Use of LCA for buildings

Abstract: The increasing focus on the environmental classifications and energy certification systems as well as LCA in the building industry nowadays has raised the interest in the life cycle perspective of buildings among countries, municipalities, builders and researchers. This thesis shows how Sweden is dealing with this topic comparing to the Netherlands and Turkey. By presenting a detailed literature review specialised with literature that was published in each one of the previous mentioned countries separately in addition to an overall literature review. Then compare it to the practical application of LCA within building industry, by interviewing LCA specialists in each country individually. This research showed that the main motivation to apply LCA on buildings in practice was related to some utilized certification system. Although, there seemed to be a good awareness about the environmental effects of buildings between specialists (architectures, engineers and consultants) this knowledge was not sufficient by itself only to perform LCA. Economic aspects, governmental support and requirements of certification systems play an important role in rising the LCA use in buildings within practice. In Turkey there was a big interest in performing LCA for the whole building in literature, not likely in practice as LCA was performed for only products, materials or parts of the building. In Sweden and the Netherlands LCA was performed for only products, materials, parts of the building or the whole building in both literature and practice. The Netherlands was much progressed in applying LCA on their buildings in practice, in addition to they have their own standards and regulations regarding LCA. In Sweden LCA was considered seriously by some building companies, while others did apply LCA only in the big projects however, there is some building companies that do not consider LCA at all. In Turkey LCA was applied on some buildings but that was limited to the big projects and the big cities.