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LCAQuick: Life cycle assessment tool

LCAQuick is a free tool developed by BRANZ that helps architects, designers and structural engineers make sustainable design decisions. It evaluates the carbon footprint and other environmental impacts of a building design.

Download LCAQuick

There are two versions of LCAQuick - both are free:

LCAQuickV3.6 (June 2023)

This is the full working version of LCAQuick, which calculates environmental impacts based on the data you enter. Data for LCAQuick can be entered directly, pasted from LCAQuick Data Entry or loaded from a file saved by LCAQuick Data Entry. As LCAQuick does a number of calculations in the background, users may find that using LCA Data Entry may speed up the process.

Download LCAQuickV3.6

LCAQuickV3.6 Data Entry (June 2023)

This lighter version of LCAQuick allows you to enter and organise your data fully but does not contain the functionality to calculate environmental impacts of your building. Once your data is in the correct format in LCAQuick Data Entry, you can save the data into a small file or copy and paste it into the full version of LCAQuick, which will then calculate the environmental impacts.

Download LCAQuickV3.6 Data Entry.

About LCAQuick

Use LCAQuick to conduct a life cycle assessment (LCA) and understand the potential environmental impacts of a building design across the life cycle. The latest version of the tool includes the following:

  • Evaluation of different building typologies.
  • A library of reference buildings that includes:
    • 10 commercial office buildings in three climate zones
    • 10 stand-alone houses, one medium-density housing and one apartment building in three climate zones
    • 4 school buildings in three climate zones.
  • Ranking of the most significantly contributing materials used in the design in terms of their environmental impacts.
  • Environmental impacts arising from operational energy and water use.
  • Ability to compare alternative constructions based on embodied carbon.
  • A tool to calculate material quantities of windows and doors based on window/door type and frame material.
  • A Green Star outputs worksheet that puts LCA results into a format that can be pasted directly into the New Zealand Green Building Council's LCA calculator tool [XLSX, 383 KB].
  • A separate editable PDF template report to support a Green Star submission for obtaining the LCA points under credit 19A.
  • Comparison of a building design with the building carbon budget. The carbon budget has been developed by BRANZ and Massey University and reflects an 'allowable' amount of greenhouse gas emissions for new buildings constructed before 2050. This allowance is consistent with achieving no more than a 1.5˚C temperature rise enshrined in New Zealand law and the more ambitious target set out in the Paris Agreement. Carbon budgets are only available for residential and office typologies.
  • A Ministry of Education outputs worksheet that puts school design embodied carbon results into a format required for the Ministry’s LCA Report Template v1.0.

Compatibility

The full version of LCAQuickV3.6 is a 46 MB Excel spreadsheet, so it runs best in Microsoft Excel from 2016 or later on a reasonably powerful computer.

Disclaimer

The LCAQuick tool is provided free to use at your own risk. BRANZ accepts no liability or responsibility for any adverse consequences suffered by you or any third party that arise in connection with your use of the LCAQuick tool. By accessing or using the LCAQuick tool, you are deemed to have accepted the terms of the LCAQuick disclaimer and BRANZ's general website terms and conditions.

Inputs to LCAQuick

LCAQuick has been designed so that it can be used with any building information modelling (BIM) tool.

It requires the following inputs:

Training and support

BRANZ provides free training and support to architects, designers and structural engineers who want to learn more about how to use LCAQuick or how to apply LCA and carbon footprinting to building designs.

To arrange training, please email LCAQuick.help@branz.co.nz.

Help resources

LCAQuick training videos are available from the BRANZ YouTube channel. These were developed for the first version of LCAQuick but much of the functionality remains the same.

For ArchiCAD users, this document provides a step-by-step guide on how to obtain a Schedule of Quantities incorporating LCAQuick product codes from your BIM. This is necessary if you want to use the ArchiCAD model as a source of material quantities for an LCAQuick evaluation.

Discussion forum

You are welcome to join our LCAQuick LinkedIn forum, where we post answers to frequently asked questions.

Enquire about LCAQuick

For more information about LCAQuick, you are welcome to email:

Jarred Butler at jarred.butler@branz.co.nz

Give feedback

By incorporating feedback from users, we aim to make LCAQuick as quick and easy to use as possible. If you wish to give feedback or suggest a feature, you are welcome to email LCAQuick.help@branz.co.nz.