NDLI: Environmental and economic optimisation of the floor on grade in residential buildings

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Allacker, Karen
Copyright Year	2012
Abstract	The goal of the study was to determine the preferred composition of the floor on grade in residential buildings in the Belgian context from a life cycle environmental and financial perspective. In addition to the life cycle costs, the required investments were evaluated to take into account budget restrictions. The analysis of current available materials and techniques allows both the designer and building owner to extend their decision criteria from mainly investment cost to life cycle aspects as well.In this study, the potential environmental impact was assessed by considering the environmental external cost of the floors. Several existing methods were combined to enable a full assessment, taking the ExternE methodology (willingness to pay) as the main base. The ecoinvent database was used to gather the inventory data but was adapted to increase the representativeness for Belgium. The financial evaluation included both the investment and life cycle aspects. The latter was analysed through the sum of the present values of all costs occurring during the life span of the floor.The necessary assumptions (e.g. transport, end-of-life treatment, cleaning, life span, economic parameters) and the adaptations to the ecoinvent data are transparently reported. The methodological steps (e.g. monetary valuation, transmission losses, equivalent degree days, Pareto optimisation) are elaborated in detail. This allows the results, which are graphically presented, to be correctly interpreted. The contribution of the life cycle stages and the optimisation potential of the considered impacts are discussed.The environmental external cost based on the willingness to pay to reduce environmental impacts proved to be relatively low, representing about 9 % of the financial cost. The cost reduction of current common practice was estimated to be about 20 and 60 % from a financial and environmental perspective, respectively. The insulation level and the floor covering were identified as the most important optimisation parameters.Internalisation of environmental external costs might be an important step to achieve more sustainable solutions. However, it is recommended to consider financial and environmental external costs separately too because both contain important information for the decision maker. Because it is hard (if not impossible) to increase the insulation level of the floor on grade later on in the life cycle of the building, a high insulation value should be a priority during construction. The floor covering can more easily be adapted and is thus considered a secondary priority.
Starting Page	813
Ending Page	827
Page Count	15
File Format	PDF
ISSN	09483349
Journal	The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
Volume Number	17
Issue Number	6
e-ISSN	16147502
Language	English
Publisher	Springer-Verlag
Publisher Date	2012-03-13
Publisher Place	Berlin, Heidelberg
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Budget restrictions Floor on grade Life cycle assessment Life cycle costing Monetary valuation Pareto optima Environment Environmental Economics
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Environmental Science

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

Impact of maintenance on life cycle impact and cost assessment for residential flooring options

Economic modelling and indicators in life cycle sustainability assessment

Life cycle assessment and life cycle costing of road infrastructure in residential neighbourhoods

Life cycle assessment study on resilient floor coverings

The sustainability of communicative packaging concepts in the food supply chain. A case study: part 2. Life cycle costing and sustainability assessment

Life cycle environmental and economic assessment of lead refining in China

Life Cycle costing as part of design for environment environmental business cases

The computational structure of environmental life cycle costing

Impact of lifetime on US residential building LCA results

Environmental and economic optimisation of the floor on grade in residential buildings

Similar Documents

Impact of maintenance on life cycle impact and cost assessment for residential flooring options

Economic modelling and indicators in life cycle sustainability assessment

Life cycle assessment and life cycle costing of road infrastructure in residential neighbourhoods

Life cycle assessment study on resilient floor coverings

The sustainability of communicative packaging concepts in the food supply chain. A case study: part 2. Life cycle costing and sustainability assessment

Life cycle environmental and economic assessment of lead refining in China

Life Cycle costing as part of design for environment environmental business cases

The computational structure of environmental life cycle costing

Impact of lifetime on US residential building LCA results

Environmental and economic optimisation of the floor on grade in residential buildings