Guidelines for the use of existing Life Cycle Assessment data on building materials as generic data for a national context

ERRATUM : In the printed version, the title is the following one : « Towards a methodology to determine generic LCA data on building materials for a national context"

Author(s): J. Hodkova and S. Lasvaux
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: 265 – 273
Total Pages: 9
Language: English

Abstract: This paper focuses on a methodology to determine generic Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data for building materials for a national context based on existing and currently available data at the European and country-specific levels. It describes the different existing data types that can now be used in practice and focuses on their quality according to CEN/TR 15941. Two options are proposed: the first one proposes to average the existing EPD provided by the building industry. The second one relies on the use of existing generic LCA data at the European or country-specific scale. Data quality assessments are proposed to qualify each data assumed to be a generic data for a national context. Comparisons of Life Cycle Impact
Assessment indicators are also suggested to identify both differences and variability of the collected data. Results from a preliminary case study for the French context showed that the French average EPD for glass wool can well replace the generic Ecoinvent data mainly because of its more appropriate geographical, temporal and technological representativeness. Furthermore it reflects the actual realistic situation of glass wool sold on the French market, in comparison with Ecoinvent data, which is calculated for the Swiss context. However, some meta data commonly used to describe LCA generic datasets are currently missing in the French average EPD as some of the information are kept confidential by the industry.

Keywords: generic data, LCA, building material, meta data, indicator, Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), Ecoinvent

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