Factsheet: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 0.37MB) 
May 2024
Investment decisions for buildings made today largely determine their environmental impacts over many future decades due to their long lifetimes. Furthermore, such decisions involve a trade-off between additional investments today and potential savings during use and at end of life - in terms of economic costs, primary energy demand, greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts. Since the economic system does not fully account for external environmental effects, environmental resources are used inefficiently. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is suited to complement economic information on buildings with information on their environmental impacts. LCA helps to take measures and action to increase the resource efficiency of buildings and construction.

IEA EBC Annex 72: Background information (PDF 33.28MB) 
Assessing life cycle related environmental impacts caused by buildings
May 2023
Editor(s): Rolf Frischknecht, Thomas Lützkendorf, Alexander Passer, Harpa Birgisdottir, Chang-U Chae, Shivakumar Palaniappan, Maria Balouktsi, Freja Nygaard Rasmussen, Martin Röck, Tajda Obrecht, Endrit Hoxha, Marcella Ruschi Mendes Saade
Publisher: Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz
The IEA EBC Annex 72 project continued research already conducted under EBC Annex 56 and 57. It extends the scope of Annex
57, which focused on building-related "grey" components of an LCA, to include the operational impacts of building use. In addition
to primary energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions, Annex 72 considered other environmental impacts.
The project addressed, among other things, issues of standardization of methodological principles that arise when applying LCA
approaches to buildings. It serves as a platform for the exchange of experience and knowledge within the partner countries and
promotes the application of LCA to buildings in countries that have little experience.
The objectives of the IEA EBC Annex 72 were:
§ Establish and standardize baselines for assessing life-cycle primary energy demand, greenhouse gas emissions, and
environmental impacts of buildings, and develop proposals for the development of national or institutional calculation and
assessment rules.
§ Development of bases for the development, application and interpretation of environmental benchmarks for different building
types
§ Derive regionally differentiated guidelines and tools to support design decisions for buildings, such as BIM for architects
§ Collection and analysis of case studies to support evaluation of real-world application experiences
The results are available in the final and background reports of IEA EBC Annex 72, including the book “IEA EBC Annex 72
Background Information: Assessing life cycle related environmental impacts caused by buildings” collected here.
ISBN: 978-3-85125-953-7
Document Number: DOI: 10.3217/978-3-85125-953-7

EBC Annex 72: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 0.61MB) 
Project Summary Report
February 2023
Author(s): Rolf Frischknecht, Harpa Birgisdottir, Thomas Lützkendorf, Sivakumar Palaniappan, Alexander Passer
Editor(s): Rolf Frischknecht
Publisher: treeze Ltd.
Buildings and infrastructures serve basic needs and are the basis for social and economic development. The production, construction, maintenance and operation of construction works are associated with considerable energy and material flows as well as undesirable effects on the global and local environment.
One focus is on the methodological basis for quantifying and assessing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the life cycle of buildings. These have an impact on global warming and, with a share of about 40 % of global GHG emissions (IEA & UN Environment 2018), contribute to the fast deployment of the remaining GHG emission budget which corresponds to the 1.5°C target. There is an urgent need for action.
In order to be able to quantify, evaluate and specifically reduce these impacts, suitable assessment methods and design tools are needed. Such methods and tools enable decision-makers not only to recognise but also to influence the impacts on the environment as early as the design stage as well as throughout the project. The further development of such assessment methods and design aids for buildings was one of the tasks of the IEA EBC Annex 72. The basic principles and recommendations for action developed by more than 60 scientists from 25 countries in Europe, the Americas and Asia are now available on the IEA EBC Annex 72 website.
ISBN: 978-3-9525709-8-2
Document Number: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.7468021

