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research article

An integrative approach for embodied energy: Towards an LCA-based data-driven design method

Jusselme, Thomas  
•
Rey, Emmanuel  
•
Andersen, Marilyne  
February 27, 2018
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

The built environment is one of the major contributors of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To tackle climate change, global targets have been set for this sector. Although life-cycle assessment (LCA) methods are typically used to evaluate a building project's embodied energy in its final stages of development, this evaluation would be especially valuable at early design stages, when the opportunity to modify the design is greatest. In this paper, an extensive review of methods to improve the usability of LCA at the early design stage is presented. Three major issues regarding the application of LCA arose from this analysis at this stage: its time consumption, the lack of design details, and the non-reproducibility of results. Moreover, LCA makes it possible to assess environmental performance, but does not provide design alternatives, which are crucial to introduce environmental targets into an iterative design process. To that end, existing techniques that can address the major LCA issues were identified, together with their respective limits. These include some promising tools that provide and explore design alternatives and their respective environmental performances. Among these tools are exploration methods, which have not been applied to LCA insofar as it is not possible to do so in a reasonable computational time. To bridge this gap, the paper outlines the structure of an LCA-based data-driven design method, which uses a combination of LCA, parametric analysis, data visualization, sensitivity analysis, and target cascading techniques.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1016/j.rser.2018.02.036
Author(s)
Jusselme, Thomas  
•
Rey, Emmanuel  
•
Andersen, Marilyne  
Date Issued

2018-02-27

Published in
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
Volume

88

Start page

123

End page

132

Subjects

LCA

•

Early design stage

•

Embodied energy

•

Exploration method

•

Parametric

•

Sensitivity

•

Data visualization

•

Target cascading

•

Smart_Living_Building

URL

Fulltext

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032118300662
Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
BUILD-O  
LAST  
LIPID  
Available on Infoscience
March 13, 2018
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/145511
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