Relevance of a French simplified life cycle inventory database using building products industry data

Author(s): S. Lasvaux, N. Schiopu, B. Peuportier, J. Chevalier
Paper category: symposium
Book title: International Symposium on Life Cycle Assessment and Construction – Civil engineering and buildings
Editor(s): A. Ventura and C. de la Roche
Print ISBN: 978-2-35158-127-8
e-ISBN: 978-2-35158-128-5
Publisher: RILEM Publications SARL
Pages: 46 – 54 (+ 24 pages of appendixes)
Total Pages: 33
Language: English

Abstract: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a methodology that enables to characterize the environmental impacts of a product system all along the supply chain. As many Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) elementary flows have a potential impact on the environment and human health, they all need to be taken into account in Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA)methods. However, the publicly available LCI flows currently range from a reduced list of substances in some industry data e.g. Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) to more than a thousand in generic LCA databases. In this paper, the relevance of a French simplified LCI database using building products industry data is addressed. Results from a case study covering 113 building materials for three Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) indicators show that the simplification is not always relevant at the scale of a complete LCI database. Large uncertainties were found in the final results especially for LCIA indicators that require a high number of LCI flows. Nevertheless, the simplification seems to be relevant for around 95% of the building materials in the case of the Global Warming Potential (GWP) indicator. The findings of this study will contribute to improve the level of details of the LCI provided by the French building industry according to the chosen impact assessment methods.

Keywords: Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) database, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), simplification, characterization factor, building materials

Online publication: 2012
Publication Type: full_text
Public price (Euros): 0.00