in many different ways. How they shall be presented
is depending on the purpose you stated for the study and the receiver of the result. In a
complete LCA naturally all your impacts of interest (chosen indicators) need to be presented
for all the alternative solutions investigated. If you are using a building tool, this tool serves
you with options regarding how to present results. The ENSLIC case study report provides
examples of useful result presentations related to LCA studies with different purposes.

For a report meant as decision support, a central thing is to provide total transparency of the
results and the calculations behind. Assumptions, input data and calculations should be open
for scrutiny for external stakeholders. To collect the information about the study in one place,
such as the ENSLIC TEMPLATE, is therefore useful as a transparent documentation.

If you have used a simplified tool for making a comparative LCA, your results will be rough.
This is not suitable for comparing single building products since it only gives a general
overview of the sizes of impacts from different sources. Even on this level conclusions
shouldn’t be drawn if differences between alternatives are less than 20%.

4.10 Validate - Control the results

Finally, the results should to be checked relative to the purpose of the LCA. In a complete
LCA according to the ISO standard, the results should be examined by an external reviewer
and this is particularly important if the results are to be presented to the public or used for

24
marketing, etc. Calculations with a simplified tool are purely meant for internal
considerations, for example to provide input to the design process. Sensitivity analysis
performed by successively varying different parameters gives valuable information about the
robustness of a result.

25
The example building.

5. Example on how to use the guidelines

In this section one simplified example is described of how the step-by-step procedure in
section 4 can be followed. As a starting point for the improvement procedure, a few
alterations of the existing building above has been used. The house is built in 2006.

1. State the purpose

The assessment aims to quantify the environmental performance (energy use and climate
impact expressed as CO2 -equivalents) and the LCC of a single family house of 120 m2
during 50 year period. The LCA and LCC results should provide decision support for
design, demanding only 50 % of the operative energy use required by Swedish regulations
and comparatively low CO2 emissions from a life cycle perspective.

2. Choose assessment tool

The basic excel tool ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL will be used since it
allows making rough calculations of the indicators of interest (testing different amounts of
energy and material use and making comparisons with regard to the result in CO2-
equivalents).

3. State the system boundaries of the assessment

The building reference time is set to 50 years. The use stage is considered regarding
energy use but without including household electricity. The product stage is considered
regarding production of building materials. Other life cycle stages are omitted. Building
materials considered are major materials in the basic building elements: slabs, external

26
walls, internal walls, attic, roof and windows. The LCC included the construction costs
and costs for operational energy.

Surface materials, installations, and minor building components are excluded for two
reasons. Firstly, they are constituting a very small part of the CO2 emissions. Secondly
they can be considered to be constant for all alternatives, and hence not necessary for the
decision support.

4. State scenarios for the reference time

A steady state during the reference time is anticipated, that is no renovations and no
change in the usage. Normal maintenance is presupposed but not accounted for in the
assessment, since the maintenance scenarios can be regarded as similar for all alternatives.
Normal user behaviour is anticipated. No end-of-life scenarios are assumed since this life
cycle stage is excluded in the study. The LCC is calculated as Net present value, but the
price of energy is assumed to increase more than the yearly inflation.

5. Define targets, references and benchmarks

Targets for the example include that the maximum allowed energy use when household
electricity is excluded should be 55 kWh/m2,yr. The CO2 target is set to less than 10 kg
CO2-equivalents/m2,yr. The LCC of the building should not be more than 5% higher than
an ordinary building.

6. Describe the building

The building’s interior size is 6 by 10 m. The location is Stockholm. The house should
host 4 residents. The indoor temperature in winter should be 22 oC. The building should
fulfil requirements in the Swedish building code. Main building materials of the different
building elements, u-values of windows, etc. are given in table 4 below.

7. Collect and compile data

Building dimensions, types of building materials and their thicknesses were taken from
drawings. Emission data were captured from the Swedish Environmental Research
Institute (Energy) and self declared building product declarations, less rigorous than EPDs
(building materials).

8. Perform the assessment

In the example, the purpose of the study was to use LCA in order to design a single family
house that would fulfil targets regarding energy use and CO2 emissions. The assessment in
the example therefore implies testing different design and technical solutions with help of
the ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL, to see how the targets could be
reached. Table 5 summarises this procedure/assessment.

27
 Table 4. Actions taken step by step to reach the target for energy and CO2 emissions for a new single family
house situated in Sweden and initially designed to fulfil the requirements of the Swedish building code.

