1,720,980 research outputs found
L’analisi del ciclo di vita degli edifici esistenti
No full textThe residential sector is one of the most energy-intensive sectors of a country and energy efficiency in buildings is crucial in order to achieve the goal of reducing by 20% the EU energy consumption by 2020. The regulatory framework, both at European and National level, emphasizes more and more this need, requiring performance limits increasingly stringent. Within this context, the analysis and the optimization of the energetic and environmental performance of existing buildings becomes a key issue. This paper aims to present how the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology, that allows the measurement of the environmental impact of products and services across all life cycle stages, could be used to achieve this goal. The results of various case studies are shown and a methodological approach is proposed as a guideline for LCA of existing buildings, demonstrating its real potential in this applications
Integration of Energy Simulations and Life Cycle Assessment in Building Refurbishment: An Affordability Comparison of Thermal Insulation Materials through a New Sustainability Index
Full text linkEnergy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction have become two of the most important issues to address in fighting climate change. Focused strategies have been implemented aiming at reducing the energy consumption of buildings since it is one of the most energy-intensive sectors, but they are mainly concerned with energy reduction without considering their environmental impact. The present work therefore aims at assessing the energy and environmental impacts of the use of insulation materials for building envelope refurbishment as the thermal coating. Reference buildings were used to perform energy simulations in representative cities of Italy and energy and environmental impacts of the most common and sustainable insulation materials were thus evaluated. Relevant outcomes have been focused on defining a new Economic and Environmental Sustainability Index (EESI) capable of considering both economic and environmental aspects; particularly, sustainable materials (such as cellulose fiber) can have the same affordability as traditional ones (such as polystyrene foam slab, glass wool, or stone wool) if environmental impact is also taken into account, despite their higher cost. However, according to EESI, the affordability of traditional insulation materials remains evident in the warmest climatic zones because of the lower energy needs of buildings
Assessing the mitigation potential of environmental impacts from sustainability strategies on steel construction value chain: a case study on two steel products in Italy
No full textLife Cycle Assessment (LCA) plays a crucial role in sustainability evaluations and impact assessments, especially in the field of environmentally and eco-friendly materials or system production and building design for the construction sector. However, stakeholders and professionals tend to use LCA mainly to develop an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) or assess building sustainability certification. This research investigates the possibility of using the LCA results to assess the potential for further mitigation of the environmental impacts on the construction industry. Starting from a previous study on the steel construction value chain performed by authors to develop two steel product datasets for the Italian LCA database, this work aims to identify how sensitivity analysis can guide industries in choosing sustainability strategies to mitigate their impacts further. The study focuses the sensitivity analyses only on one specific sustainability strategy for each of the two previously analyzed steel products (A. beams and angles and B. hollow sections), thus potentially limiting the generalizability of findings to a broader range of sustainability strategies but demonstrating the feasibility of the proposed method and its replicability to other products and production scenarios
Development of a greenhouse gas accounting GIS-based tool to support local policy making - Application to an Italian municipality
No full textClimate change is the issue of the century and, according to Agenda 21, local actions are essential to impact global mitigation of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions (“think globally, act locally”). However, in order to plan and implement effective, sustainable actions, local authorities need detailed information on their GHG emissions and their sources. This paper presents the work that led to the development of a GIS-based tool for local GHG accounting, which provides data for local decision-makers in an innovative manner different from traditional GHG inventories. The original aspects of the study are the geo-referencing of all results and the possibility of calculating all emissions (carbon sources) and removals (carbon sinks) with input data of different accuracy
A comparative Life Cycle Assessment of external wall-compositions for cleaner construction solutions in buildings
No full textApplication of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in buildings is usually performed at the envelope scale, mainly for comparison of several sample-solutions, and provides in-depth analyses of the related energy and environmental performances. In this way, it is possible to identify those solutions that perform best in energy and environmental terms, and that so are suitable for construction of sustainable buildings.
In this context, the study was aimed at carrying out energy and environmental assessments to compare four external-wall samples characterised by different rates of sophistication in terms of assembly technologies and component materials.
The samples considered were properly designed for development of the subsequent energy-environmental analysis. In particular, two “standard” wall compositions and two ventilated façades were considered, using rock-wool and recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate (R-PET) as insulating materials.
The study documented that, as regards both energy and environmental impacts, ventilated façades perform quite well compared to the ”standard“ wall compositions, especially when equipped with R-PET. It also confirmed that both solutions easy to be disassembled and recycled materials are key design choices for environmental sustainable and low energy demanding buildings along their whole life cycles.
