Would like tips for an adaptive and reuse building LCA

Buildings Assessments
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Hi I would like tips on how to set up a project for an adaptive and reuse residential project where there has been light touches on existing building and it has been built. The client wants to know the current LCA (as built) and would like to know the rebuild sqm rate carbon. Happy to hear experts thoughts on this.

Thanks!

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Hi Laura,

welcome to our community and thank you for your post!

For comparing a renovation project, where materials that are already on-site are resued, with a rebuild regarding the carbon impacts you can…

Check the “reused material” box in the Building Materials query

  • This box can be found in various tools, like Life Cycle Carbon – Global (2023), Level(s) or GLA/RICS as one of the last columns in the Building Materials query.
  • Clicking this checkbox will disregard the A1-A3 as well as A5 emissions of this material. The impacts of the B and C stages will still be calculated (given that they are part of the assessment’s scope).
  • If the transportation (A4) should also be excluded because the material was already present at the site, you can manually adjust the default value to 0.
  • If you want to check this box/set transportation to 0 for multiple materials with only one click, you can use the Group Edit function.
  • When creating multiple designs, the Copying Designs function can be useful.

Use Carbon Designer 3D

  • If you want to quickly assess the impacts or don’t have any BoQ (yet), this tool can help to provide an overview by automatically assigning generic constructions based on your specifications (e.g. GFA, building type etc.)
  • You can exclude e.g. the foundation or the ground slab from the assessment (i.e. no materials will be assigned to it), if these parts won’t be replaced, and compare the results with a design where these elements are rebuild.

Use Building Circularity Tool for assessing Design for Adaptability

  • Next to other features for appraising circularity, this tool allows for applying Design for Adaptability (and Design for Disassembly) principles.
  • The results show the names of materials using DfA in a list with their respective quantities.
  • I noticed this tool is not on your license, so feel free to reach out to one of our LCA experts for more information (e.g. an introductory demo) on this tool.

I hope this is helpful to you. Please let us know if you have further questions.

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Thank you this is helpful!

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