| Title |
Environmental Impact Assessment of Buildings based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Methodology |
| Authors |
Hong, Tae-Hoon ; Ji, Chang-Yoon ; Jeong, Kwang-Bok |
| DOI |
http://dx.doi.org/10.6106/KJCEM.2012.13.5.084 |
| Keywords |
Life Cytcle Impact Assessment(LCIA) ; Life Cycle Assessment(LCA) ; Environmental Impact Category ; Global Warming |
| Abstract |
Most of the studies on reduction of buildings’environmental burden in the construction industry have been focused on carbon dioxide emission, although there are various kinds of environmental issues such as global warming, acidification, and etc. which are considered by many researchers. Therefore, this study defined and suggested six impact categories and the principles to assess each impact for the assessment of comprehensive environmental impacts of buildings. The six impact categories are abiotic depletion, global warming, ozone layer depletion, acidification, eutrophication, and photochemical oxidation. A case study has been conducted through comparative analysis of two structural design alternatives to confirm the necessity of assessing the six impact categories. That is, the results of global warming potential and the six impacts proposed in this study were compared. By comparing the results of only global warming potential, the second design alternative using 24MPa concrete was chosen as a better alternative, while the first design alternative using 21MPa concrete was resulted as a better alternative when six impact categories were considered. The results mean that the assessment of various environmental impacts is an appropriate and reasonable approach and the comprehensive assessment offers more reliable results of environmental impacts in the building construction. |