environmental impacts

Energy use in buildings has a significant influence on the global energy demand and environmental impacts. Among all building systems, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are the most energy-intensive in terms of their total energy requirements. The production and operation of HVAC systems have a significant impact on the environment. These systems are also among the largest consumers of natural resources and materials in the building sector.

This paper focuses on the environmental impacts assessment module recently implemented in an energy balance tool. It describes the data and the methodology used to evaluate these impacts. It is based on a life cycle approach and includes not only the energy consumption during the operation phase, but also the impacts of the contruction materials, from manufacturing to waste disposal. This tool has been used within the framework of a national projet to perform a life cycle assessment of 20 different buildings located in Switzerland. One of these case studies is presented in this paper. 

This paper presents the features of Eco-Bat, a computer program developed to assess the environmental impacts of buildings, including construction materials and energy consumed, during its life cycle. The methodology used to evaluate environmental impacts based on a life cycle assessment (LCA) approach, compatible with ISO 14040 standards, is detailed. The data are mainly extracted from Ecoinvent (Anon A). Two applications are presented to illustrate the possibilities offered by Eco-Bat.

The paper deals with a complete procedure for the calculation of material embodied energy inthe building sector using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach; the calculation of embodied energy for building material and components during the design phase takes into account both material durability and frequency of maintenance interventions. As a case study an evaluation of embodied energy for three different types of external walls is reported: external insulation coated, single stratum and multi strata.