Finally, the authors believe that the study provides helpful insights on the environmental sustainability of eco-friendly materials and technologies, and can contribute to less time and resources consuming LCAs at the building scale
Integrated approach for the road traffic greenhouse gas emissions calculation in a life-cycle perspective
No full textThis research aims at defining a model to assess the Greenhouse Gases emissions of an entire vehicle fleet, from a life cycle perspective, based on the results of specific traffic simulations. The environmental performance of the City of Rome private transport network was evaluated in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2 eq), was based on the life cycle impacts of the different vehicle categories in circulation and based on the vehicle flow on the road net-work. In terms of life-cycle environmental impact, fully electric vehicles were found to be those with the highest emission values as regards construction, maintenance, and dis-posal, both compared to internal combustion vehicles and hybrid vehicles. Nevertheless, a 100% penetration of electric vehicles in the circulating fleet can potentially generate a reduction of GHG of the order of 39% at transport network level
Studio di filiera cippato forestale
No full textIl seguente rapporto è stato realizzato all’interno del progetto Arcadia - approccio ciclo di vita nei contratti pubblici e banca dati italiana LCA, finanziato dal PON Governance e Capacità Istituzionali 2014-2020, come output dell’Azione 5 “Analisi e raccolta dati per la costituzione della banca dati”. Questo rapporto rientra nella sotto-azione A5.3 “raccolta dati prodotto/servizio lungo il ciclo di vita ed elaborazione dei documenti” e rappresenta lo studio della filiera di produzione del cippato forestale in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, essendo pertanto rappresentativo, sia in termini geografici che tecnologici, di una filiera produttiva sviluppata in ambiente montano. Il rapporto contiene l’analisi ambientale, effettuata per mezzo dell’applicazione della metodologia Europea di Product Environmental Footprint, di differenti prodotti ritenuti rappresentativi e particolarmente rilevanti per la filiera in relazione ad alcune sue caratteristiche peculiari, quali la “dimensione geografica” (carattere generalmente “locale”) e la “composizione di mercato” (ovvero, tipologie di prodotto più vendute ed utilizzate). IL PRESENTE RAPPORTO TECNICO È RISERVATO
Evaluation of the optimal geometry of air cooled condensers for concentrated solar power plants through the LCA approach
No full textConcentrated Solar Power (CSP) is an emerging technology for environmental-friendly power generation. Almost all existing CSP plants currently use Water Cooled Condensers, but an increasing use of Air Cooled Condensers is predictable, because of limited water supplies and high costs of cooling water; furthermore, there are several projects to develop CSP plant in desert areas. The MACCSol research project (Development and verification of a novel modular air cooled condenser for enhanced concentrated solar power generation), funded under the EU 7th Framework Programme, provides an innovative modular dry cooling approach. During the design phase, that is currently undergone, a typical Modular Air Cooled Condenser (MACC) module 2X2 m has been defined; it uses fans of 1m in diameter and it could be equipped with three different kinds of tube bundle geometries: circular finned, plate finned and continuous finned. This paper describes how the Life Cycle Assessment can be used as an eco-design tool to identify the optimum tube bundle among the above mentioned geometries. The analysis was performed supposing the MACC operating in a reference CSP plant, for 15 years, considering a total of seventeen different tube bundle geometries, eight different MACC sizes and two transportation scenarios
Carbon Footprint in the Wine Industry
No full textThe chapter is aimed at giving a comprehensive view of the environmental pressures related to the life cycle of a wine bottle, thus allowing the identification of environmental hot spots of the production process and providing support for strategic decisions aimed at its improvement and optimization. After an introduction and a brief analysis of the wine sector worldwide (Section 7.2), in Section 7.3, a review of the scientific literature is reported together with a review of the different experiences regarding carbon footprint evaluation in the wine sector. Section 7.4 describes the methodology used for the evaluation of the carbon footprint of the different case studies considered, and Section 7.5 reports the results related to those case studies regarding typical Italian wineries. Results obtained with different methodologies applied to several products, consistent with other literature studies, show a carbon footprint between 0.9 and 2.0 kgCO2eq/0.75 L bottle, the larger impacts arising from packaging and distribution. The life cycle approach was also used to evaluate other impact indicators (e.g., water footprint) and their correlation with the carbon footprint
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