Factsheet: Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings (PDF 1.52MB) 
November 2019
Author(s): Annex 72
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.