Default Wastage Percentages

What is the default wastage percentage for cables? LCA model is developed for project based in Australia. Requirement is to consider 20% wastage for the cables. Project is modelled in IS (Infrastructure Sustainability) module.
How I can see default wastage percentages applied to my model? Can I change them for Proposed Case, resulting from innovation in construction?

Hi Haroon!

The default percentage depends on the type of cable and the wastage settings you have defined. As your project is located in Australia and no default profile for wastage exists as of today for Australia, it would use global settings, which means, for example, power cables have a wastage percentage of 1%.

You mention the infrastructure model, however, we have multiple tools for different purposes. The ISCA infrastructure tool (Infrastructure Sustainability Rating Scheme created by the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia) does not support wastage percentages as per their scheme. You would need to include total quantities of waste under ‘Materials used on the construction site’ as this is the only A5 emission they require to be reported on.

If you use a different infrastructure tool that allows reporting on a wastage percentage, and your rating scheme requires you to consider 20% wastage then you could indeed include in your proposed case the actual wastage. This will result in lower A5 emissions (and replacement emissions if the cables need to be replaced within the assessment period of your asset).

Hope this helps, let me know if you have further questions.