82 (FAV-1118-068623) Analysis of the Growing Green Building Programs and the Application of Life Cycle Approaches.
Start time: 8:00 AM
Fava, J¹, ¹ Five Winds International, West Chester, PA, USA
UNEP indicated that 39 % of total energy use (both direct and indirect) could be attributed to shelter. The USGBC estimates that buildings in the US contribute to: 36% of total energy use; 65 % of electricity consumption; 30% of greenhouse gases emissions; 30% of raw materials use; 30% of waste output/136 million tons annually; and 12% of potable water consumption. On average, annualized costs of personnel amount to USD200 per square foot, compared to USD20 per square foot for bricks and mortar and USD2 per square foot for energy. A modest investment in features, such as access to pleasant views, increased daylight, fresh air, and personal environmental controls can quickly translate into significant bottom line savings. Significant opportunities exist to improve the environmental and social impacts/footprints associated with buildings and shelter. This presentation will summarize the current programs and actions of "green" buildings, describe key benefits being realized and discuss options, including application of LCA on how to improve the criteria and process to design, construct, operate, renovate and the demolition of buildings.

83 (HOR-1117-837589) Using LCA Tools for Design Decisions.
Start time: 8:20 AM
Horst, S¹, ¹ Athena Institute, Kutztown, PA, USA
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tools have not been widely used in the decision making process for the design of buildings. This is largely due to a misunderstanding of what LCA is and a general bewilderment over the complexity of the data and assumptions behind any given tool s outputs. Perhaps the greatest reason for lack of use, however, has to do with the learning curve involved with understanding new software. This paper will review how the Athena Environmental Impact Estimator (EIE) and the BEES software have been used with ease as decision making tools in two case studies. The first case study is a school in New Jersey where the Athena EIE was used to make decisions about structure and cladding. In this case study, instead of building the entire building in the software, a square footage allowance for various impacts was set and considered along with other aspects of the decision making process. In the second case study both the Athena EIE and BEES were used to assist a major institution set goals for sustainable development on campus. The tools were used largely as a way to assist administrators in understanding environmental impacts by category. This allowed them to categorize current campus environmental efforts at the product procurement level and guide those efforts under the larger goals. It is also helping them establish new efforts.

84 (ABO-1117-185700) The value of recycling to society and its internalization into LCA methodology.
Start time: 8:40 AM
Birat, JP², Yonezawa, K³, Prum, N¹, Guerin, V², Aboussouan, L⁴, ² Arcelor-Research, Metz, France³ Nippon Steel Corporation, Tokyo, Japan¹ Arcelor, Luxembourg, Luxembourg⁴ IISI, Bruxelles, Belgium
Recycling is an important activity of developed economies, which creates a dynamic resource of secondary raw materials. Because recycled materials (e.g. steel scrap) are usually chemically close to the material itself, they require less energy and have a lesser impact on the environment than the same materials produced from virgin sources. Recycling, however, is not fully integrated in LCA. There is much freedom left to the LCA practitioner to choose how to take recycling into account, which is somewhat paradoxical as LCA is often used to define policy and therefore ought to be based on a unbiased description of recycling as a practice. This paper proposes a methodology for taking recycling into account within LCA tools with the view of meeting this reality criterion. The proposal is centered on the multiple-recycling model, which best describes the practical way that materials are actually recycled in the economy. The model centers on a set of iron units, which originate from virgin raw material, are then used in the economy and are finally recycled over and over again. Some material is "lost" at each step for recycling, but not for the Life Cycle Inventory, as it goes through its end-of-life whenever it leaves the recycling loop. This is what constitutes the functional unit on which the LCA is carried out. From a practical standpoint, the results obtained for this complex functional unit are attributed to steel on the basis of a specific value (e.g. t of CO₂ per t of steel), which amounts to averaging the impact over the various steps of the recycling process on a weighted average basis, depending on the amount of material recycled at each step.