Glass Ext. door

area/ area Vent. Hot
Actions to decrease energy Win- Ext. Floor /Floor heat water Kg equiv
use and CO 2 emissions Basement Roof Slabs Exterior walls dows doors Int. walls area area recovery by solar kWh/m 2,yr CO 2/m 2,yr
EPS 100 Concrete 100 Concrete Brick 3 layer Wood Wood
Concrete Steel sheet 100 EPS 50 U=1,5 U=2,5 100
0 Start 21% 5% 0% 0% 107 23
100 Min wooll 150 Wood Min wool 150
Wood Gysum Gypsum
1 Increase insulation + EPS 100 +Min wool 300 +Min wool 150 0,9 1,5 21% 86 18,2
2 Decrease window size 13% 83 17,7
3 Recover ventilation heat 85% 68 14,6
4 Install solar collectors 50% 55 10,6
5 Change brick to timber 55 9,7
6 Ch concr. slabs to timber 55 9,2
7 Ch to CO2 free prop. Electr 8,7
8 Wood stove for 20% sp heat 7,7

The actions are specific to a Swedish climate. In France for instance, increasing solar
aperture and thermal mass generally reduces the heating load whereas appropriate solar
protection is needed in summer and mid-season.

9. Present result

The ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE tool currently presents the main results as
in Table 6. Table 6 shows the results after all the actions taken as described in Table 5.
For providing a transparent result, a results table as the one in Table 6 should be shown
for each action taken.

28
 Table 5. Summary of specific yearly energy use and CO2 emissions for the single family house (120m2) once
the targets are reached.

Anticipated building life time 50

ENERGY FOR OPERATION

kg equiv
2 % 2 %
kWh/m ,yr CO2/m ,yr
Household Electricity 30 35% 1,0 12%
Building Electricity 15 18% 0,0 0%
Space cooling 0 0% 0,0 0%
Total electricity 45 53% 1,0 12%
Total electricity without household
15 18% 0,0 0%
electricity

Space heating 25 29% 4,2 49%

Ventilation 3 3% 0,5 6%
Hot water 13 15% 1,3 15%
Total heating 40 47% 6,1 70%

Total energy use 85 100% 7,1 82%

Total energy use without household
55 65% 70%
electricity 6,1

MATERIALS
kg equiv
kg/m2 2 %
% CO2/m ,yr
Exterior walls including windows and doors 56 22% 0,6 7%
Attic 18 7% 0,2 2%
Basement 157 61% 0,5 6%
Slabs 15 6% 0,1 2%
Internal walls 12 5% 0,1 2%

Total material use 258 100% 1,6 18%

Total yearly impact 8,7 100%

Total yearly impact without user electricity 7,7 88%

There are naturally many ways to present life cycle calculations. In focus should be what
the client is specifically interested in presented in a short and clear way. The result should
be accompanied with a report where more details could be shown.

10. Validation
Preferably the result should be accompanied by a sensitivity analysis where main
parameters are varied to show the robustness of the conclusions. This is not done in this
example where calculations still are very rough and need to be scrutinized in further work.
The purpose with this example is mainly to show the procedure.

29
6. References

prEN 15978 (2009) Sustainability of construction works – Assessment of environmental

performance of buildings – Calculation methods.
Concerto EU programme. Concerto Ecocity project. www.ecocity-project.eu
Davis Langdon. (2007). Life cycle costing (LCC) as a contribution to sustainable construction
– Guidance on the use of the LCC Methodology and its application in public procurement.
David Langdon, Management Consulting. May 2007.
Davis Langdon (2009) Development of a promotional campaign for life cycle costing in
construction.
European Commission Joint Research Centre (2009). International Reference Life Cycle Data
System (ILCD) Handbook: Analysis of existing Environmental Impact Assessment
methodologies for use in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Draft for public consultation 01 June
2009. jrc.ec.europa.eu.
Finnveden, G., Hauschild, M., Ekvall, T., Guinée, J., Heijungs, R., Hellweg, S., Koehler, A.,
Pennington, D. W. and Suh, S. (2009). Recent developments in Life Cycle Assessment.
Journal of Environmental Management 91 (1), 1-21.
GEFMA. Guideline 220: Life cycle costing. German Facility Management Association.
ISO. (2004). Environmental management systems - Requirements with guidance for use (ISO
14001:2004). Geneva: ISO.
ISO. (2006).Environmental labels and declarations -- Type III environmental declarations --
Principles and procedures (ISO 14025:2006). Geneva: ISO.
ISO (2006). Environmental Management - Life cycle assessment - Principles and framework
(ISO 14040:2006). Geneva: ISO.
ISO. (2006). Environmental management -- Life cycle assessment -- Requirements and
guidelines (ISO 14044:2006). Geneva: ISO.
ISO. (2007). Sustainability in building construction -- Environmental declaration of building
products (ISO 21930:2007). Geneva: ISO.
ISO. (2008). Buildings and constructed assets - Service-life planning - Part 5: Life-cycle
costing (ISO 15686-5:2008). Geneva:ISO.
Kretsloppsrådet (Swedish Ecocycle Council) and Miljöstyrningsrådet (The Swedish
Environmental Management Council). Nationella riktlinjer för Miljöanpassat byggande,
nybyggnad av bostäder. Under development
Norwegian standard (2000). NS3454 Life cycle costs for building and civil engineering work
– Principles and classification.
Palm and Ranhagen. Swedish Energy Agency. (2003) avsnitt 3.2
Peuportier, B, Scarpellini, S, Glaumann, M, Malmqvist, T, Krigsvoll, G, Wetzel, C, Staller,
H, Szalay, Z, Degiovanni, V, Stoykova, E. (2008). ENSLIC BUILDING : Energy Saving
through Promotion of Life Cycle Assessment in Buildings. State of the art report.

