Page 92 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Life cycle assessment: applications in the built environment

The goal of the LCA was to quantify the impacts of Stadium Australia throughout its life in 79
order to minimise those impacts. Specifically, the objective was to quantify raw material use,
energy use, emissions to air and water, and solid wastes, and to create an inventory of results
(Building Innovation and Construction Technology 1999). The scope of the study included
(Janssen 1999):
s procurement (raw materials extraction, manufacture and transport) of the building
systems
s construction and reconfiguration
s operation and maintenance for a 50-year design life
s demolition.

As the LCA was used to quantify the impacts of the current design for optimisation
purposes, the functional unit was the provision of a stadium for 50 years. The functional unit
was further split into different life cycle stages (Matthew Janssen to Dominique Hes, pers.
comm., 21 February 2001), summarised below:
s Total life cycle – The functional unit for the total life cycle was the sum of the functional
units for procurement, construction and reconfiguration, operation and maintenance
and demolition stages.
s Procurement – The functional unit for the procurement stage was the raw materials
extraction, processing and transport of the major building materials to the stadium
site.
s Construction and reconfiguration – The functional unit for this stage was the
construction of the stadium (i.e. the building systems considered in procurement) and
the reconfiguration of the stadium post-Olympics.
s Operation and maintenance – The functional unit for this stage was the operation and
any major maintenance required of the stadium over its 50-year design life to
accommodate up to 110 000 spectators during the Olympics and up to 80 000 spectators
post-Olympics. The results of this stage of the stadium’s life cycle were directly
dependent on the forecast use of the stadium in terms of numbers of events and
spectators per year.
s Demolition – The functional unit for this stage was the demolition of the stadium at the
end of its design life of 50 years.

The project considered the impacts of the materials (including transport), the use of the
materials, the use/maintenance of the building, and the disposal of the building and their
associated emissions, without aggregating them. Building system procurement processes con-
sidered included the extraction of raw materials, manufacture of the products and systems,
and transport. All major processes required to procure the building systems such as the pro-
duction of energy and intermediate transport, were also included. The subsystems were aggre-
gated as shown in Table 7.1.
Soft furnishings were excluded from the study, as were any systems outside the boundary of
the stadium, such as the precinct works and outbuildings. In all cases, systems excluded were
considered minor in relation to the overall works. Similar breakdowns of information were
used to describe the stadium’s construction and reconfiguration, operation and maintenance,
and demolition. The data was collected using a quantitative questionnaire, with assistance
provided to help in its completion. Building product suppliers were contacted for a description
of their manufacturing processes and associated raw materials, energy use, water use and waste
products. The disadvantage of this approach was that much of the data was collected during
procurement after many of the design decisions had been made. Data was also collected from

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