IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v9y2017i6p922-d100137.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Taking the Time Characteristic into Account of Life Cycle Assessment: Method and Application for Buildings

Author

Listed:
  • Yurong Zhang

    (Department of disaster prevention mitigation and construction technology, College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University of Technology, No. 18 Chao Wang Road, Xia Cheng District, Hangzhou 310014, China)

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) involves many temporal issues. It is necessary to make a clear distinction between long-term impacts and short-term impacts, especially for those structures with long service life, such as buildings. With their long service life of 50 years, a great deal of maintenance and repairs could be conducted, causing a respective environmental impact. In this paper we explored a monetization method to convert the life cycle environmental impact into a life cycle environmental cost to address the temporal issues involved in LCA by discounting. This method can facilitate decision-making when tradeoffs between current and future environmental impacts exist. Moreover, this method can be used as an effective supplement to life cycle cost and provide decision support for making trade-off between cost and environmental impact. Finally, a building located in Xiamen City, China was selected as a case study and analyzed by the proposal LCA method. The results indicated that carbon cost in the operational stage is the maximum, building material production and transportation stages are ranked second, and the amount in the demolition stage is negligible, compared with the other three stages. Additionally, with the increase of the discount rate, the carbon cost in different life cycle stages will decrease, the percentage of the carbon cost in the operational stage will gradually decrease, but the percentage of the carbon cost in building material production and transportation stages will gradually increase.

