LCI

As we talked about it last post, we spend the whole week looking for database we could use. We were looking for one in Sweden that already have done an LCI (Life Cycle Inventory) with indicators (footprint and eco-cost) of the most common product systems we could encounter in the housing construction field.

We started by looking at an European scale with the JRC website and their Life Cycle Data Network initiative. Unfortunately this database is under construction and uncompleted. Then we looked at the database available through the OpenLCA website and software but, as the goal of the study is to integrate the calculation directly in Revit and we do not have the resources nor the knowledge to construct this database ourselves we decided to keep on looking.

We followed by getting in contact with the Swedish Life Cycle Center  concerning the status of their database but unfortunately they told us that “The CPM database is on hold and only sporadically updated, unfortunately there is no support given.” But they also provide us with two new sources :

As the trafikverket database was oriented toward product systems for the infrastructure construction field and not the housing we decide to move on to the second link.

This database from the Institutet för Vatten- och Luftvårdsforskning (Institute for Water and Air Defense Research) is using ELU as an indicator. An Environmental Load Unit equal to an environmental damage cost of one EUR which seems to be an indicator based on damage and we are looking for indicators based on :

  • a single issue indicator: “global warming” only, the carbon footprint (unit= kg CO2 equivalent) 
  • a “prevention based” indicator: the eco-costs 2007 (unit= €)

Therefore, we have not been able to find this already made database. BUT we remember that our goal is to create a tool that would work like a compass, to give fast indications of where the environmental impacts are situated at each stage of the project. We also remember that these databases are changing everyday depending on the methods used to do the assessment and the evolution of technologies.

That is why in the end we decided to make an approximation of it using the information from byggvarubedömningen and theIdematapp2018.xlsx file from Delft University of Technology