M10 AM Building Life-Cycle Capacity in the Greening of Buildings and Construction Consideration
Monday, 14 November 2005: 8:00 AM - 11:40 AM in 341-342

(HOR-1117-837589) Using LCA Tools for Design Decisions.

Horst, S¹, ¹ Athena Institute, Kutztown, PA, USA

ABSTRACT- 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.

Key words: lca, tool use, case studies