The computational structure of environmental life cycle costing

Customer Integration to Gain Cost Efficiency Alongside Tool's Life Cycle

Characterizing sustainability of green stormwater infrastructure technologies using life cycle assessment and life cycle costing: A systematic review.

Purpose Infill materials play a pivotal role in determining buildings’ life cycle costing (LCC) and environmental impacts. International standards prescribe LCC and life cycle assessments (LCA) to assess materials’ economic and environmental sustainability. The existing methods of LCC and LCA are tedious and time-consuming, reducing their practical application. This study sought to integrate LCC and LCA with building information modeling (BIM) to develop a swift and efficient approach for evaluating the life cycle performance of infill materials. Design/methodology/approach The BIM model for a case study was prepared using Autodesk Revit®, and the study included four infill materials (lightweight aggregate concrete block (LECA), autoclaved cellular concrete (AAC), concrete masonry and bricks). LCC was conducted using Revit® and Autodesk Insight 360® to estimate costs incurred across different project phases. LCA was conducted using “One Click LCA®,” a BIM-based platform featuring a comprehensive material inventory. Carbon emissions, acidification, and eutrophication were chosen as environmental impact factors for LCA. Findings LECA was the preferred choice due to its lower cost and environmental impact. Its lifetime cost of $440,618 was 5.4% lower than bricks’, with 2.8% lower CO2 emissions than AAC’s, which were second-place options, respectively. LECA had 6.4 and 27% lower costs than concrete blocks, and AAC’s carbon emissions were 32 and 58% lower than concrete blocks and bricks, respectively. Originality/value BIM has been employed for life cycle analysis in existing literature, but its efficacy in evaluating the lifetime costs and environmental impacts of infill materials remains unexplored. The current study presents a BIM-based approach for conducting LCC and LCA of infill materials, facilitating informed decision-making during the planning phase and promoting sustainable construction practices.

Background, Aim and Scope Sustainability is a well recognised goal which is difficult to manage due to its complexity. As part of a series of sustainability management tools, a Product Sustainability Index (PSI) is translating the sustainability aspects to the organization of vehicle product development of Ford of Europe, thus allocating ownership and responsibility to that function. PSI is limiting the scope to those key environmental, social and economic characteristics of passenger vehicles that are controllable by the product development organisation. Materials and Methods: The PSI considers environmental, economic and social aspects based on externally reviewed life cycle environmental and cost aspects (Life Cycle Assessment, Cost of ownership / Life Cycle Costing), externally certified aspects (allergy-tested interior) and related aspects as sustainable materials, safety, mobility capability and noise. After the kick-off of their product development in 2002, the new Ford S-MAX and Ford Galaxy are serving as a pilot for this tool. These products are launched in Europe in 2006. The tracking of PSI performance has been done by engineers of the Vehicle Integration department within the product development organization. The method has been translated in an easy spreadsheet tool. Engineers have been trained within one hour trainings. The application of PSI by vehicle integration followed the principle to reduce the need for any incremental time or additional data to a minimum. PSI is adopted to the existing decision-making process. End of 2005, an internal expert conducted a Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) study for verification purposes using commercial software. This study and the PSI have been scrutinized by an external review panel according to ISO14040 and, by taking into consideration the on-going SETAC, work in the field of LCC. Results: The results of the Life Cycle based indicators of PSI as calculated by non-experts are fully in line with those of the more detailed expert study. The difference is below 2%. The new Ford Galaxy and Ford S-MAX shows significantly improved performance regarding the life cycle air quality, use of sustainable materials, restricted substances and safety compared to the previous model Galaxy. The affordability (Life Cycle Cost of Ownership) has also been improved when looking at the same engine types. Looking at gasoline versus diesel options, the detailed study shows under what conditions the diesel options are environmentally preferable and less costly (mileage, fuel prices, etc.). Discussion: The robustness of results has been verified in various ways. Based also on Sensitivity and Monte-Carlo Analysis, case study-specific requirements have been deduced defining criteria for a significant environmental improvement between the various vehicles. Only if the differences of LCIA results between two vehicles are larger than a certain threshold are the above-mentioned results robust. Conclusions: In general terms, an approach has been implemented and externally reviewed that allows non-experts to manage key environmental, social and economic aspects in the product development, also on a vehicle level. This allows mainstream functions to take ownership of sustainability and assigns accountability to those who can really decide on changes affecting the sustainability performance. In the case of Ford S-MAX and Galaxy, indicators from all three dimensions of sustainability (environment, social and economic) have been improved compared to the old Ford Galaxy. Recommendations and Perspectives: Based on this positive experience, it is recommended to make, in large or multinational organizations, the core business functions directly responsible and accountable for managing their own part of environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainability. Staff functions should be limited to starting the process with methodological and training support and making sure that the contributions of the different main functions fit together.