30
Appendices
1. The Enslic guidelines template (separate excel sheet)
2. The main content of the ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL
3. LCA tools for buildings – Examples
4. LCI Databases
5. Additional comments regarding deliverables D3.2-4
6. Result presentation examples catalogue

31
Appendix 1. The ENSLIC TEMPLATE (separate excel sheet)

Sheet 1
Step Sheet
1 State the purpose of the study
(project development, impact comparison, classification, etc) 2. Assessment

2 Choose assessment tool

2. Assessment
(Basic, building, avanced)
3 State the system boundaries for the assessment
(Reference time, building stage, assessed features, data requirements 2. Assessment
etc)
4 State scenarios for the reference time
(steady state, regular retrofit, cost development etc) 2. Assessment

5 Define targets, references, benchmarks etc

(impact, depletion, energy use, … Country or EU average, target,..) 3. Targets

6 Describe the building

4. Building
(Name, type, size, location etc )
7 Collect and compile data 5. Data input
a) Environmental data that is not in the tool (emissions per Joule, (and
emissions per kg etc) documented
separately)
b) Building data depending on assessed stages 5. Data input
8 Perform assessment
(trial and error if targets should be reached) 6. Assessm. Res

9 Present results
(graphs, tables, analysis, eventually desired improvements etc) 7. Result pres.

10 Validate
(check results relative to purpose, check calculations fulfillment of 8. Validation
requirements etc.)

32
Sheet 2. ASSESSMENT INFORMATION
CEN 350 1 1. Purpose of assessment Test
CEN 350 2 Client for assessment Enslic group
CEN 350 3 Assessor MG
CEN 350 4 2. Assessment tool used
Enslic 5 Type of tool (basic, building, advanced etc) Enslic basic
CEN 350 6 Assessed life cycle stages
CEN 350 8 Period of assessment 081215
CEN 350 3. System boundaries
Enslic 9 Design life or reference time, yr 50
CEN 350 10 Assessed energy for operation district heating, electricity for building operation
Enslic 11 Assessed building elements Type Design life, yr Maintainance
Enslic 12 Load bearing structure
Enslic 13 Roof
Enslic 14 External walls including windows
Enslic 15 Interior walls
Enslic 16 Installations
Enslic 17 Finsihing surfaces
Enslic 18 …….
4. Scenarios
CEN 350 19 The end of life including:(demolition, deconstr.,recovery, recycling, disposal) Not assessed
Building operations that affects energy, water use, waste production &
CEN 350 20 Normal
commissioning
CEN 350 21 Available infrastructure Electricty, district heating, water, sewage, waste recycling
CEN 350 22 Occupants behaviour in operation stage Normal
CEN 350 23 Building’s location and its influence on user transportation Not assed, but very good location nearby underground station
24 Other scenarios assumed
Data sources
Enslic 25 Building data Skanska, Carl Jonsson, tel
Enslic 26 Environmental data IVL & Swedish Energy Agency
CEN 350 Verification
Enslic 27 Sensitivity analys
Enslic 27 Expert control
CEN 350 Life Cycle Cost
Enslic 29 Construction
Enslic 30 Maintenace

33
Sheet 3. ENVIRONMENTAL TARGETS
Enslic 5. Environmental targets Stage I Stage II Stage III Stage IV
Total
Materials Transports Construction Operation Maint. materials End-of-life
Impact category Target Ref Target Ref Target Ref T arget Ref Target Ref Target Ref Target Ref
Enslic 1 Contribution to global warming, kg/m2
Enslic 2 Destruction of the stratospheric ozone layer,
Enslic 3 Acidification of land and water, kg/m2
Enslic 4 Eutrophication, kg/m2
Enslic 5 Formation of ground level ozone, kg/m2
Enslic 6 Radioactive waste (Swed. mix 2007), MJ/m2
Enslic 7 Energy
Enslic 8 Use of energy (excluding user el.), MJ/m2
Enslic 9 Use of energy (including user el.), MJ/m2
Enslic 10 Bought energy, MJ/m2
CEN350 11 Use of renewable primary energy, MJ/m2
CEN350 12 Use of non renewable primary energy, MJ/m2
CEN350 Water
CEN350 13 Use of freshwater resource, m3/yr
Resources

