The “Berechnungs-Software Umweltindikatoren: LCA BAU”, which was developed by IfaS together with Fraunhofer IESE and Fraunhofer ISE in the EnStadt:Pfaff project, is a simply structured, almost intuitive to use calculator for calculating various environmental indicators (see “Legend – environmental indicators” under ” Directions”). The project was funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Background and Motivation
In order to reduce important climate protection goals and further independence from finite or scarce resources, the use of which generates potentially harmful emissions, the EU and Germany are setting increasingly ambitious savings targets over time. This is expressed both in the recent amendment of the EU building directive and the package of measures “Fit for 55” (reduction of net greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 compared to 1990) to implement the European Green Deal as well as in the Building Energy Act (GEG), which replaced the EnEV, the EEWärmeG and the EnEG and came into force on November 1st, 2020. In addition to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, other environmental indicators and resource parameters are increasingly coming into focus.
A high proportion of the building’s energy requirement is tied up in the building mass as “grey energy”. This can be represented by the parameters Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) and Cumulative Energy Consumption (CEC), which can be divided into renewable and non-renewable such as Primary Energy Renewable Total (PERT), Primary Energy Non-Renewable Total (PENRT), Primary Energy Renewable Material (PERM) and Primary Energy Non-Renewable Material (PENRM).
With the increasing efficiency of the building, through the additional use of material and technical building equipment (TGA), the proportion of energy used along the value chain of building construction and the associated emissions continue to increase, so that a holistic view of the building from the manufacture of building materials, through the construction of buildings, their operation to demolition and the subsequent recycling of materials seems more and more sensible. It can therefore be assumed that the consideration of building use as part of a life cycle analysis or life cycle assessment could also become binding as an EU requirement in the future.
More details on this are described and explained in the “Proposal for a DIRECTIVE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the energy performance of buildings (recast)”. Article 7 of the directive stipulates that new buildings must be emission-free by 2030 and new public buildings by 2027. Article 7(b) also states that the life cycle GWP of new buildings from 2030 onwards must be calculated in line with the Level(s) framework* to provide information on life cycle emissions from new buildings. Since the life cycle emissions are of particular importance for large buildings, the obligation to calculate these emissions for large buildings (with a usable area of more than 2000 square meters) already applies from 2027.[1][2]
* About Level(s): This is an assessment and reporting framework that provides a common language for the sustainability performance of buildings. Level(s) promotes consideration of the building life cycle and provides a robust approach to measuring and supporting improvements from design to end of life of residential and office buildings. Level(s) uses baseline sustainability indicators tested in and by the construction sector to measure carbon, materials, water, health and well-being and climate change impacts, taking into account life cycle costs and valuations. Level(s) is open source software and is available to everyone free of charge.[3]
Requirements
In order to take a more complete look at the construction sector in the future and to give preference to building concepts that facilitate flexible conversion, reuse of components and materials or the recycling of materials, this data needs to be systematically recorded and a uniform evaluation concept as the result of life cycle assessments is required. DIN EN ISO 14040 to 14044 depict the corresponding procedures for the life cycle assessment recommended for these purposes. DIN EN ISO 14025 describes the requirements for environmental labels and declarations – Type III, which in turn are required to generate a reasonable database.
Note: Type III declarations cover the environmental impact of a product or service holistically, from raw material extraction to manufacture, use, disposal and often recycling. This ensures that the full environmental impact of a product is considered and there is no shifting of environmental impacts from one phase to another.
DIN EN 15804 also already provides basic product category rules (PCR) regarding environmental declarations in the context of sustainability of buildings for construction products and construction services of all kinds.
The evaluation system for sustainable building (BNB) of the Federal Ministry for Housing, Urban Development and Building already provides a certain framework and considers in quantitative terms, e.g. In addition to the GHG emissions and the gray energy used, there are also indicators of the environmental impact such as the acidification potential (AP), the eutrophication potential (EP), the stratospheric ozone depletion potential (ODP) and the photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP) on ground-level.
Database
In order to enable a targeted recording of life cycle emissions, a database was created, which is essentially based on different versions of the Ökobaudat database and deals with the different materials used in the buildings in the district and their evaluation, in order to include corresponding aspects in the infrastructure and building planning integrate and enable an optimized dismantling.
From today’s perspective, the Ökobaudat database should be regarded as the most suitable instrument in this regard due to its scope and orientation. It is based on the database for holistic accounting (GaBi). The database contains a number of 18 parameters for describing the use of resources and other environmental information as well as seven indicators for environmental impact for each data set made available for a product from the construction industry. These are presented along up to 17 sub-stages or life cycle modules in accordance with DIN EN 15804. The presentation ranges from the production stage (A1 to A3) to the construction stage (A4 & A5) to the use stage (B1 to B7), the disposal stage (C1 to C4) to credits and loads outside the system boundary (D).
From today’s perspective, the Ökobaudat database should be regarded as the most suitable instrument in this regard due to its scope and orientation. It is based on the database for holistic accounting (GaBi). The database contains a number of 18 parameters for describing the use of resources and other environmental information for each data set made available for a product from the construction industry, as well as a wealth of other core and additional indicators for the environmental impact. These are presented along up to 17 sub-stages or life cycle modules in accordance with DIN EN 15804. The presentation ranges from the production stage (A1 to A3) to the construction stage (A4 & A5) to the use stage (B1 to B7), the disposal stage (C1 to C4) to credits and loads outside the system boundary (D).
The tool presented here already agglomerates the life cycle modules for each building material, but does not integrate life cycle module D, since the processes under consideration can lie many decades in the future and are based on more up-to-date technologies, regulations, consumer behavior and infrastructure. It is therefore the life cycle module with the greatest imponderables. At the same time, a wide range of projects and processes have been and are already being initiated in structural and civil engineering to further develop the recyclability of building materials in the direction of recycling management and circularity in the construction industry.
Due to this development, it may soon be expected that Module D will be replaced or characterized by an increasingly circular life cycle approach.
[1] Vgl. EUROPEAN COMMISSION (2021), Brüssel, 15.12.2021, COM(2021) 802 final 2021/0426 (COD); URL: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/resource.html?uri=cellar:c51fe6d1-5da2-11ec-9c6c-01aa75ed71a1.0001.02/DOC_1&format=PDF
[2] Drucksache 40/22 des Bundesrates vom 27.01.2022; URL: https://www.bundesrat.de/SharedDocs/drucksachen/2022/0001-0100/40-22.pdf
[3] Vgl. EUROPEAN COMMISSION (2021), Brüssel; URL: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2021-05/DE_Flyer.pdf