By Sphera’s Editorial Team | July 26, 2022

What is a Building Life Cycle Assessment?

LCA is a tool to help evaluate a building’s environmental impact, from planning to construction to maintenance.

Construction and materials are important factors in a building’s energy efficiency.

Planners and architects who want to create buildings in a sustainable way are confronted with the following questions: How recyclable are the materials I use during the process of construction? How much primary energy is spent in my building? How big is the carbon footprint? Does my planning account for the environmental impacts of these materials throughout their whole life cycle? When does a more ecological option pay for itself?

Every building is unique and needs an individual analysis to illustrate the environmental impact and sustainability performance, as well as identify optimization opportunities. A life cycle assessment of a building not only provides the required information, but also is an essential component of some sustainability certifications; for example, the DGNB-certificate of the German Association for Sustainable Building.

LCA modeling technology can provide comprehensive analysis of every type and size of building to illustrate the ecological dimensions of planning and performance. Your technology platform should be able to provide an overview or “screening” for the planning stage, as well as a detailed analysis of the building.

Benefits of Building Life Cycle Assessments

  • Get an analysis and illustration of the ecological hotspots of the entire building.
  • Realize eco-efficient planning and building.
  • Calculate the environmental criteria which are necessary for certifications and verifications.
  • Improve the sustainability performance by comparative analyses of different options within all planning phases.
  • Display your strong efforts and contribution to sustainable building.

Carry out Building Life Cycle Assessments with Sphera!

  • Identify – ecological hotspots of an entire building
  • Improve – sustainability performance by comparing options
  • Achieve – eco-efficient planning and construction
  • Certify – against leading schemes such as DGNB, LEED, and others
  • Differentiate – against your competitors