Life cycle optimization for hydrogen supply chain network design

A standardised life cycle assessment (LCA) approach for electric vehicle batteries is needed to meet reporting requirements, allow fair comparisons and to support LCA-driven development processes. As part of the standardised approach, guidance is needed for different multifunctionality situations, system boundaries, and consideration of other sectors and products. Especially, implementing different circular economy strategies such as reuse, repurpose and recycling, introduce new multifunctionality situations. Already developed guidance either does not apply to all multifunctionalities in different scopes and LCA purposes or is so generic that it leaves too much room for interpretation. Existing guidance and case studies for the handling of different multifunctionality situations in the life cycle of an EV battery are analysed. Based on this analysis, a hierarchy is developed to handle all potential multifunctionality situations across different scopes and purposes of the LCA. This hierarchy is translated into a decision tree, which supports the implementation of the hierarchy by guiding the LCA practitioner through the process for resolving multifunctionality. Furthermore, the documentation required to ensure transparency and reproducibility is discussed, along with potential formats for documentation. The proposed methodology is compared to existing approaches, especially those under development by or on behalf of the European Commission for the EU Batteries Regulation. Based on the analysis of the multifunctionality situations in all life cycle stages and under consideration of upcoming circular economy strategies, a situation-specific guidance for all LCA scopes and purposes was developed which includes a multifunctionality hierarchy, as commonly used in guidelines, and a specific recommendation for the End-of-Life allocation. The implementation of the different steps in the hierarchy is linked to safeguards, which reflect that some of the steps are only applicable for certain scopes or under specific circumstances. To support the implementation by the LCA practitioner, the hierarchy with all safeguards is translated into a decision tree which can be applied to solve each multifunctionality situation. As the decision tree can only capture one multifunctionality at a time, consistency checks are introduced at both the product and macro system level. To support transparency, standardised documentation formats are suggested, highlighting the key information to be shared. The developed decision tree, along with necessary consistency checks and documentation, can guide the LCA practitioner in solving all multifunctionalities and foster transparency in the results. The proposed approach applies to multifunctionalities across different life cycle stages and various system boundaries of the LCA and therefore provides specific guidance for a more holistic scope than the already existing guidelines. It may not be entirely aligned with all guidelines under development by or on behalf of the European Commission; therefore, some adaptations may be necessary in the future.

We suggest a 2D-plot representation combined with life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and life cycle cost for various energy conversion technologies. In general, life cycle assessment (LCA) not only analyzes at the use phase of a specific technology, but also covers widely related processes of before and after its use. We use life cycle GHG emissions and life cycle cost (LCC) to compare the energy conversion process for eight resources such as coal, natural gas, nuclear power, hydro power, geothermal power, wind power, solar thermal power, and solar photovoltaic (PV) power based on the reported LCA and LCC data. Among the eight sources, solar PV and nuclear power exhibit the highest and the lowest LCCs, respectively. On the other hand, coal and wind power locate the highest and the lowest life cycle GHG emissions. In addition, we used the 2D plot to show the life cycle performance of GHG emissions and LCCs simultaneously and realized a correlation that life cycle GHG emission is largely inversely proportional to the corresponding LCCs. It means that an expensive energy source with high LCC tends to have low life cycle GHG emissions, or is environmental friendly. For future study, we will measure the technological maturity of the energy sources to determine the direction of the specific technology development based on the 2D plot of LCCs versus life cycle GHG emissions.

Assessing the greenhouse gas mitigation potential of urban precincts with hybrid life cycle assessment

The implementation of structural health monitoring (SHM) for management and maintenance of critical transport infrastructures, such as bridges, dams or tunnels, is a widely established approach. Even though, SHM shows various technical limitations (e.g. relating to spatial capabilities of the sensors, high cost, repeatability or interpretation of the sensor measurements to support structural assessment and prediction of the infrastructure condition states). Furthermore, linking SHM with life cycle based methodologies such as life cycle costing (LCC) or life cycle assessment (LCA) is only recently discussed. The SENSKIN EC co-funded research project aims to overcome above mentioned challenges through development of a new sensor system and its integration within a Decision Support System (DSS) for proactive condition-based structural rehabilitation planning during the bridge life cycle. The DSS will include structural assessment models (exclusively based on sensor measurements for assessing the bridge condition and damage states of the main structural and a rehabilitation planning module (RPM) that will enable end-users to assess the life cycle economic and environmental implications of bridge rehabilitation options. Hereby, a tailored submodule for integrated life cycle costing (LCC) and life cycle assessment (LCA) assists, taking into account not only direct impacts of the rehabilitation solutions but also external effects caused by restricted traffic conditions (e.g. due to ongoing construction works). Thus, the SENSKIN project will contribute to a sustainable infrastructure. The following paper will sketch out the main scientific and functional structures of the developed DSS, with focus on the RPM and its LCA/LCC submodule for bridge rehabilitation planning.

