Abstract
The growing concern about sustainability in construction brings out the need for reliable methods of assessing the environmental performance of materials and components, among which stands out the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that allows extracting objective environmental indicators through compilation and evaluation of inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle. However, this method requires a great amount of life cycle inventory data for its accomplishment and although there are several databases abroad, there are no systematic databases with information collected about the production processes of building materials in the national scene, in order to support LCA studies of these products. To fill this data gap in Brazil, it is possible to adapt foreign data to the national context. The present paper analyses the technical feasibility of this adaptation, based on a case study of the product “concrete for cast-in-place walls”. A partial life cycle analysis was carried out, considering the extraction of raw materials to concrete production at plant (cradle-to-gate). The method consisted of adapting the existing data from Ecoinvent® database to the Brazilian context, investigating in detail the concrete production process in plant and adjusting the upstream processes. It was noticed that the simple adaptation of macro indicators is not sufficient, being necessary a careful analysis of the premises, information sources and data adaptability when conducting LCA of construction products in Brazil.
Reference
Silva, Fernanda Belizario; Arduin, Rachel Horta ; Oliveira, Luciana Alves de ; Becere, Osmar Hamilton . Análise da viabilidade técnica da adaptação de dados internacionais de inventário de ciclo de vida para o contexto brasileiro : um estudo de caso do concreto para as apredes moldadas no local. In: CONGRESSO BRASILEIRO DE CONCRETO, 57., 2015, Bonito, MS. Anais… 15 p.
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https://escriba.ipt.br/pdf_restrito/173733.pdf
The growing concern about sustainability in construction brings out the need for reliable methods of assessing the environmental performance of materials and components, among which stands out the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that allows extracting objective environmental indicators through compilation and evaluation of inputs, outputs and the potential environmental impacts of a product system throughout its life cycle. However, this method requires a great amount of life cycle inventory data for its accomplishment and although there are several databases abroad, there are no systematic databases with information collected about the production processes of building materials in the national scene, in order to support LCA studies of these products. To fill this data gap in Brazil, it is possible to adapt foreign data to the national context. The present paper analyses the technical feasibility of this adaptation, based on a case study of the product “concrete for cast-in-place walls”. A partial life cycle analysis was carried out, considering the extraction of raw materials to concrete production at plant (cradle-to-gate). The method consisted of adapting the existing data from Ecoinvent® database to the Brazilian context, investigating in detail the concrete production process in plant and adjusting the upstream processes. It was noticed that the simple adaptation of macro indicators is not sufficient, being necessary a careful analysis of the premises, information sources and data adaptability when conducting LCA of construction products in Brazil.
Reference
Silva, Fernanda Belizario; Arduin, Rachel Horta ; Oliveira, Luciana Alves de ; Becere, Osmar Hamilton . Análise da viabilidade técnica da adaptação de dados internacionais de inventário de ciclo de vida para o contexto brasileiro : um estudo de caso do concreto para as apredes moldadas no local. In: CONGRESSO BRASILEIRO DE CONCRETO, 57., 2015, Bonito, MS. Anais… 15 p.
Document with restricted access. Login to BiblioInfo, Library/IPT-DAIT to access PDF text:
https://escriba.ipt.br/pdf_restrito/173733.pdf
