This chapter addresses aspects that are related not to a single building life cycle stage but to several, and therefore represent common LCA questions. Also, these aspects typically relate both to buildings and to products. They provide provisions, rules and guidance for the goal and scope definition, the inventory analysis, the impact assessment and the interpretation steps according to ISO 14040-44. The following list describes the aspects addressed, which cover issues that typically need to be addressed when conducting an LCA study on a building product or a building.
- 5.2 Goal and Scope.
- G-01 Goal definition for building and product LCA.
- G-02 Classifying the decision context as situation A, B, and C for building and product LCA
- G-03 Future technical developments and innovation.
- G-04 Comparative assertion for building or product LCA.
- G-05 Scope definition for building and product LCA.
- G-06 Distinction between the declared unit and the functional unit
- G-07 Functional equivalent
- G-08 Functional equivalent vs. functional unit vs. declared unit
- G-09 Energy-efficient product definition.
- G-10 Definition of system boundaries for products
- G-11 Cut-off rules for screening, simplified, complete LCA.
- G-12 Infrastructure machinery and capital equipment for material production, energy, water, waste and transport for screening and simplified LCA.
- G-13 Infrastructure machinery and capital equipment for material production, energy, water, waste and transport for complete LCA.
- G-14 Transport of goods in LCA studies
- G-15 Accounting for carbon storage/carbon sequestration.
- G-16 Allocation.
- G-17 Allocation case: reuse, recycling and recovery.
- G-18 Allocation case for cement-based materials
- G-19 “Allocation examples for wooden products”
- G-20 Define reference building.
- 5.3 Life Cycle Inventory Analysis (LCI)
- G-21 Background databases in LCA studies
- G-22 Data selection for a product LCA.
- G-23 Data quality.
- G-24 “Collecting foreground and background data for product LCA”
- 5.4 Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA)
- G-25 Choice of environmental indicators – screening and simplified LCA.
- G-26 Choice of environmental indicators – Complete LCA.
- G-27 Abiotic resources depletion indicator
- G-28 Land use indicator
- G-29 Biodiversity indicator
- G-30 Human toxicity and ecotoxicity indicators
- G-31 Ionizing radiation indicator
- G-32 Water consumption as a new impact category.
- 5.5 Interpretation.
- G-33 Normalization of indicators
- G-34 Weighting of indicators
- G-35 Uncertainty analysis for comparative assertion.
- G-36 Sensitivity analysis
- G-37 Scenario analysis
- 5.6 Reporting.