85 (JES-1117-831267) German architects views on lifecycle-related eco-labelling of construction products as a means of decision support.
Start time: 9:00 AM
Klingele, M.¹, Jeske, U.¹, Schebek, L.¹, ¹ Research Center Karlsruhe, Member of Helmholtz-Association, Institute for Technical Chemistry, Karlsruhe, Germany
The objective of IPP (integrated product policy) in the construction sector is development towards sustainable buildings with special emphasis on greening. For analysing and assessing the environmental performance of buildings, knowledge of environmental effects of construction products is required. On the other hand, analysis of construction products alone is not sufficient to assess the environmental effect of construction products in the context of the respective building. The environmental performance of a building may only be assessed on the basis of an eco-balance covering the complete building and incorporate the complete lifecycle. It may be affected mostly by the planners of buildings. They make or at least prepare decisions on functional and geometrical design solutions and on the choice of construction products which seem to be the crucial factors for the environmental performance of the construction phase and dispose the energy consumption and demand of maintenance of buildings as well. To support the planners in their sustainable approaches in the above-mentioned design decisions they need adequate environmental information and tools. Lifecycle-related eco-labelling of construction products as a means of communication between the levels of construction product and building could be one first step to serve this purpose. Its success results from the quality of labelling programmes based on the motivation of supplying enterprises and the acceptance by interested planners. To gain information about the interest of planners, a Germany-wide online survey is running, supported by the Federal Chamber of Architects and embedded in the activities of the German Network on Life Cycle Inventory Data. This survey covers the planning phase, building properties, construction product declaration, eco-balancing, and lifecycle data and tends to get insights about the contents and form of product declarations the planners deemed necessary and feasible to integrate into the building design process. Main results of the survey concerning the German architects position concerning LCA based decsion support, its integration into the design workflow and the reqired data will be presented at the meeting.

(58124) COFFEE BREAK.
Start time: 9:20 AM

86 (KAS-1118-356095) Life-cycle Analysis of Green Building: An Environmentally Sustainable Approach.
Start time: 10:00 AM
Kassim, Ph.D., T.¹, Dragovick, Ph.D., P.E., J.¹, ¹ Seattle University, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, P.O. Box 222000, Seattle, WA 98122-1090, USA
Buildings account for one-sixth of the world's fresh water withdrawals, one-quarter of its wood harvest, and two-fifths of its material and energy flows. Building and construction activities worldwide consume 3 billion tons of raw materials each year (i.e., 40% of total global use). Building "green" is an opportunity to use our natural resources efficiently while creating healthier buildings that improve human health, build a better environment, and provide cost savings. A green building (i.e., a sustainable building), is a structure that is designed, built, renovated, operated, or reused in an ecological and resource-efficient manner. Green buildings are designed to meet certain objectives such as protecting occupant health; improving employee productivity; using energy, water, and other resources more efficiently; and reducing the overall impact to the environment. Using green building approach, materials and products would promote conservation of diminishing non-renewable resources worldwide. In addition, integrating green building materials into building projects can help reduce the environmental impacts associated with the extraction, transport, processing, fabrication, installation, reuse, recycling, and disposal of these building industry source materials. This paper explores the role that life-cycle analysis (LCA) can have in the built environment. It begins by defining the life-cycle stages of the building process. Each stage is then analyzed for its information needs, its impacts on the environmental performance of the building and the resulting life-cycle assessment technique, which can inform this stage. The discussion is illustrated by the use of a case study outlining what is currently possible and the areas where further research is needed to make LCA part of the answer.

87 (SHA-1117-566210) Construction Site Environmental and Economic Impacts: On-site Energy and Electricity Demand, Consumption, and Generation.
Start time: 10:20 AM
Sharrard, A.¹, Matthews, H.S.^{1, 2}, Roth, M.³, Ries, R.⁴, ¹ Department of Civil and Evironmental Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States² Department of Engineering and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, United States³ Department of Economics, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH, United States⁴ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States
The construction industry creates significant environmental impacts, partly due to its large energy consumption; related hybrid life cycle assessment research on the construction process indicates that on-site use and generation of energy is an important issue. "On-site construction energy" includes equipment fuel use, on-site energy generation, and on-site use of grid electricity. However, due to the decentralized nature of construction and subcontracting activities understanding of the construction industry's energy consumption is limited. Because the industry has been relatively unregulated in the past, it has great potential for change that would benefit the environment while not sacrificing productivity. Energy on a construction site is usually provided by diesel fuel, electricity, and natural gas; diesel fuel and electricity are responsible for the greatest total air emissions. This research will look at on-site energy usage data collected for several types of construction sites, including both traditional and LEED-registered sites. Previous work developed a refined inventory of construction energy use at a sector level from existing EPA, DOE, and DOC estimates. Here, site-specific survey data for on-site energy use will be compared to national-level data in terms of use, emissions, and potential reduction under the EPA's 2004 Clean Air Nonroad Diesel Rule. A prior case study about on-site energy generation, which could produce fewer life cycle air emissions than the electricity grid if fully implemented, will be discussed in relation to specific sites. Modifications of existing estimation methods for total and temporary site energy demand and usage will also be recommended. Given the dearth of current use profiles and the difficulties associated with tracking and quantifying on-site energy use, this study is an important first step in specifically assessing construction site energy use, demand, and generation. The future inclusion of this data into a hybrid LCA framework will also be discussed.

