Dates: Tuesdays, 9:00am – 12:00pm from November 9 – December 7, 2010

Course Description

Governments and the building industry are looking more closely at the environmental footprint of buildings and the materials that comprise them. For example, emerging carbon reduction requirements in Canada and consumer demand are requiring that building industry professionals and owners appreciate the full environmental profile of buildings in order to identify processes to achieve effective carbon reduction.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is widely regarded as the most rigorous and comprehensive approach available for assessing the environmental performance of products and services over their life cycle. Countries in Europe and Asia are introducing LCA-based requirements, such as Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and Carbon Declarations (CDs). France and Japan are examples of countries moving towards mandatory requirements, with the European Union expected to follow. Similarly Canada and the United States are now exploring LCA and EPD.

This course is designed to give building industry professionals a detailed look at LCA and what it can do to enhance the environmental footprint of buildings. Developed specifically for building industry professionals, each topic covered in the sessions includes examples and references to building products and industry research to provide participants with practical reference points.

The first three sessions cover the LCA framework building up to the fourth session where the international standards for assessing the environmental performance of construction products (ISO 21930) and buildings (21931-1) are reviewed. The final session introduces participants to product and building level LCA softwares alongside other valuable resources.

The primary goal of this course is to prepare participants to put LCA into practice as a method for assessing the life cycle environmental performance of buildings and their products. This course will be of interest to building industry professionals, including engineers, architecture, materials specifier, product manufacturers, as well as building owners and developers.

Session 1: Goal & Scope

The first part of the first session provides students with an overview of the course and topics to be covered, including a review of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) LCA standards 14040 & 14044, which provide the framework for the topics to be covered. The second part covers the first stage in performing an LCA, the Goal & Scope, where the context and modeling details for carrying out and LCA study are established.

Session 2: Life Cycle Inventory (LCI)

The second session incorporates formal presentation and practical exercises to cover the development of a life cycle inventory (LCI), which represents the second stage in the LCA framework. Specific topics covered include;

o Data collection preparation
o Flow chart development
o Relating unit processes and functional units
o Data aggregation

Session 3: Life Cycle Impact Assessment & Life Cycle Assessment Methodologies

The third session covers the third component of the LCA framework - life cycle impact assessment (LCIA). Specific topics covered include;

o Impact categories, category indicators and characterization factors
o Impact allocation
o Normalization, grouping and weighting
o Uncertainty

The second part of this session investigates the various methods used to interpret LCA study results., including;

o Completeness check
o Sensitivity check
o Consistency check
o Dominance Analysis
o Decision Maker Analysis
o Break Even Analysis

Session 4: ISO Standards

This session ties the information from the first three sessions to the context of the ISO Sustainability in Building Construction suite of standards, including;

o ISO 15932: General Principles
o ISO 21929: Sustainability Indicators – Part 1 – Framework for development of indicators for Buildings
o ISO 21930: Environmental Declaration of Building Products
o ISO 21931-1: Framework for Methods of Assessment of Environmental Performance of Construction Works – Part 1 – Buildings

Special attention will be given to ISOs 21930 and 21931-1 in order to provide participants with a practical understanding of their application.

Session 5: LCA Software

The final session explores the capabilities of available LCA softwares. Softwares shown include the ecoCalculator, Impact Estimator and SimaPro. Additional LCA-related readings, organizations and conferences, will be discussed to provide course participants with resources to continue their education and engagement in the subject.