A comprehensive framework for assessing the life-cycle energy of building construction assemblies

Building environmental design typically focuses on improvements to operational efficiencies such as building thermal performance and system efficiency. Often the impacts occurring across the other stages of a building's life are not considered or are seen as insignificant in comparison. However, previous research shows that embodied impacts can be just as important. There is limited consistent and comprehensive information available for building designers to make informed decisions in this area. Often the information that is available is from disparate sources, which makes comparison of alternative solutions unreliable. It is also important to ensure that strategies to reduce environmental impacts from one life cycle stage do not come at the expense of an increase in overall life-cycle impacts. A consistent and comprehensive framework for assessing and specifying building assemblies for enhanced environmental outcomes does not currently exist. This article presents the initial findings of a project that aims to establish a database of life cycle energy requirements for a broad range of construction assemblies, based on a comprehensive assessment framework. Life cycle energy requirements have been calculated for eight residential construction assemblies integrating an innovative embodied energy assessment technique with thermal performance modelling and ranked according to their performance. © #2010 Earthscan ISSN: 0003-8628.