| 1. |
- Petrović, Bojana, et al.
(författare)
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Carbon Assessment of a Wooden Single-Family Building : Focusing on Re-Used Building Products
- 2024
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Ingår i: Buildings. - : MDPI. - 2075-5309. ; 14:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous research has shown a lack of studies with comparisons between primary (virgin) and secondary (re-used) building materials, and their embodied emissions. The creation of different scenarios comparing the environmental impact of virgin vs. re-used materials is also motivated by the scarcity of raw materials in the world and the emergency of mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from buildings. The aim of this study was to investigate scenarios, including new vs. re-used building products, applying the LCA method for a wooden single-family building. The findings showed a 23% reduction potential for total released (positive) CO2e when comparing the Reference scenario with Scenario I, using re-used wooden-based materials. Further, Scenario II, using all re-used building materials except for installations, showed a 59% CO2e reduction potential compared to the Reference scenario. Finally, Scenario III, which assumes all re-used building products, showed a 92% decreased global warming potential (GWP) impact compared to the Reference scenario. However, when including biogenic carbon and benefits (A5 and D module), the Reference scenario, based on newly produced wooden building materials, has the largest negative GHG emissions. It can be concluded that the re-use of building products leads to significant carbon savings compared to using new building products.
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| 2. |
- Assefa, Getachew, et al.
(författare)
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Environmental assessment of building properties — Where natural and social sciences meet : the case of EcoEffect
- 2007
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Ingår i: Building and Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0360-1323 .- 1873-684X. ; 42:3, s. 1458-1464
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The EcoEffect method of assessing external and internal impacts of building properties is briefly described. The external impacts of manufacturing and transport of the building materials, the generation of power and heat consumed during the operation phase are assessed using life-cycle methodology. Emissions and waste; natural resource depletion and toxic substances in building materials are accounted for. Here methodologies from natural sciences are employed. The internal impacts involve the assessment of the risk for discomfort and ill-being due to features and properties of both the indoor environment and outdoor environment within the boundary of the building properties. This risk is calculated based on data and information from questionnaires; measurements and inspection where methodologies mainly from social sciences are used. Life-cycle costs covering investment and utilities costs as well as maintenance costs summed up over the lifetime of the building are also calculated.The result presentation offers extensive layers of diagrams and data tables ranging from an aggregated diagram of environmental efficiency to quantitative indicators of different aspects and factors. Environmental efficiency provides a relative measure of the internal quality of a building property in relation to its external impact vis-à-vis its performance relative to other building properties.
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| 3. |
- Assefa, Getachew, et al.
(författare)
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Quality versus impact : Comparing the environmental efficiency of building properties using the EcoEffect tool
- 2010
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Ingår i: Building and Environment. - : Elsevier BV. - 0360-1323 .- 1873-684X. ; 45:5, s. 1095-1103
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There are tools that are developed for the assessment of the environmental impact of buildings (e.g. ATHENA). Other tools dealing with the indoor and outdoor environmental quality of building properties (referred to as real estates in other literature) are also available (e.g. GBTool). A platform where both the aspects of quality and impact are presented in an integrated fashion are few. The aim of this contribution is to present how the performance of different building properties can be assessed and compared using the concept of environmental efficiency in a Swedish assessment tool called EcoEffect. It presents the quality dimension in the form of users' satisfaction covering indoor and outdoor performance features against the weighted environmental impact covering global and local impacts. The indoor and outdoor values are collected using questionnaires combined with inspection and some measurements. Life cycle methodology is behind the calculation of the weighted external environmental impact. A case study is presented to show the application of EcoEffect using a comparative assessment of Lindas and a Reference property. The results show that Lindas block is better in internal environment quality than the Reference property. It performs slightly worse than the Reference property in the external environmental impact due to emissions and waste from energy and material use. The approach of integrated presentation of quality and impact as in EcoEffect provides with the opportunity of uncovering issues problem shifting and sub-optimisation. This avoids undesirable situations where the indoor quality is improved through measures that result in higher external environmental impact.
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| 4. |
- Ramirez Villegas, Ricardo, et al.
