Life Cycle Thinking for a Sustainable Built Environment

Dear Colleagues,

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been widely utilized during the last decades to investigate the influences on global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of various human activities and products. Alongside this, LCA-related tools, such as Life Cycle Cost (LCC) and Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA), have permitted holistic analyses by also including the economic and social fields. This has highlighted the need to develop a Life Cycle Thinking framework. When it comes to the building sector, LCA has permitted a better understanding of the potential environmental impacts of construction materials and technologies, and also of systems and plants installed to guarantee adequate comfort conditions or to produce energy from renewable energy source (RES). Within this framework, the Zero Emissions Building (ZEB) and Zero Emissions Neighborhood (ZEN) concepts, which respectively refer to carbon neutral buildings and districts, were outlined.

Despite this, there is still need for LCA to analyze buildings in order to identify the materials, technologies, and plants that have the most impact on carbon emissions over their whole life-cycle (from-cradle-to-grave), and orient their further development towards a more sustainable scenario. Strategies to offset GHG emissions such as green roofing and vegetation are also worth investigating in order to facilitate the definition of standards and guidelines capable of regulating and promoting their application.

Furthermore, unordinary events such as the Covid-19 pandemic that humankind is experiencing currently can modify the environmental impact of buildings, particularly during the operational stage. These variations need to be analyzed to provide a more complete view of such occurrences.

This Special Issue aims to bring together current progress on LCA which can contribute to a better knowledge of the impact of the building sector, but also to the identification of low-carbon solutions and to enhance the robustness of the LCA methodology. Original research article and comprehensive reviews along with well-documented case studies will be considered for publication.

The following topics are addressed:

• LCA/LCC/S-LCA of both residential and commercial buildings;
• LCA/LCC/S-LCA of innovative construction materials and technologies;
• LCA/LCC/S-LCA of systems and plants (i.e., HVAC, CHP, BiPV);
• ZEB and ZEN case studies;
• Optimization analyses to minimize environmental impacts of buildings/construction materials/RES plants;
• Compensation strategies (i.e., green roofing, micro-algae cultivation, vegetation);
• Changes in environmental impact of buildings/construction materials/RES plants due to unordinary events (e.g., Covid-19 pandemic);
• Guidelines and policy instruments to implement de-carbonization of the building sector.

Prof. Dr. Franco Cotana
Dr. Mattia Manni
Guest Editors

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