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Evaluation of the completeness of LCA studies for residential buildings

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Abstract

Although life cycle assessment (LCA) is intensively employed in the residential building sector, the incompleteness problem threatens the reliability of LCA. Considering the incompleteness of LCA studies, this study aims at developing a new calculation tool by evaluating an index of completeness (IoC) of LCA on residential buildings. An in-depth review on the existing LCA studies is conducted, and the frequently involved processes/materials are identified and listed. The calculation tool, IoC-Res, is subsequently developed, enclosing all the processes/materials in the checklist. IoC-Res can evaluate the completeness of the entire life cycle stages of a residential building, giving results for six impact categories. Case studies are conducted with the evaluation of IoCs for six building cases using IoC-Res. The results demonstrate that IoCs can be significantly different among impact categories. High IoCs are found in the impact categories such as climate change and particulate matter, while low IoCs are observed in eutrophication and metal depletion. The developed IoC-Res can provide a quantitative evaluation on the completeness of LCA of residential buildings and hence helps to guarantee the study quality and ultimately improve the reliability of LCA.

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Acknowledgements

This study is supported by the Startup Funding of Qingdao University of Science and Technology (Grant No. 010029060). We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editor for the constructive comments in the process of improving this paper.

Funding

This study is supported by the start-up funding of Qingdao University of Science and Technology (Grant No. 010029060).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Qingdao Research Center for Green Development and Ecological Environment, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, No. 99 Songling Road, Qingdao, China

    Yahong Dong & Peng Liu

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  1. Yahong Dong
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  2. Peng Liu
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Contributions

Dong, Yahong contributed to conceptualization, methodology, software, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, and funding acquisition; Liu, Peng was involved in validation, writing—original draft, writing—review and editing, and resources.

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Correspondence to Peng Liu.

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Dong, Y., Liu, P. Evaluation of the completeness of LCA studies for residential buildings. Clean Techn Environ Policy 24, 229–250 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-021-02115-x

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