(författare)
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Life Cycle Assessment of Building Renovation Measures : Trade-off between Building Materials and Energy
- 2019
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Ingår i: Energies. - : MDPI. - 1996-1073. ; 12:3
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The scope of this study is to assess how different energy efficient renovation strategies affect the environmental impacts of a multi-family house in a Nordic climate within district heating systems. The European Union has set ambitious targets to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2030. There is special attention on reducing the life cycle emissions in the buildings sector. However, the focus has often been on new buildings, although existing buildings represent great potential within the building stock in Europe. In this study, four different renovation scenarios were analyzed with the commercially available life cycle assessment software that follows the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) standard. This study covers all life cycle steps from the cradle to the grave for a residential building in Borlange, Sweden, where renewable energy dominates. The four scenarios included reduced indoor temperature, improved thermal properties of building material components and heat recovery for the ventilation system. One finding is that changing installations gives an environmental impact comparable to renovations that include both ventilation and building facilities. In addition, the life cycle steps that have the greatest environmental impact in all scenarios are the operational energy use and the building and installation processes. Renovation measures had a major impact on energy use due to the cold climate and low solar irradiation in the heating season. An interesting aspect, however, is that the building materials and the construction processes gave a significant amount of environmental impact.
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| 5. |
- Wallhagen, Marita, 1979-, et al.
(författare)
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Framework for Detailed Comparison of Building Environmental Assessment Tools
- 2013
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Ingår i: Buildings. - Basel, Switzerland : MDPI AG. - 2075-5309. ; 3:1, s. 39-60
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Understanding how Building Environmental Assessments Tools (BEATs) measure and define “environmental” building is of great interest to many stakeholders, but it is difficult to understand how BEATs relate to each other, as well as to make detailed and systematic tool comparisons. A framework for comparing BEATs is presented in the following which facilitates an understanding and comparison of similarities and differences in terms of structure, content, aggregation, and scope. The framework was tested by comparing three distinctly different assessment tools; LEED-NC v3, Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH), and EcoEffect. Illustrations of the hierarchical structure of the tools gave a clear overview of their structural differences. When using the framework, the analysis showed that all three tools treat issues related to the main assessment categories: Energy and Pollution, Indoor Environment, and Materials and Waste. However, the environmental issues addressed, and the parameters defining the object of study, differ and, subsequently, so do rating, results, categories, issues, input data, aggregation methodology, and weighting. This means that BEATs measure “environmental” building differently and push “environmental” design in different directions. Therefore, tool comparisons are important, and the framework can be used to make these comparisons in a more detailed and systematic way.
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| 6. |
- Ekvall, Tomas, et al.
(författare)
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Bridging the gap between the sustainability pillars
- 2012
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- A thorough assessment of the sustainability performance of a product, a system, or a decision requires expertise on environmental, economic, and social aspects. In an assessment that involves researchers from different disciplines, communication is challenging because of different background knowledge, terminology, research traditions, etc.In the research program Towards Sustainable Waste Management, a new approach to interdisciplinary interaction was tested. The program included a group of researchers on life cycle assessment (LCA) and systems analysis of waste management. To this group, specialists in national economy, environmental psychology, and ethnology were linked in various projects. In each specific research project at least 20% of the budget was allocated to a waste LCA expert, who, through participating actively in the project, would be an interpreter, a two-way bridge between the disciplines. The first purpose of this LCA expert was to interpret the sustainability questions and to help make the research relevant for the overall purpose of the research program. The second purpose was to interpret the results of the specialists’ research and to help making the results useful for the overall program.Our experience demonstrates that this set-up forces the specialists and their interpreters/bridges to face the challenge of understanding each other. Establishing such an interdisciplinary interaction requires that the researchers share a mutual interest in trying to reach understanding. However, despite this interest and despite the significant resources made available for the participation, our collaboration was restricted by the fact that it can be difficult for the specialists to find suitable tasks in their projects for the LCA expert. The chance of the interaction being successful increases if the background knowledge of the researchers in the project overlaps, if they have similar research cultures, if they share a common interest in the research questions, and/or if the disciplinary scientists are accustomed to interdisciplinary collaboration.
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| 7. |
- Eriksson, Ola, et al.
(författare)
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Life cycle assessment of fuels for district heating : A comparison of waste incineration, biomass- and natural gas combustion
- 2007
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Ingår i: Energy Policy. - : Elsevier BV. - 0301-4215 .- 1873-6777. ; 35:2, s. 1346-1362
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this consequential life cycle assessment (LCA) is to compare district heating based on waste incineration with combustion of biomass or natural gas. The study comprises two options for energy recovery (combined heat and power (CHP) or heat only), two alternatives for external, marginal electricity generation (fossil lean or intense), and two alternatives for the alternative waste management (landfill disposal or material recovery). A secondary objective was to test a combination of dynamic energy system modelling and LCA by combining the concept of complex marginal electricity production in a static, environmental systems analysis. Furthermore, we wanted to increase the methodological knowledge about how waste can be environmentally compared to other fuels in district-heat production. The results indicate that combustion of biofuel in a CHP is environmentally favourable and robust with respect to the avoided type of electricity and waste management. Waste incineration is often (but not always) the preferable choice when incineration substitutes landfill disposal of waste. It is however, never the best choice (and often the worst) when incineration substitutes recycling. A natural gas fired CHP is an alternative of interest if marginal electricity has a high fossil content. However, if the marginal electricity is mainly based on non-fossil sources, natural gas is in general worse than biofuels.
