Environmental assessment in building and construction

Abstract: Access to tools for environmental assessment is aprecondition for identifying and improving the environmentalperformance of building sector products. With the multitude ofparties involved in that sector, also the context within whichassessment results are implemented varies. Such variations haveto be correctly reflected in the premises under which anassessment is carried out. A wide variety of assessment tools,from simple checklists to Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)approaches, is available. The choice of assessment method hasan evident influence on the character and quality of thegenerated results.Without confronting the ISO framework for LCA, a largevariety of methodology choices can be made by theLCA-practitioner in order to adapt the assessment to hisrequirements. The application context is to be reflected in thegoal and scope definition of the assessment. From thatdefinition, methodology choices are to be made concerning amongothers allocation procedures and the delimitation of theanalysed system. The choice of allocation method has shownsignificant influence on the generated results, when applyingLCA on highly recyclable building materials.Within this publication, a method for deriving a link fromthe goal via the scope into the definition of systemboundaries, and an economic allocation procedure for reuse andrecycling, are proposed. Both are intended to enable a clearlink between methodology choices and the goal and scopedefinition, which was identified as the key point in LCA. Themethods presented in this publication do accord with the ISOstandards.Keywords:Environmental Assessment, Building Sector,Life Cycle Assessment, Goal and Scope Definition, SystemBoundaries, Allocation, Result Variation