LCA and LCC Integration - What is it and why is it important?
Facilitating the integration of LCA options appraisals into LCC works and vice versa, helps design teams understand from an early stage how the design of a building will affect costings, alongside carbon performance metrics. This allows project teams to effectively select design options which consider more than one entity (such as cost and embodied carbon), to provide a basis for a more comprehensive and holistic approach to decision making within building designs.
Written by
Dan Coupland
Graduate Sustainability Consultants
To contact please email:
dan.coupland@mainer.co.uk
What is LCA?
LCA is an acronym for ‘Life Cycle Assessment’ or ‘Analysis’. These terms are interchangeable, but an LCA is a process which helps to evaluate the complete life cycle of a product or entity. LCA’s can be undertaken for many different things, such as a product LCA for an item from the supermarket or evaluating a specific manufacturing process for example.
One of the best uses for LCA however relates to buildings and new developments. When instructed at the start of a project, LCA can be used to assess different design options for the development, which helps the design team understand how different materials used for key building elements can induce a carbon reduction or carbon increase, e.g., tCO2e. The team can then decide which design option offers the best carbon reduction, as well as other factors, to choose the best design. This is a key component of the Mat 01 credits in BREEAM assessments which acts another incentive to undertake this exercise if pursing a BREEAM rating.
Building LCA is not just important for the start of a project, where undertaken throughout the project, this can help clients and developers to understand the environmental effects of the construction of their new building from inception through to the full life cycle (typically 60 years) and adjust accordingly to increase the carbon efficiency.
What is LCC?
LCC is an acronym for ‘Life Cycle Costing’ and is a tool to assist in assessing the cost performance of construction work, aimed at facilitating choices where there are alternative means of achieving the client’s objectives and where those alternatives differ, not only in their initial costs but also in their subsequent operational costs - Lifecycle Costing, 1st edition (rics.org). It includes not only the initial investment costs, but also the operating, maintenance, repair, replacement, and disposal or recycling costs.
Like an LCA and its design options appraisal, an LCC allows alternatives cost approaches to be compared on the same basis, with the main and most important use pertaining to budgeting and for option appraisal. This makes LCC works a key process within a projects development as it provides an opportunity to explore the most cost-effective strategies for building design from initial construction, through to the operational cost, which can be overlooked.
Why Integration?
As has been made abundant in both the prior LCA and LCC sections, each analysis offers the design team the opportunity to assess multiple design option appraisals for understanding the carbon intensity of the building, as well as the cost of including those materials and services, considering future predicted cost such as material replacements, energy costs etc.
However, whilst the benefits of each analysis have been stated, they are fundamentally separate pieces of information, which will likely only effect certain design decisions. The LCA will be used to effect material and design philosophies, whereas the costing will mainly look to decrease capital cost for the building, not taking much else into account.
Therefore, integrating both your LCA and LCC results serves as a great opportunity to pool resources together.
How is it done?
LCA and LCC integration can be undertaken through different means, however as mentioned before, both LCA and LCC are separate credits that can be targeted within a BREEAM assessment, and there is an exemplary Materials 01 performance which can be achieved when LCA and LCC integration is achieved. Thankfully, the BREEAM guidance offers a relatively straightforward process of facilitating the integration
The above demonstrates a process to which by RIBA stage 4 (Technical Design), the LCA and LCC options have been fully integrated, which should hopefully mean that the final design to be taken forward to construction, has considered the two data sets holistically and not separate of one another.
This is important because appraising design options based purely on their cost and carbon efficiency, albeit is useful, is only useful in certain situations. Arguably the greatest benefit of integration is that design teams can holistically appraise both environmental and economic impacts of the proposed designs within the same body of work.
This allows changes to be made much easier and will likely culminate in the best value design being chosen which should offer good carbon efficiency, as well as acceptable or reduced capital costs, without compromising either metric and to help alleviate value engineering.
Examples of LCA and LCC at Mainer Associates
Case Study 1
Eden at New Bailey
Mainer Associates undertook an embodied carbon LCA, whereby we were involved with the design team from the outset and helped to develop solutions for the development to reduce embodied carbon across all design stages, but to also ensure the options appraised at stages 1 and 2 were not altered.
Case Study 2
11 & 12 Wellington Place
Mainer Associates undertook both LCA and LCC works for this development. Through our early appointment and being instructed for both works, we helped to assist the project team in choosing the most cost-effective design with the goal of reducing embodied carbon as much as possible.
Find out more about this both of these development in one of our prior articles - Mainer Facilitating BREEAM Outstanding… — Mainer Associates
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