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| 8. |
- Ramirez Villegas, Ricardo
(författare)
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A methodology to assess impacts of energy efficient renovation : a Swedish case study
- 2017
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The European Union aims to reduce energy use and CO2-emissions by 40 % by the year 2030. The building sector has been identified as having a great potential to reduce emission of CO2 by increasing its energy efficiency. Also, there is a growing concern of the buildings environmental performance, that lead to the development of building environmental assessment tools. However, different types of energy sources and confusing environmental impacts affect the decision making when renovating for improved energy efficiency. This study develops and tests a methodology to help decision-makers when considering major renovation of their building stock when connected to adistrict heating system. The proposed methodology is applied and used to investigate how different renovation scenarios affects the building environmental impacts in terms of CO2 emissions and identify and discuss future improvements of the methodology.The novelty of the method is the expanded system boundaries that include both the distribution and production of district heating and the energy use at a building level. In this way it is possible to compare and weight measures made both at the energy system level and the building level. This work has limited its approach to energy use in buildings, but it is important to bring the life cycle thinking to the methodology. During the choice of the renovation methods it was noticed that the environmental impact of the production of some components in order to reduce the energy use of a building are not insignificant. Even if all the renovation measures considered in this case study are feasible, it is important to determine in which order they are desirable or achievable from an economic point of view. Uncertainty in the future development of energy, and limited economic resources can play an important role in the possibility of energy efficient renovation.
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| 9. |
- Ramírez Villegas, Ricardo, 1981-, et al.
(författare)
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Combined environmental and economic assessment of energy efficiency measures in a multi-dwelling building
- 2019
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Ingår i: Energies. - : MDPI AG. - 1996-1073. ; 12:13
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of this study is to assess how different renovation scenarios affect the environmental and economic impacts of a multi-dwelling building in a Nordic climate, how these aspects are correlated and how different energy carriers affect different environmental impact categories. In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the European Union has set an agenda in order to reduce energy use in buildings. New buildings on the European market have a low replacement rate, which makes building renovation an important factor for achieving the European Union goals. In this study, eight renovation strategies were analyzed following the European Committee for Standardization standards for life cycle assessment and life cycle costs of buildings. This study covers all life cycle steps from cradle to grave. The renovation scenarios include combinations of photovoltaics, geothermal heat pumps, heat recovery ventilation and improved building envelopes. Results show that, depending on the energy carrier, reductions in global warming potential can be achieved at the expense of an increased nuclear waste disposal. It also shows that for the investigated renovation strategies in Sweden there is no correlation between the economic and the environmental performance of the building. Changing energy carriers in Sweden in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions can be a good alternative, but it makes the system more dependent on nuclear power.
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| 10. |
- Ramirez Villegas, Ricardo, 1981-
(författare)
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Energy efficient renovation in a life cycle perspective : A case study of a Swedish multifamily-building
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Energy use in the European Union is increasing. At the same time, it is estimated that by the year 2050 most of the EU population will be living in currently existing buildings. Some of these buildings are or will be in need of renovation, and they have identified a target to reduce overall energy use. The urgency of climate change also makes it highly relevant and important to improve buildings resource and energy efficiency. This thesis aims to explain how different proposed energy efficient renovation strategies affect the energy use at different system levels, the potential environmental impacts of these alternatives, how they are connected to economic impacts and the implications of using a commercial LCA software to answer these questions from a research perspective.In order to answer the questions above, the effect of different renovation strategies were studied by combining building energy simulations, energy system simulations, a building environmental assessment tool, life cycle assessment and life cycle cost calculations. These tools are used in order to provide an overview of how the different renovation strategies affect the production of district heating, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the environmental and economic performance of the building.The results show that the selected renovation strategies reduce energy use by decreasing transmission losses, while reducing the total amount of purchased energy by using solar energy or by changing energy carriers. These different approaches have the potential to reduce the environmental impact, mainly by reducing global warming potential, acidification potential and eutrophication potential and to some extent abiotic depletion potential. However, when changing energy carriers there is a burden shift to radioactive waste disposed. When the economic aspects are analyzed, it is shown that there is no simple correlation between financial and environmental impacts.To analyze a building from a life cycle perspective can help to identify the advantages and disadvantages of energy efficient renovation from the building owner’s perspective as well as from a societal perspective. Applying a life cycle perspective is therefore important for building owners, building companies and practitioners as well for policy makers to avoid suboptimisation.
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