CEN350 14 Use of renewable resource (other than primary

energy), kg/m2
CEN350 15 Use of recycled/reused resource kg/m2
CEN350 16 Material for recycling, kg/m2
Use of non renewable resource (other than
CEN350 17
primary energy), TMR, kg/m2
CEN350 18 Material for energy recovery, kg/m2
Waste
CEN350 19 Non hazardous waste, kg/m2
CEN350 20 Hazardous waste, kg/m2
Other
21 Other 1
22 Other 2
32 Other 3

Sheet 4 BUILDING INFORMATION

BUILDING INFORMATION
CEN 350 6. Building description Grönskär, Stockholm, Sweden
Enslic 1 Building owner & manager Svenska bostäder
Enslic 2 Architect/contractor Skanska
Enslic 3 Location (address) South Stockholm, Sweden
Enslic 4 Construction / refurbisment period Construction start: Spring 2007. Finsihed: Spring 2008
CEN 350 5 Type/Main use Residential/32 apartments
Enslic 6 Additional Space (garage, shops etc) Garage places 14 Parking places 22
Enslic 7 Site area, m2 -
Enslic 8 No of floors, floor height etc 8 Storey hight 2,83 Room hight 2,5
FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENT
CEN 350 9 Floor area , m2 Gross area 2893 Net area - Heated area 2607 Letable ar 2249
Enslic 10 Reference area, m2 2607
CEN 350 11 Volume, m3 -
CEN 350 12 Design number of building occupants 94
CEN 350 13 Time period of consideration, yr 50
CEN 350 14 Occupancy (period and pattern of use)
CEN 350 15 Regulatory requirements Conforming to Swdish regulations regarding space need, indoor environmental

Enslic TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Materials
Enslic Bearing structure
Enslic Walls External Concrete & EPS Internal Concrete resp. gypsum
Enslic Slabs Concrete
CEN 350 Roof Steel
Enslic U-values Walls Windows Roof Doors
Enslic HVAC & hot water service system
CEN 350 Air change rate
Enslic Operating schedule ventilation, heating and cooling
Enslic Energy supply District heating. A heat pump on exhaust air
CEN 350 Lighting system
Enslic Operating schedule ventilation, heating and cooling
CEN 350 Year of commissioning
CEN 350 Year(s) of refurbishment
CEN 350 Power and communication systems

34
Sheet 5 DATA INPUT

7. Data collection
ENERGY USE Clear energy use
kWh/ kWh/
kW h/yr 2 MJ/yr Kind
Electricity use m , yr user,yr
Property electricity 18 387 7 196 66 193 Swedish Mix
Household electricity 84 096 32 895 302 746 Swedish Mix
Total electricity use 102 483 39 1 090 368 939 Swedish Mix
Solar cell production 0 0 0 0
Other renewable electr. prodduction 0 0 0 0
Bought electricity 102 483 39 1 090 368 939 Swedish Mix

Heat use
Electricity for heat pump 45 167 17 481 162 601 Sw. Mix
Space heating from heat pump 112 918 43 1 201 406 503 Free
Space heating fr distr heating 58 166 22 619 209 398 Stockholm district heat
Space heating from fuel 0 0 0 0
Hot water from electricity 0 0 0 0
Hot water from district heating 79 891 31 850 287 608 Stockholm district heat
Total heat use 296 142 114 3 150 1 066 109
Solar panels 0 0 0 0
Bougth heat excl. electricity 138 057 53 1 469 497 005 Stockholm district heat
Bought energy 285 707 110 3 039 1 028 545
Bought energy excl. housh electr. 201 611 77 2 145 725 800

BUILDING MATERIALS
Building reference time 50 years
l
e

oo

en

m
et

Use, Kg
w
n

su
et
d
cr

ss
re

l
oo

ee

m
.

ly

yp
on

in

la
ty

Po

Su
W

St
M

G
C

Foundation 123 687 1 956 10 1 369 124 127 146

Slabs 1 053 656 13 692 68 1 067 416
External walls 667 952 3 960 3 960 867 676 739
Windows 9 316 9 316
External doors 4 64 56 124
Roof 2 461 13 867 16 328
Attic 198 648 2 347 200 995
Internal walls 459 080 821 71 710 60 688 592 299
Fixed carpentry 0
Sum 2 503 023 22 069 4 038 4 541 991 85 641 9 372 60 688 2 690 363
Losses,% transp.
& site 9% 13% 8% 4% 4% 12% 0% 12%
Total 2 728 295 24 938 4 361 4 723 1 031 95 918 9 372 67 971
Maintenance and reparation
Est. service life, yr 50 50 50 50 50 50 30 25
During ref time 2 728 295 24 938 4 361 4 723 1 031 95 918 15 620 135 941