EBC Annex 72: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 9.42MB) 
Guidelines for design decision-makers
February 2023
Author(s): Alexander Passer, Tajda Potrc Obrecht, Nicolas Alaux et al.
Publisher: treeze Ltd.
The content of the report serves as guidelines for design decision-makers on how to use available information
to perform Life cycle assessment (LCA) of buildings during their design process. The building designers and
person involved into the planning process are systematically guided through the design steps focusing on
the following questions:
- How can the goal and scope of the LCA be linked with the design steps?
- How can the LCA inventory and the data involved in the LCA be organized?
- Which tools can be used?
- Which workflows can be used?
- How can design-related uncertainties be reduced in the workflow?
- How can LCA results be visualized, interpreted and communicated?
These guidelines summarize selected the results and recommendations of several background reports of
tasks performed within the IEA-EBC project Annex 72 dealing with the “Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental
Impacts Caused by Buildings”. The overall goal of the project is the harmonization of the methodology
and solvation of issues which arise when applying LCA approaches on buildings.
ISBN: 978-3-9525709-1-3
Document Number: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7468687

EBC Annex 72: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 6.43MB) 
Case Study Collection
February 2023
Author(s): Harpa Birgisdóttir, Liv Kristensen Stranddorf et al.
Publisher: treeze Ltd.
The content of the report serves as a collection of case studies gathered from the participants of the IEA EBC project Annex 72 dealing with the “Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings”. The overall goal of the project is the harmonization of the methodology and solvation of issues which arise when applying LCA approaches on buildings.
The objectives of the project are:
- To establish a common methodology guideline to assess the life cycle based primary energy de-mand, greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts caused by buildings;
- To establish methods for the development of specific environmental benchmarks for different types of buildings;
- To derive regionally differentiated guidelines and tools for building design and planning such as BIM for architects and planners;
- To establish a number of case studies, focused to allow for answering some of the research issues and for deriving empirical benchmarks;
- To develop national or regional databases with regionally differentiated life cycle assessment data tailored to the construction sector; share experiences with the setup and update of such databases.
ISBN: 978-3-9525709-3-7
Document Number: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7468792

EBC Annex 72: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 0.79MB) 
Understanding the Impact of Individual, Industry & Political Decisions on Transitions Towards Environmental Sustainability
February 2023
Author(s): A. Moncaster, T. Malmqvist, K. Polycarpou, J. Anderson, N. Francart
Publisher: treeze Ltd.
ISBN: 978-3-9525709-7-5
Document Number: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7468835

EBC Annex 72: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 3.28MB) 
Benchmarking and Target-setting for the Life Cycle-based Environmental Performance of Buildings
February 2023
Author(s): Thomas Lützkendorf, Maria Balouktsi, Rolf Frischknecht, Bruno Peuportier, Freja Rasmussen, Daniel Satola, Aoife Houlihan Wiberg, Harpa Birgissdottir, David Dowdell, Antonin Lupisek, Tove Malmquist, Tajda Obrecht, Damien Trigaux
Publisher: treeze Ltd
ISBN: 978-3-9525709-4-4
Document Number: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7468752

EBC Annex 72: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 2.3MB) 
Life-cycle Optimization of Building Performance: A Collection of Case Studies
February 2023
Author(s): Sonia Longo, Maurizio Cellura, Francesco Montana, et al.
Publisher: treeze Ltd.
The purpose of this report is to illustrate the contribution of the International Energy Agency - Energy in Buildings and Communities (IEA EBC) Programme Annex 72 members to the topic of life-cycle multi-objective optimization of buildings performance.
In detail, the purpose of the report is:
- To collect existing case studies developed by the Annex 72 members on optimization techniques applied for finding an environmental-energy-economic “optimum” among different design or retrofitting solutions;
- To examine the collected case studies and compare methodologies, applications and results, and deriving some general conclusions on the topic.
The case studies are intended to be used as a basic knowledge for identifying:
- Optimization techniques to be used for finding the “optimum” among different alternative solutions;
- Solutions to be adopted for reducing both the energy consumption during the operation and the environmental impacts and costs during the whole life cycle and for avoiding that the benefits of a low energy building during operation are offset by the higher impacts due to additional materials/costs and energy required during the other life-cycle stages.
The target groups of this report are scientists and developers and providers of building design tools.
ISBN: 978-3-9525709-6-8
Document Number: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7468477

