The international scientific community agrees that an accurate assessment of the environmental sustainability of buildings cannot disregard some basic requirements: · a Life Cycle approach · an harmonized LCA methodology · a full life cycle assessment of building and building products or, at least, the assessments of impacts during production, use and end of life phases, as well as the expected benefits from the potential reuse and recycling activities at the end of the reference service life · a comparison based on the same functional equivalent · the use of homogeneous datasets · an assessment that includes all mandatory indicators. These requirements preclude any possible generalization, that defines an element, a component or even a material, preferred over another, outside of a specific and contextualized scenario of analysis. Therefore, and on the basis of the most recent scientific bibliography, this document offers a critical review of the results and of the uncertainties, which emerged from the more recent research studies on sustainability of renewable materials used in building construction, highlighting how: · results of the studies carried out so far are not comparable with each other as they are often based on different LCA methodologies · conclusions deriving from studies that analyze extraction/production LCA phase only are not reliable · the management of the forest/soil has a decisive influence on the environmental impacts of the renewable product and these impacts must be considered in the analysis, requiring the use of geo-referenced LCI inventory data · the transport from the extraction site to the construction site is a relevant input to determine LCA impacts, much more when an import scenario is modelled, such as the Italian one · impacts relating to the end-of-life phase of the product are strongly conditioned by the definition of the end-of-life scenario and can invert the impact value assessed during the production phase · durability is a discriminating element in determining the environmental impacts over the life cycle of a building product · different methods used to calculate the biogenic carbon balance in renewable products lead to conflicting results and an harmonized calculation methodology is then needed. Now therefore, the indiscriminate promotion of specific materials seems to be inappropriate, when benefits of such use haven’t been verified through an LCA assessment based on harmonized methodologies and real technological and economic scenarios.

Il principio di neutralità dei materiali da costruzione per la sostenibilità dell'edificio nel ciclo di vita

Caterina Gargari;Fabio Fantozzi
2022-01-01

Abstract

The international scientific community agrees that an accurate assessment of the environmental sustainability of buildings cannot disregard some basic requirements: · a Life Cycle approach · an harmonized LCA methodology · a full life cycle assessment of building and building products or, at least, the assessments of impacts during production, use and end of life phases, as well as the expected benefits from the potential reuse and recycling activities at the end of the reference service life · a comparison based on the same functional equivalent · the use of homogeneous datasets · an assessment that includes all mandatory indicators. These requirements preclude any possible generalization, that defines an element, a component or even a material, preferred over another, outside of a specific and contextualized scenario of analysis. Therefore, and on the basis of the most recent scientific bibliography, this document offers a critical review of the results and of the uncertainties, which emerged from the more recent research studies on sustainability of renewable materials used in building construction, highlighting how: · results of the studies carried out so far are not comparable with each other as they are often based on different LCA methodologies · conclusions deriving from studies that analyze extraction/production LCA phase only are not reliable · the management of the forest/soil has a decisive influence on the environmental impacts of the renewable product and these impacts must be considered in the analysis, requiring the use of geo-referenced LCI inventory data · the transport from the extraction site to the construction site is a relevant input to determine LCA impacts, much more when an import scenario is modelled, such as the Italian one · impacts relating to the end-of-life phase of the product are strongly conditioned by the definition of the end-of-life scenario and can invert the impact value assessed during the production phase · durability is a discriminating element in determining the environmental impacts over the life cycle of a building product · different methods used to calculate the biogenic carbon balance in renewable products lead to conflicting results and an harmonized calculation methodology is then needed. Now therefore, the indiscriminate promotion of specific materials seems to be inappropriate, when benefits of such use haven’t been verified through an LCA assessment based on harmonized methodologies and real technological and economic scenarios.
2022
Gargari, Caterina; Fantozzi, Fabio
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11568/1153042
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