Transport, km 50 100 500 500 500 100 500 500

Carrier Lorry Lorry Lorry Lorry Lorry Lorry Lorry Lorry

WATER USE l/pers,day l/m2,yr l/yr

Potable water

Yearly
COST Erection Maintain. Energy Waste Water Cleaning
Specification

35
Sheet 6 ASSESSMENT RESULT

Life
8. Assessment Indicator Unit Stage I Stage II Stage III Stage IV Total
tim e
Bench- Relative
ISSUES Tran- Con- Normal Mainte- mark Target
Produc- sport struc- use nance & End of
tion (Enslic) tion (Enslic) repair life
Impact category
CEN350 Contribution to global warming CO 2 eq kg/m2 50 212 164 376 500
CEN350 Destr. of the stratosph. ozone layer CFC-11 eq kg/m2
CEN350 Acidification of land and water SO2 eq kg/m2
CEN350 Eutrophication PO4 eq kg/m2
CEN350 Formation of ground level ozone C2H 2 eq kg/m2
CEN350 Radioactive waste (Swed. mix 2007) MJ/m2 4590 4 590
Energy
E nslic Use of energy (excluding user el.) MJ/m2,yr 550 550
E nslic Use of energy (including user el.) MJ/m2,yr 435 435
E nslic Bought energy MJ/m2,yr 395 395
CEN350 Use of renewable primary energy MJ/m2,yr
CEN350 Use of non renewable primary energy MJ/m2,yr
CEN350 Water
3
CEN350 Use of freshwater resource m
Resources
Use of renewable resource (other than
CEN350 kg/m2
primary energy)
CEN350 Use of recycled/reused resource kg/m2
CEN350 Material for recycling kg/m2
Use of non renewable resource (other
CEN350 TMR kg/m2
than primary energy)
CEN350 Material for energy recovery MJ/m2,yr
Waste
CEN350 Non hazardous waste kg/m2
CEN350 Hazardous waste kg/m2

Sheet 7 RESULT PRESENTATION (Example)

9. Result presentation
r 450
BASIC IMPACT CALCULATION y
0
400
350
5 300
re 250
Building: Gronskar .p
vi
200
150
u 100
Building life time, yr q
50 e
2
50
0
Impact category Climate change O
C
n
Reference area 2 607 m2 heated area o
T
Designed no of users 94
Impact total 981 344 kg CO2 equiv
Impact relative 376 kg CO2 equiv per m2
Impact relative 10 440 kg CO2 equiv per user

SUMMARY OF CALCULATIONS
Life time Potential
Type Amount MJ years Impact Unit Ratio
OPERATING ENERGY District heating - Stockholm 497 005 219 228 906 g eqv CO2 22%
Electricity Swedish mix 531 540 208 416 834 g eqv CO2 21%
Sum 427 645 740 g eqv CO2
BUILDING MATERIALS Gypsum 67 971 50 20 391 300 g eqv CO2 2%
Glass 9 372 50 5 670 060 g eqv CO2 1%
Steel 95 918 50 103 783 276 g eqv CO2 11%
Polyeten 1 031 50 1 993 954 g eqv CO2 0%
Mineral wool 4 723 50 2 796 016 g eqv CO2 0%
EPS 24 938 50 44 963 214 g eqv CO2 5%
Wood 24 938 50 13 965 280 g eqv CO2 1%
Concrete, reinforced 2 728 295 50 360 134 940 g eqv CO2 37%
Sum 553 698 040 g eqv CO2 56%
Both Energy & Materials 981 343 780 g eqv CO2 100%

36
Sheet 8 VALIDATION (example on approach)

10. Validation
Building data LCI data
Sensitivity analysis +- , % CO2 eq +- , % CO2 eq
Electricity 20%
Heat
Building material 1
Building material 2
Building material 3

Other assessment tool

Electricity
Heat
Building material 1
Building material 2
Building material 3

External expert
Methodology

Electricity
Heat
Building material 1
Building material 2
Building material 3

Conclusion
General
Method
Result

37
Appendix 2. The main content of the ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE
TOOL

The tool consists of the following sheets:

1. Illustration Brief explanation of how to use the tool

2. General information about the building Owner, architect, addresses, areas, etc
3. Dimensions Dimensions of the envelop
4. Construction Materials & thicknesses in building envelop
5. Energy use & CO2 emissions Is calculated when energy sources are inserted
6. Materials Amounts and associated CO2 em. are calculated
7. Material data Data like densities, etc of materials in database
8. Result Summary of results - energy and material
9. Energy emissions Specific emissions from diff. energy sources
10. Material emissions Spec. emissions from diff. material production
11. Global Warming Potential Characterisation factors from IPCC
12. Explore Work sheet for trial and error of energy & CO2
optimisation

38
Appendix 3. LCA tools

LCA tools for buildings - examples

Name Country URL

ATHENA Canada http://www.athenaSMI.ca
BECOST Finland http://www.vtt.fi/rte/esitteet/ymparisto/lcahouse.html
BEES USA http://www.bfrl.nist.gov/oae/software/bees.html
ECOEFFECT Sweden http://www.ecoeffect.se
ECO-SOFT Germany, http://www.ibo.at/de/ecosoft.htm
Austria
ECO-QUANTUM Netherlands http://www.ecoquantum.nl
ENVEST 2 UK http://envestv2.bre.co.uk/
EQUER France http://www.izuba.fr
GREENCALC Netherlands http://www.greencalc.com
LEGEP Germany http://www.legep.de/
OGIP Switzerland http://www.ogip.ch/