PurposeThe aim of this research is to carry out a literature review of the use of life cycle costing (LCC) in the urban agriculture (UA) sector by analysing its evolution over a 22-year period from its beginning in 1996 to July 2018.MethodsA total of 442 references were obtained from two principal databases, Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). After a long refining process, 20 (4.5%) references containing the keywords LCC and UA were selected for analysis. Then, we classified and organized the selected references in 4 groups. Qualitative methods were used for analysis, and results on general characteristics of the 20 references and by each group were elaborated. Lastly, we discussed and concluded the most significant findings. Limitations and future research were also included.Results and discussionOur major findings were as follows: (i) urban horticulture was the most studied urban agriculture practice among studies that used LCC for UA; (ii) LCC plays a secondary role in its integration with LCA; (iii) only 4 of the10 papers in group 1 used additional financial tools; (iv) very few (3) papers appropriately applied the four main LCC stages; and on the other side, essential costs like infrastructure, labour, maintenance, and end-of-life were frequently not included.ConclusionsSince we found that life cycle assessment (LCA) was the predominant methodology, we suggest that future research apply both LCA and LCC analyses at the same level. The LCC analysis was quite incomplete in terms of the costs included in each LCC stage. We recommend that the costs at the initial or construction stage be considered a necessity in future studies in order to implement these new systems on a large scale. Due to the limited use of labour cost at the operation stage, we also suggest that labour be included as an essential part of the urban production process. Finally, for more complete LCC analysis for UA, we recommend (i) that all LCC stages be considered and (ii) that additional financial tools, such as net present value (NPV), internal rate of return (IRR) and payback period (PBP), be used to complement the LCC analysis.

Feeding a growing, increasingly affluent population while limiting environmental pressures of food production is a central challenge for society. Understanding the location and magnitude of food production is key to addressing this challenge because pressures vary substantially across food production types. Applying data and models from life cycle assessment with the methodologies for mapping cumulative environmental impacts of human activities (hereafter cumulative impact mapping) provides a powerful approach to spatially map the cumulative environmental pressure of food production in a way that is consistent and comprehensive across food types. However, these methodologies have yet to be combined. By synthesizing life cycle assessment and cumulative impact mapping methodologies, we provide guidance for comprehensively and cumulatively mapping the environmental pressures (e.g., greenhouse gas emissions, spatial occupancy, and freshwater use) associated with food production systems. This spatial approach enables quantification of current and potential future environmental pressures, which is needed for decision makers to create more sustainable food policies and practices.

Multi-dimensional and multi-level assessment of circular economy strategies in manufacturing systems

Assessment of residential building performances for the different climate zones of Turkey in terms of life cycle energy and cost efficiency

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is used and accepted as a method to assess environmental impacts and resource use of buildings. In practice, LCA is typically used in stages where the design of the building is already finalized. However, LCA-calculations from early design stages can be used actively in design and optimization of the building. One of the obstacles to early stage LCA is that extensive data input on precise material types and amounts is needed, which is limited in early design stages. The simplifications needed for a designer in an early design LCA is addressed in a research project, where an extensive library of predefined building components and installations were developed and integrated into the existing Danish LCAbyg tool. The library assists the user in establishing a full building inventory by simple inputs of geometry of the building and a selection from the library of building element layers. However, the simplified approach to LCA of a building at early design stages inevitably affects results compared with results of a calculation made at later design stages where more, specific data is available. This paper presents an evaluation of building cases, modelled with the same background database and life cycle stages, using the simplified early design LCA approach and a detailed LCA approach. The evaluation includes testing of how well the predefined components in the early design approach fit with the case buildings and comparisons of the total material input and precision of the final LCA results.

This paper builds on research from a project aimed at promoting the circular economy through processes based on low-impact materials derived from natural fibers. A methodology is developed to assess the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of alternative production scenarios, thereby supporting the ranking of options. Assuming the principles of Life Cycle Thinking and circular economy and the operational aspects of Life Cycle Costing (LCC), Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) approaches normed by international standards, an integrated approach is proposed based on the construction of a joint Global Cost indicator. Attention is paid to harmonizing impacts assessed in their own units of measurement to arrive at a monetary indicator for summarizing and simplifying the prioritization of alternatives. As a result, the integrated Global Cost calculation methodology is presented to internalize social and environmental impacts, as well as economic ones, and to evaluate the sustainability of materials derived from primary and waste natural fibers.