88 (BIL-1117-744671) A Hybrid Life Cycle Assessment of the Environmental Impacts of Construction—.
Start time: 10:40 AM
Bilec, Melissa¹, Ries, Robert¹, Matthews, H. Scott², Sharrard, Aurora², ¹ University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA² Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Design and construction industries, along with owners, have an increasing interest in and responsibility for the environmental impacts of buildings as evidenced by the growing use of green building rating systems such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). The environmental impacts over an entire life cycle of a building – design, raw material extraction, processing, construction, use, and end-of-life – are considerable. Quantification of all building phases is important, including the often disregarded and overlooked construction phase. While some existing research has assumed that the impacts of the construction phase are negligible (Junnila and Horvath 2003), others have indicated that life cycle assessments (LCA) tend to underestimate the environmental impacts associated with construction (Hendrickson and Horvath 2000). Part of the reason the construction assessment has not been previously advanced is due to the lack of and inconsistency of data supplied by the construction industry. This research focuses on the construction phase by using the methodological framework of LCA. Generally, the life cycle inventory created in performing an LCA is developed using either a process-based or input-output approach; both techniques have distinct disadvantages. The main disadvantage of the process-based model is the subjectivity and inconsistencies of the boundary selection, and the input-output method produces results that are highly aggregated. A hybrid approach to LCAs for construction has been developed. Existing proposed hybrid models are reviewed, along with a recommendation of a hybrid model for construction. A preliminary case study of the construction phase of a precast concrete parking using hybrid LCA methodology is presented. Preliminary investigations indicate transportation, equipment activity, and support functions have the largest effects on the environment.

89 (HUM-1117-647081) Towards a Better LEED Scoring System.
Start time: 11:00 AM
Humbert, Sebastien¹, Abeck, Heike^{1, 2}, Bali, Nishil¹, Horvath, Arpad³, ¹ Graduate Student, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA² Principal Process Engineer, Chiron, Emeryville, CA, USA³ Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a building rating system that is growing in popularity. It is composed of 69 credits, each providing 1 point if "implemented" in the building. However, actual environmental benefits each credits provide do not seem to be always of the same order of magnitude: a higher rating does not necessarily equal more environmental friendliness. In this research, benefits and burdens of LEED have been applied to an actual office building in California, and evaluated using a life-cycle assessment (LCA) approach. The impacts of this building are dominated by operation and maintenance, which is dominated by energy consumption and employee commuting, whereas water consumption and waste management have small impacts. The credits that provide the most environmental benefits are the one geared toward green power, reducing energy consumption and commuting, and increasing the recycling/reuse of the structure during renovation. Credits related to water efficiency, waste recycling, building footprint reduction, or recycling content in the furniture appear to provide much less benefits. The main difficulties in this assessment included the evaluation of the effectiveness of credits targeting the reduction of employee commuting, and the actual environmental benefits due to reduced land use. Observations indicate that the benefits of LEED credits are not always consistent with the points assigned. We find that some credits have larger benefits than others. As a correction to the existing LEED system, benefits and burdens have been aggregated in one indicator per credit, and a new scale for the LEED points system has been developed to reflect the actual magnitude of the environmental benefits of each credit. It appears that several credits leading to large benefits are in fact not the ones targeted in practice. This miscorrelation needs to be addressed and corrected in the current LEED rating system.

90 (FAV-1118-068184) Drivers for application of life cycle thinking and LCA.
Start time: 11:20 AM
Fava, J¹, ¹ Five Winds International, West Chester, PA, USA
This presentation takes a look back over the last 10-15 years, examines what we have learned, describes what the world from a life cycle perspective will look like in 10 years, and then outlines steps that should be taken now to move us towards this future stage. The premise is that much has occurred with respect to building the supply for life cycle assessment (LCA), but not enough has been accomplished to building the demand. Over the next ten years, both the demand and supply for life cycle thinking and life cycle assessment will be enhanced, with particular emphasis in the demand side. For example, Governments are beginning to develop product-oriented policies based upon life cycle thinking and approaches; The UN Sustainable Consumption and Production 10 year program arising from the World Summit in 2002 calls for a life cycle economy; Green building organizations are examining how LCA can be used to improve the fundamental criteria for defining green buildings; and Companies are using life cycle approaches to identify improvement opportunities in product design and development and then how to use the life cycle information to communicate to customers and other downstream users. What is needed to build a greater demand is a fundamental shift to a proactive product life cycle strategy. This shift will redirect corporate, government, and other stakeholder resources to understand, identify, and manage risks, opportunities and trade-offs associated with products, technologies and services over their whole life cycle, a "cradle-to-grave" or "cradle-to-cradle" perspective. Significant gaps often exist in the way that companies and governments manage the risks, on one hand, and create opportunities, on the other hand, associated with products over the entire life cycle, from material sourcing, manufacturing, and use, to end of life management. Businesses and governments are and will continue to take actions to fill these gaps.