General LCA tools

Boustead: www.boustead-consulting.co.uk
Eco-it: www.pre.nl
Ecopro : www.sinum.com
Ecoscan: www.ind.tno.nl
Euklid: www.ivv.fhg.de
KCL Eco: www.kcl.fi/eco
Gabi: www.gabi-software.com
LCAit: www.ekologik.cit.chalmers.se
Miet: www.leidenuniv.nl/cml/ssp/software
Pems: www.piranet.com/pack/lca_software.htm
SimaPro: www.pre.nl
Team: www.ecobilan.com
Wisard: www.pwcglobal.com
Umberto: www.umberto.de

39
Appendix 4. LCI databases

Name URL
European Reference Life Cycle http://lca.jrc.ec.europa.eu/lcainfohub/datasetArea.vm
Database (ELCD)

Ecoinvent www.ecoinvent.ch

Gemis Gemis: www.gemis.de

40
Appendix 5. Additional comments regarding deliverables D3.2-4
Apart from what has already been recommended in these guidelines some additional points
will be made that relate to the other deliverables of WP3 in the ENSLIC project.

Recommendations on choice of LCA indicators for application in the building sector

(D3.2)
The recommendations regarding choice of LCA indicators from the ENSLIC project are
mainly related to the process of selecting tools. Throughout the project it has become clear
that it is advisable for building practitioners to use an adapted building LCA tool rather than a
general LCA tool like SimaPro or Gabi. The choice of tool will then most of all depend on
what is available on the national market. Since different tools tend to cover various indicators
and since there is still no consensus about a certain set of indicators, the choice of indicators
will depend on which indicators are covered by the chosen tool. It is thus yet not feasible to
make a more detailed recommendation on which indicators to choose.

The process of selecting indicators recommended by these guidelines also relates to the
purpose of the LCA study. In the particular example shown in the guidelines, environmental
targets were set by the client regarding emissions of CO2-eq and operational energy use. In
this case it was therefore only relevant to calculate these two indicators. For LCA beginners,
we here suggest to start with only calculating emissions related to climate change, as a
baseline. In most case studies in the ENSLIC project primary energy expressed as the
indicator Cumulative Energy Demand was also calculated. For the purpose of this particular
project, GWP potential and an indicator related to energy demand was therefore
recommended as the baseline for the case studies. However, if the purpose of the LCA study
is to present a more holistic environmental assessment, a number of other indicators should be
included. A selection of the most common indicators in building LCA tools are described in
the WP2 State-of-the-art report of the ENSLIC project (Peuportier et al, 2008). Other useful
sources for finding feasible indicators include the International Reference Life Cycle Data
System (ILCD) handbook on assessment methodologies (European Commission Joint
Research Centre, 2009) and the CEN TC 350 (2008) recommendations on indicators. Current
developments regarding life cycle impact assessment and related indicators can also be found
in Finnveden et al (2009).

Recommendations on specific LCA features (D3.3)

Some specific features related to LCA of buildings include:
- How to credit recycling in the start and end of a buildings life cycle?
- How to treat CO2 storage?
- How to deal with differing data quality?

Regarding recycling –the main aim of the Enslic project has been to promote life cycle
thinking among building and construction practitioners. The issue of recycling is complex and
there is a lack on consensus about how to deal with this issue in the calculations. In this
project it has essentially been omitted since it is complex for beginners. It can however be
concluded that there are different ways to handle these issues in for instance different building
LCA tools. The issue thus needs to be included in further research initiatives in order to move
towards harmonised and recommended approaches. The ongoing FP 7 project Low Resource
consumption buildings and constructions by use of LCA in design and decision making
(LoRe-LCA) will put effort in deepening this question.

41
Regarding CO2 storage – There are mainly two ways to deal with this issue: 1) it could be
modelled in some way, for instance as done in the CML impact assessment method. Or 2) it
could be simplified in the sense not to account for the CO2 storage in wooden building
materials, since this CO2 will eventually be released some time. The second alternative is the
chosen approach in the ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL. Uptake of CO2 in
concrete during the building life-time is another debated issue. Since there is still no clarity
regarding how much this might be under the circumstances the concrete is used in buildings,
it has not been considered in for example the ENSLIC case studies. The ongoing FP 7 project
Low Resource consumption buildings and constructions by use of LCA in design and
decision making (LoRe-LCA) will put effort in deepening at least the question of wood as a
CO2 storage.

Regarding data quality – A general conclusion in this project regarding this matter is that it is
in most cases relevant to make use of Ecoinvent data on the production of building materials,
but that local data is necessary concerning district heating and electricity use. A discussion on
data quality is also included in the guideline procedure – under the section “collect and
compile data”. The basic data quality requirements are described in ISO 14041:1998 (5.3.6).

