Life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle energy analysis (LCEA) of buildings and the building sector: A review

Abstract

This review summarizes and organizes the literature on life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle energy analysis (LCEA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) studies carried out for environmental evaluation of buildings and building related industry and sector (including construction products, construction systems, buildings, and civil engineering constructions). The review shows that most LCA and LCEA are carried out in what is shown as “exemplary buildings”, that is, buildings that have been designed and constructed as low energy buildings, but there are very few studies on “traditional buildings”, that is, buildings such as those mostly found in our cities. Similarly, most studies are carried out in urban areas, while rural areas are not well represented in the literature. Finally, studies are not equally distributed around the world.

The work is partially funded by the Spanish government (ENE2011-28269-C03-01 and ENE2011-28269-C03-02) and the European Union (COST Action TU0802). The authors would like to thank the Catalan Government for the quality accreditation given to their research group GREA (2009 SGR 534).