EBC Annex 72: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 1.09MB) 
Guidelines for Establishing an Easy-to-use National LCA Database for the Construction Sector
February 2023
Author(s): Sivakumar Palaniappan, Rolf Frischknecht, Chang U Chae
Publisher: treeze Ltd.
This technical report presents a set of guidelines for developing an easy to use national LCA database targeting the construction and real estate sector. First, the motivation for establishing a national LCA data-base and the benefits of such database are outlined. This is followed by a detailed presentation on the methodological guidelines needed for establishing a national LCA database. In general, it is recommended that the methodological guidelines should adhere to the international standards such as EN 15804 A2:2019 and ISO 21930:2017.
Methodological guidelines are presented for establishing the life cycle inventory data with reference to the following aspects: definition of system boundaries, LCA modeling approaches, definition of environmental indicators, contents of the LCA database, data quality parameters, core methodological aspects, specific methodological aspects, LCA data on future construction material manufacturing, product groups, scope of data to be collected, recommendations for using LCA data from other countries, interoperability of LCA datasets and LCA database and suggested templates for data collection. Among these, the guidelines are presented for addressing the core methodological aspects such as the definition of declared unit and func-tional unit, allocation, cut-off rules, emission certificates, biogenic carbon, carbon offset, carbon storage and delayed emissions, carbonation, electricity mix applied in manufacturing, packaging, default transport distances, default waste management practice, production waste and waste generated on the construction site. Further, specific methodological aspects related to prefabricated building elements, imported construc-tion materials and overheads are also presented.
The participation of the industry stakeholders, database users and the government is critical for the long term success of the LCA database in terms of data collection, data review and funding support. Details on the roadmap development are covered including the vision and goals, governance and management, funds and financing, human resources, database hosting, data needs and availability, data quality requirements, data format and interoperability, and the application in policy making. In addition, the key elements of the governance structure highlighting the role of advisory council, governing board, operational working group and the IT management and database implementation are discussed.
ISBN: 978-3-9525709-5-1
Document Number: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7468416

EBC Annex 72: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 7.5MB) 
World Building Life-Cycle Based Databases and Repositories for the Building and Construction Sector
February 2023
Author(s): Chang-U Chae, Sunghee Kim, Rolf Frischknecht
Publisher: treeze Ltd.
This report provides an overview of the currently existing life-cycle based databases and repositories, which can be applied to building and construction sectors, and provided by major countries, organisations and global consulting companies. The report comprises the following parts:
- Analysis on general aspects of world’s life-cycle based databases
- Analysis on applicable LCA databases and their quality check for building and construction sectors
- Comparison of environmental impacts between similar products in same category of EPD programs
- Analysis on limitation and suggestions of Current LCA database in building and construction sectors
ISBN: 978-3-9525709-2-0
Document Number: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7468725

EBC Annex 72: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 5.43MB) 
Context-specific Assessment Methods for Life Cycle-related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings
February 2023
Author(s): Thomas Lützkendorf, Maria Balouktsi, et al.
Publisher: treeze Ltd.
This report focuses on methodological issues related to the determination, assessment and presentation of the environmental performance of buildings. The purpose of this report is to provide the foundations to re-sponsible parties for further developing their specific methods to assess the primary energy demand, GHG emissions and further environmental impacts of buildings and to increase the mainstreaming of practice globally. As far as possible, this should lead to a standardization of methods used worldwide. Where this goal cannot be achieved, methodological differences can be at least identified. The specific objectives of this report are to:
- clarify methodological questions that have been shown as significant but are under-addressed in the analysis of methods currently in use in the Annex 72 participating countries
- provide a consistent and transparent basis for a methodology and reporting structure for environmental performance assessment in line with international standards to enable comparability and usability of results.
- contribute to the interpretation and supplementation of international standards to improve their applicability and support their dissemination
- promote long-term and life cycle-based thinking, by encouraging the early consideration of likely future environmental impacts regarding maintenance, repair and replacement as well as of durability and adapt-ability of building components and the building as a whole
- contribute to the overall efforts of national governments and standard makers to guide construction and real estate industry on how to respond to climate change
- promote the application of principles for circular economy by encouraging the early consideration of the deconstructability of buildings and building components and quantification of their reuse, recycling and/or recovery potential
- enable benchmarking and target-setting.
ISBN: 978-3-9525709-0-6
Document Number: DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7468316