Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of Building Construction: A Case Study in China

Abstract

Life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) has been increasingly implemented in a wide spectrum of products. Considering the vital importance of buildings to human lives, it is surprising that there have been few LCSA case studies of buildings from mainland China, which boasts the largest developing economy in the world. This study aims to implement LCSA in a typical residential building project in China. The three areas of protections (AoPs) are integrated into an overarching LCSA framework by applying the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) method. It is found that the building project has less impacts of climate change, acidification and human toxicity, but greater impacts of ozone depletion and freshwater eutrophication, as compared to benchmarks of buildings. The sustainability single score is estimated to be 71.5/100, with 40.86% caused by the environmental impact, 29.68% by the economic impact and 29.46% by the social impact. The sustainability results of the studied case are further compared with an existing study in Hong Kong. The results would contribute to the knowledge and understanding of the sustainability performance of buildings in China. The methodology presented in this study can contribute to further improvements in LCSA evaluation, both regionally and globally.