Recommendations for communication of LCA results (D3.4)

When communicating LCA results, it has to be related to the intended audience. In the
ENSLIC guidelines we stress to document data and assumptions as completely as possible in
order to secure a decent transparency for others who potentially want to scrutinize the results.
The excel file ENSLIC TEMPLATE is an example which provides our minimum
recommendation on topics to be covered by the documentation of an LCA to promote high
transparency and possibilities to discuss comparisons with other LCAs.

The ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE TOOL also provides an attempt to
communicate to practitioners how LCA methodology can be adapted to provide useful
information in the planning and design situation. The easy trial-and-error tool provides a
simple way to comprehensively view results of different options taken in the early design
process. However it is strongly recommended that such tools mainly are used as internal tools
for getting a rough understanding of measures taken in the design process and how they affect
the environmental performance of the building. Naturally, users must be aware of that it is not
a complete LCA since many simplifications are made and since only one indicator (CO2-
emissions) is calculated.

There are naturally numerous ways to display LCA results for communicating what kinds of
conclusions can be drawn. Appendix 6 compiles some examples of result graphs from the
ENSLIC case studies and other tools used by the ENSLIC partners. The ENSLIC case studies
and the excel sheets ENSLIC TEMPLATE and ENSLIC BASIC ENERGY & CLIMATE
TOOL further provides a number of tables for presenting results and documenting data of the
LCA.

42
Appendix 6. Result presentation examples catalogue
Here follows some examples of result graphs from the ENSLIC case studies and other tools
used by the ENSLIC partners. The origin of the example of presentation is indicated inside
the brackets for each example.

Aggregated overall building results

Most decision-makers prefer summarized information and therefore tend to demand
aggregated results. This means that if making an LCA covering a number of impact
categories, weighting is necessary in order to make such an aggregation. However, weighting
is disputed and some people therefore argue for not using weighting at all for interpretation of
LCA results. If weighting is performed it is crucial to explain the basis for the weights and the
process of arriving at them.

Example 1 (the Swedish tool EcoEffect)

The evaluated building Other buildings

Internal load number alt.
IN-/OUTDOOR ENV.

Av. user satisfaction,%

50

60

70

80

90

100
0 1 2 3 4 5
External load index
EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT
The results of the LCA of material and energy use of the building is weighted and aggregated
into a single index, the external load index. In this tool and index is also calculated based on
the quality of the indoor and close outdoor environment of the building. This allows for
looking at potential trade-offs and optimisation of both these two important components.

43
Example 2 (the Swedish tool EcoEffect)

Equally good

Much worse
Much better
Building “A” compared with

Worse
Better
Reference values

Energy Emissions
use Waste
Resources
Material Emissions
use Waste
Resources
Indoor Ill-health
Discomfort
Outdoor Ill-health
Discomfort
Bio diversity
Bio productivity
Life cycle Current price rel.
costs Increased env. cost.

The LCA calculations to different impact categories are in this example aggregated to three
overarching impact categories (Emissions, Waste, Resources) by weights. The results are then
compared to a reference building. Such a reference building can for example be a theoretical
building constituted of statistical mean values or a real building for instance a “best practice”
building or a new building complying with current building standards

Non-aggregated overall building result

If one wants to avoid weighting of different impact categories but still view all the results in
one single presentation, the two most common approaches are rose diagrams or bar diagrams.
There are strengths and shortcomings with both of them.

Example 3 (the French tool Equer used in French case studies)

44
The rose diagram provides a perceptible result presentation since it enables relative
comparisons of different alternatives, in this case two renovation alternatives compared to
existing building standard. However, an important feature to remember when making the
interpretation is that the diagram does NOT point out the most significant environmental
problems of the alternatives.

Example 4 (the Swedish tool EcoEffect)

RELATIVE IMPACT,
%

This is an example of a bar diagram. In this example the calculations are only related to the
energy use of the building in the use stage. As in example 3, the height of the bars does not
say anything about the relative importance between impact categories. However, in this case
the results of each impact category are normalised in relation to the average emissions per
capita. The results are then presented in % which is a prerequisite for displaying them in the
same diagram (and for being able to assign weights to each category in the next step).
However, this unit is often somewhat difficult to understand.

Example 5 (French case study)

45
In this example the results have also been normalised in order to make possible the
presentation of four different impact categories in the same graph. This graph provides a
comparison between two buildings (a standard and a passive building in this example) for
these four impact categories. However the diagram also displays which life cycle stage that
contributes the most to each impact category.

Different detailed result presentations

When continuing analysing an overall result of different impact categories or for more
specific purposes with the LCA, many different ways of displaying more detailed results
exist. Here are some examples.

Example 6 (Hungarian case study)

This graph displays the same thing as example 5 but for just one impact category.

