| Abstract: | Life cycle assessment in the construction sector. Under the impression of an increasing demand for sustainability thinking in the building and construction sector, the method of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is constantly gaining relevance. LCA is a method to quantify and assess the environmental impacts of technical systems – in the building and construction sector, these could be both, building products or complete buildings – over their entire life cycle. In the construction sector, LCAs of building products have been well established, while LCAs of entire buildings are just now becoming more common. The German certificate for sustainable buildings strongly promotes this development by including Life Cycle Thinking into the rating of the sustainability of buildings. Due to this development, planners and other stakeholders in the construction industry have to face the necessity of life cycle based environmental optimization of a building already during the planning phase of the building. With the cooperation of LCA experts and experts in the field of assistance in the planning and construction process, dedicated and feasible solutions for this task can be developed. This article provides an overview on LCA in the building and construction sector and presents a possible approach to the question of planning‐integrated environmental optimization of buildings. |