Suggested Citation

  • Yurong Zhang, 2017. "Taking the Time Characteristic into Account of Life Cycle Assessment: Method and Application for Buildings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(6), pages 1-14, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:6:p:922-:d:100137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/6/922/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/6/922/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Zhaoxia & Zhao, Jing & Li, Meng, 2017. "Analysis and optimization of carbon trading mechanism for renewable energy application in buildings," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 435-451.
    2. Chau, C.K. & Leung, T.M. & Ng, W.Y., 2015. "A review on Life Cycle Assessment, Life Cycle Energy Assessment and Life Cycle Carbon Emissions Assessment on buildings," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 395-413.
    3. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    4. Christopher Barrington-Leigh & Fatemeh Behzadnejad, 2017. "Evaluating the short-term cost of low-level local air pollution: a life satisfaction approach," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 19(2), pages 269-298, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pia Heidak & Anne-Marie Isbert & Sofia Haas & Mario Schmidt, 2025. "Integration of Recent Prospective LCA Developments into Dynamic LCA of Circular Economy Strategies for Wind Turbines," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(10), pages 1-21, May.
    2. Shu Su & Jingyi Ju & Yujie Ding & Jingfeng Yuan & Peng Cui, 2022. "A Comprehensive Dynamic Life Cycle Assessment Model: Considering Temporally and Spatially Dependent Variations," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-18, October.
    3. Patricia Schneider-Marin & Anne Winkelkotte & Werner Lang, 2022. "Integrating Environmental and Economic Perspectives in Building Design," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-27, April.
    4. Christina Wulf & Jasmin Werker & Christopher Ball & Petra Zapp & Wilhelm Kuckshinrichs, 2019. "Review of Sustainability Assessment Approaches Based on Life Cycles," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(20), pages 1-43, October.
    5. Sarah M. Jordaan & Junghun Lee & Maureen R. McClung & Matthew D. Moran, 2021. "Quantifying the ecosystem services values of electricity generation in the US Chihuahuan Desert: A life cycle perspective," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(4), pages 1089-1101, August.
    6. Avi Friedman, 2017. "Sustainable and Resource—Efficient Homes and Communities," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-3, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Song, Xiangnan & Lu, Yujie & Shen, Liyin & Shi, Xunpeng, 2018. "Will China's building sector participate in emission trading system? Insights from modelling an owner's optimal carbon reduction strategies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 232-244.
    2. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    3. Denise Ravet, 2011. "Lean production: the link between supply chain and sustainable development in an international environment," Post-Print hal-00691666, HAL.
    4. Mara Del Baldo, 2012. "Corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in Italian SMEs: the experience of some “spirited businesses”," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(1), pages 1-36, February.
    5. Michael Howes & Liana Wortley & Ruth Potts & Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes & Silvia Serrao-Neumann & Julie Davidson & Timothy Smith & Patrick Nunn, 2017. "Environmental Sustainability: A Case of Policy Implementation Failure?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-17, January.
    6. Parnphumeesup, Piya & Kerr, Sandy A., 2011. "Stakeholder preferences towards the sustainable development of CDM projects: Lessons from biomass (rice husk) CDM project in Thailand," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(6), pages 3591-3601, June.
    7. Chin-Shan Lu & Kuo-Chung Shang & Chi-Chang Lin, 2016. "Examining sustainability performance at ports: port managers’ perspectives on developing sustainable supply chains," Maritime Policy & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(8), pages 909-927, November.
    8. Kebede, Yohannes, 1993. "The Limits to Common Resource Management: The Bypassed Commons or Commons without Tragedy," MPRA Paper 662, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 01 May 1993.
    9. John Stanley & Janet Stanley, 2023. "Improving Appraisal Methodology for Land Use Transport Measures to Reduce Risk of Social Exclusion," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-18, August.
    10. Nora Mzavanadze, 2009. "Building A Framework For National Sustainable Development Assessment And Application For Lithuania: Sustainability In Transition," Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management (JEAPM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 11(01), pages 97-130.
    11. Pishchulov, Grigory & Trautrims, Alexander & Chesney, Thomas & Gold, Stefan & Schwab, Leila, 2019. "The Voting Analytic Hierarchy Process revisited: A revised method with application to sustainable supplier selection," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C), pages 166-179.
    12. Isin Ceti̇n, 2017. "Accounting Requirements And Records On Bank Subscribed Capital Compliance With European Directives," Annals - Economy Series, Constantin Brancusi University, Faculty of Economics, vol. 1, pages 52-68, February.
    13. Meijing Liu & Changqi Liu & Hao Xie & Zhonghui Zhao & Chong Zhu & Yangang Lu & Changsheng Bu, 2023. "Analysis of the Impact of Photovoltaic Curtain Walls Replacing Glass Curtain Walls on the Whole Life Cycle Carbon Emission of Public Buildings Based on BIM Modeling Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(20), pages 1-21, October.
    14. Jean-Michel Sahuta & Sandrine Boulerne & Medhi Mili & Frédéric Teulon, 2014. "What Relation Exists Between Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr) And Longevity Of Firms?," Working Papers 2014-248, Department of Research, Ipag Business School.
    15. Alba Rocio Gutierrez Garzon & Pete Bettinger & Jacek Siry & Bin Mei & Jesse Abrams, 2019. "The Terms Foresters and Planners in the United States Use to Infer Sustainability in Forest Management Plans: A Survey Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-20, December.
    16. Shehu Folaranmi Gbolahan Yusuf & Oluwabunmi Oluwaseun Popoola & Lindokhule Gwala & Thinandavha Nesengani, 2021. "Promoting University–Community Alliances in the Experiential Learning Activities of Agricultural Extension Postgraduate Students at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-18, September.
    17. Filipa Correia & Philipp Erfruth & Julie Bryhn, 2018. "The 2030 Agenda: The roadmap to GlobALLizaton," Working Papers 156, United Nations, Department of Economics and Social Affairs.
    18. Choy Yee Keong, 2005. "Sustainable Development—An Institutional Enclave (with Special Reference to the Bakun Dam–Induced Development Strategy in Malaysia)," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 951-971, December.
    19. Anthony Bennett, 1998. "Sustainable public/private partnerships for public service delivery," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 22(3), pages 193-199, August.
    20. Smith, Joyotee & Scherr, Sara J., 2003. "Capturing the Value of Forest Carbon for Local Livelihoods," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(12), pages 2143-2160, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:6:p:922-:d:100137. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.