46
Example 7 (Austrian case study)

Primary energy requirement building components within a

life cycle of 50 years

300
271,77

250

201,40 191,32
200
Exterior walls
254,88 Flat roof
GJ

150 Floor slab

Suspended ceiling
100 Doors and windows
56,51
50

This graph enables understanding of which building elements constitute the highest
contribution to the impact category under study (primary energy in this example). Thus, the
LCA shows that improvements may be focused on these building elements if the building is in
design phase.

Example 8 (Swedish case study)

GWP before (blue) and after (grey) improvement measures, CO2-eq/m2,y

0
g

gy
l
ls

r
s

ia
of
b

y
ws

ty
te

in
ab

os
in
l
la

cit

er

er
wa
ro

i
wa

ric
ol
do

at
ts

Sl

tr i
l

at

En
Co
&

at
he

t
al
n
en

ec

ec

M
t

he
Ho
t ic

wi

rn

L
el
e

el
m

TA
At

te

ac
cl

TA
n
se

er
In
in

io

TO
in
Sp
Ba

Us

TO
at

ild
ls

il
al

Bu
nt
w

Ve
al
rn
te
Ex

This graph also displays how much different building elements contribute to the studied
impact category. However it has also integrated the contributions from different processes
related to the energy demand of the building. That is, the relation between the two life cycle
stages under study (production and use stage) can be analysed. However the graph is also a
comparison and provides an answer to the question of how much the GWP can be reduced
provided a number of improvement measures are taken.

47
Example 9 (Austrian case study)

Total primary energy requirement within a life cycle of 50

years

1.200.000
976.447
1.000.000
867.600
800.000
Building materials
600.000
Operation without
MJ

solar contribution
400.000 Operation with solar
contribution
200.000

0
-86.400
-200.000

This graph also provides information about how much one particular improvement measure
would impact on the total contribution to a certain impact category.

Example 10 (Austrian case study)

Primary energy requirement building materials within a life

cycle of 50 years

300
266,23
250
OSB-Board
199,63
200 Polystyrene
166,49 Sawn wood
Wooden floor
GJ

150
Reinforced concrete
102,57 Cellulose fibres
100 Wood fibre insulation
78,27 72,94 66,40
Others
50
23,33

This graph is similar but instead answers the question which of the used building materials
used for the building constitutes the highest contribution to the impact category under study.

48
Example 11 (French case study)

These graphs display how the total impact of the building to a certain impact category (GWP
and Water use in this example) is related to the insulation thickness. The graphs thus aim to
answer the question of what would be the optimal insulation thickness of the building under
study in a life cycle perspective.

Example 12 (Swedish case study)

This graph displays the accumulated reductions of final bought energy and GWP after each
improvement measure is taken. It thus shows the whole process of improvement in the design
process in order to reach a certain target. The target levels could also be inserted in this graph
to increase the understanding.

49
Example on LCC results presentation

Example 13 (German case study)

The example aimed at finding out the most cost efficient way to treat a typical existing
residential building. Four different alternatives for the works at the same building were
suggested:

• demolition and new construction

• no refurbishment, only minimum expemditure for small repair when necessary
• conventional refurbishment
• sustainable refurbishment (i.e. especially thermal improvement of the building
envelope)

With the intent of helping the owner to achieve the lowest cost for the next 50 years use time
of the building, these proposals were evaluated by making an LCC. Here follows examples on
result presentations from this case study.

New Construction Repair by Failure

Construction

Refurbishment

NPV for building opering - structure and envelope

NPV for building opering - building plants

NPV for building refurbishment and replacement - structure

Conventional Refurbishment Sustainable Refurbishment and envelope
NPV for building refurbishment and replacement - building
plants
NPV for energy consumption

NPV for water consumption incl. sewage charge

NPV for end of lif

This figure displays the distribution of costs into different cost categories depending on the
chosen alternative. For example it is seen that the proposal “Sustainable Refurbishment”
implies a high percentage related to refurbishment costs. However the next figure shows that
together with the lower energy costs, this proposal nevertheless displays the lowest NPV sum
in these four variants. For existing buildings the refurbishment costs are generally lower than
costs for operating and energy use. Therefore, optimising the use cost is often much more
important and efficient than merely keep the low refurbishment cost.

50
 LCC of four Refurbishment Proposals

6.000.000,00€

5.000.000,00€

4.000.000,00€

3.000.000,00€

2.000.000,00€

1.000.000,00€

- €
demolition and new repair by failure conventional sustainable refurbishment
construction refurbishment

Cost for refurbishment NPV for operating

NPV for refurbishment and replacement NPV for end of life
Total NPV

Obviously, the new construction is the most expensive alternative both in cost occuring the
the first year (here also named "refurbishment cost") and also when regarding LCC. The
options "repair by failure" and "conventional refurbishment" are regarded less efficient in the
LCC evaluation than the proposal "sustainable refurbishment" which proves to be the best
coice of all four regarded alternatives. This is mainly caused by the reduced cost for energy in
the use stage.

51