IEA EBC Annex 72 - Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts of Buildings

Context

For most of its history, building LCA has been a national practice. Scope, system boundaries, reference study period, data sources and even what counts as a building varied enough that two assessments of identical buildings in different countries could differ by more than the thing being measured.

Annex 72 was the attempt to fix that, across 27 countries and seven years.

Insights

Harmonised method. Agreed assessment approaches, system boundaries and reporting conventions for the environmental impacts of buildings.
Workflows and tools. Practical guidance and tooling, so the method could be used rather than only cited.
A shared evidence base. Case studies assessed consistently enough to be compared across countries.

Our role

Subtask co-lead. Much of what the European policy work later relied on - including the benchmarking and scenario work on this site - rests on the groundwork Annex 72 laid.

More at annex72.iea-ebc.org.

Our experts

Dr. Martin RöckFounding Director and Lead ScientistRISE, GBDI
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Client

IEA Energy in Buildings and Communities ProgrammeParis, France

Publications on this project

IEA EBC Annex 72 - Assessing life cycle related environmental impacts caused by buildings: background reports
Frischknecht R, Lützkendorf T, Passer A, Birgisdottir H, Chae CU, Palaniappan S, Balouktsi M, Nygaard Rasmussen F, Röck M, Potrč Obrecht T, Hoxha E, Ruschi Mendes Saade M (eds.)

2023. https://doi.org/10.3217/978-3-85125-953-7
Carbon footprint assessment of a wood multi-residential building considering biogenic carbon
Ouellet-Plamondon C, Ramseier L, Balouktsi M, Delem L, Foliente G, Francart N, Garcia A, Hoxha E, Lützkendorf T, Nygaard Rasmussen F, Peuportier B, Butler J, Birgisdottir H, Dowdell D, Dixit M, Gomes V, Gomes da Silva M, Gómez JC, Kjendseth Wiik M, Llatas C, Mateus R, Pulgrossi LM, Röck M, Ruschi Mendes Saade M, Passer A, Satola D, Seo S, Soust Verdaguer B, Veselka J, Volf M, Zhang X, Frischknecht R

Journal of Cleaner Production, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.136834
Embodied carbon emissions of buildings and how to tame them
Röck M, Balouktsi M, Ruschi Mendes Saade M

One Earth, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2023.10.018
Using systematic building decomposition for implementing LCA: the results of a comparative analysis as part of IEA EBC Annex 72
Soust-Verdaguer B, Potrč Obrecht T, Alaux N, Hoxha E, Ruschi Mendes Saade M, Röck M, García-Martínez A, Llatas C, Gómez de Cózar JC, Passer A

Journal of Cleaner Production, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135422
Critical life cycle assessment of the innovative passive nZEB building concept 'be 2226' in view of net-zero carbon targets
Maierhofer D, Röck M, Ruschi Mendes Saade M, Hoxha E, Passer A

Building and Environment, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2022.109476
Review of visualising LCA results in the design process of buildings
Hollberg A, Kiss B, Röck M, Soust-Verdaguer B, Wiberg AH, Lasvaux S, Galimshina A, Habert G

Building and Environment, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2020.107530
Life cycle GHG emissions of residential buildings in humid subtropical and tropical climates: systematic review and analysis
Satola D, Röck M, Houlihan-Wiberg A, Gustavsen A

Buildings, 2021. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11010006
Carbon budgets for buildings: harmonizing temporal, spatial and sectoral dimensions
Habert G, Röck M, Steininger K, Lupíšek A, Birgisdottir H, Desing H, Chandrakumar C, Pittau F, Passer A, Rovers R, Slavkovic K, Hollberg A, Hoxha E, Jusselme T, Nault E, Allacker K, Lützkendorf T

Buildings and Cities, 2020. https://doi.org/10.5334/bc.47
BIM and LCA integration: a systematic literature review
Potrč Obrecht T, Röck M, Hoxha E, Passer A

Sustainability, 2020. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12145534
Embodied GHG emissions of buildings - the hidden challenge for effective climate change mitigation
Röck M, Ruschi Mendes Saade M, Balouktsi M, Nygaard Rasmussen F, Birgisdottir H, Frischknecht R, Habert G, Lützkendorf T, Passer A

Applied Energy, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.114107 - 2020 Highly Cited Research Paper Award · 1,000+ citations
Environmental benchmarks for buildings: needs, challenges and solutions
Frischknecht R, Balouktsi M, Lützkendorf T, Aumann A, Birgisdottir H, Grosse Ruse E, Hollberg A, Kuittinen M, Lavagna M, Lupišek A, Passer A, Peuportier B, Ramseier L, Röck M, Trigaux D, Vancso D

International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-019-01690-y
LCA and BIM: visualization of environmental potentials in building construction at early design stages
Röck M, Hollberg A, Habert G, Passer A

Building and Environment, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2018.05.006

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IEA EBC Annex 72 - Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts of Buildings

Context

Insights

Our role

Our experts

Client

Related

Publications on this project

Related projects

Supporting the Development of a Roadmap for the Reduction of Whole Life Carbon of Buildings

Towards Embodied Carbon Benchmarks for the European Building Industry

PEF4Buildings: applying the Product Environmental Footprint method to office buildings