BU596 An introduction to life cycle assessment (2016)

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a tool that calculates the potential environmental impacts of building materials, building elements and whole buildings. LCA is systematic and holistic, looking at production, use and disposal of any product. LCA can support design by showing the magnitude of environmental impacts and where they occur in the life cycle.

This bulletin provides an introduction to life cycle assessment, its applications and limitations.

The bulletin covers:

• what is LCA
• brief history of LCA
• stages of an assessment - goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment and interpretation
• applications and benefits
• limitations.