Integrated LCA: tool for ecological design

To  meet  the  requirements  of  building  owners  and users in environmental issues, life cycle assessment (LCA) has become an important method to monitor the ecological perspective during design and decision making processes. Existing LCA tools are separately available, but are missing the important links to other design tools, such as architectural, technical system design and energy simulation softwares. This paper presents a new integrated tool BSLCA for ecological design and analysis of building services. The tool utilises standard methods of exchanging design information  with  other  software  tools  based  on  the Industry Foundation Classes (IFC).