This book introduces readers to Life Cycle Approach (LCA)-supported design solutions, through non-geometric-data-driven methodologies, to provide a clear picture of how to optimize individual designs in addressing ecological challenges. By offering LCA, the book gives designers a complimentary set of science-based perspectives and techniques with a focus on high data quality for clarity and public accessibility. While most design solutions and resources are meant to appeal to people by solving everyday problems, this book uses LCA designs to appeal to people through a combination of practicality, accuracy, and the need to decelerate ecological destruction through products offered to marketplace consumers. In essence, the book teaches designers how to craft environmentally responsive designs for their clients at little to no extra cost, but with necessary ecological benefits. The book analyzes the human desire for consumption, and suggests design innovations for promoting "best practices". LCA tools, data, and methodologies are explained and offered as these potential innovations for affecting positive environmental change. As an underlying component of LCA, the book defines the energy essentials related to environmental problems, and how LCA design solutions must address these factors while also appealing to a designated client-base. The book also teaches designers how to consider corporate incentives for trusting LCA designs, such as investor confidence, loyalty, and consumer trust. The book will appeal to a broad range of designers interested in sustainable and data-driven design, and may be utilized by non-LCA specialists in expanding their design perspectives and goals in the marketplace.

Environmental life cycle assessment is often thought of as cradle to grave and therefore as the most complete accounting of the environmental costs and benefits of a product or service. However, as anyone who has done an environmental life cycle assessment knows, existing tools have many problems: data is difficult to assemble and life cycle studies take months of effort. A truly comprehensive analysis is prohibitive, so analysts are often forced to simply ignore many facets of life cycle impacts. But the focus on one aspect of a product or service can result in misleading indications if that aspect is benign while other aspects pollute or are otherwise unsustainable. This book summarizes the EIO-LCA method, explains its use in relation to other life cycle assessment models, and provides sample applications and extensions of the model into novel areas. A final chapter explains the free, easy-to-use software tool available on a companion website. (www.eiolca.net) The software tool provides a wealth of data, summarizing the current U.S. economy in 500 sectors with information on energy and materials use, pollution and greenhouse gas discharges, and other attributes like associated occupational deaths and injuries. The joint project of twelve faculty members and over 20 students working together over the past ten years at the Green Design Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, the EIO-LCA has been applied to a wide range of products and services. It will prove useful for research, industry, and in economics, engineering, or interdisciplinary classes in green design.

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has developed in Australia over the last 20 years into a technique for systematically identifying the resource flows and environmental impacts associated with the provision of products and services. Interest in LCA has accelerated alongside growing demand to assess and reduce greenhouse gas emissions across different manufacturing and service sectors. Life Cycle Assessment focuses on the reflective practice of LCA, and provides critical insight into the technique and how it can be used as a problem-solving tool. It describes the distinctive strengths and limitations of LCA, with an emphasis on practice in Australia, as well as the application of LCA in waste management, the built environment, water and agriculture. Supported by examples and case studies, each chapter investigates contemporary challenges for environmental assessment and performance improvement in these key sectors. LCA methodologies are compared to the emerging climate change mitigation policy and practice techniques, and the uptake of ‘quick’ LCA and management tools are considered in the light of current and changing environmental agendas. The authors also debate the future prospects for LCA technique and applications.

Life cycle assessment enables the identification of a broad range of potential environmental impacts occurring across the entire life of a product, from its design through to its eventual disposal or reuse. The need for life cycle assessment to inform environmental design within the built environment is critical, due to the complex range of materials and processes required to construct and manage our buildings and infrastructure systems. After outlining the framework for life cycle assessment, this book uses a range of case studies to demonstrate the innovative input-output-based hybrid approach for compiling a life cycle inventory. This approach enables a comprehensive analysis of a broad range of resource requirements and environmental outputs so that the potential environmental impacts of a building or infrastructure system can be ascertained. These case studies cover a range of elements that are part of the built environment, including a residential building, a commercial office building and a wind turbine, as well as individual building components such as a residential-scale photovoltaic system. Comprehensively introducing and demonstrating the uses and benefits of life cycle assessment for built environment projects, this book will show you how to assess the environmental performance of your clients’ projects, to compare design options across their entire life and to identify opportunities for improving environmental performance.