Study on a LEED WB-LCA (Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment)

A Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment (WB-LCA) was conducted for a commercial office space building in India using the LEED v4 tool of the One Click LCA software. The building had 11 floors above grade and 2 basements, with an area of 35820 m2. The building, referred to as the "proposed building," was compared to a similar "baseline building" in terms of six impact categories.

1. Global Warming

2. Ozone Depletion

3. Acidification

4. Eutrophication

5. Tropospheric ozone

6. Nonrenewable energy

The proposed building was found to have a 10% reduction in three of the impact categories: Global Warming Potential, Tropospheric Ozone Formation, and Non-Renewable Energy Depletion.

Baseline Building Result:-

Proposed Building Result:-

The use of ready-mix concrete with 25% fly ash content and AAC blocks with 65% fly ash content in the proposed building was identified as the factor leading to this reduction. The service life of both the proposed and baseline building was considered to be 60 years, and the same life-cycle assessment software and data sets compliant with ISO 14044 were used for the assessment.

LEED WB-LCA (Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment) Report for a hospital project.(Vancouver, Canada)

This report was prepared by Essential India Pvt. Ltd. for a hospital project in Vancouver, Canada. It contains Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment (WB-LCA) results as per LEED v4 standards. A baseline and three design options were analyzed, with only the concrete materials being changed in the design options while keeping other materials the same as the baseline. The objective of the analysis was to compare the impact of six categories in all options and determine which option meets the LEED v4 requirements. The LEED v4 requires that a life-cycle assessment of the project's structure and enclosure be conducted and that a minimum of 10% reduction compared to a baseline building be demonstrated in at least three of the six impact categories (Global Warming Potential being mandatory) without increasing the remaining categories by more than 5%. The WB-LCA was conducted using the LEED v4 tool of One Click LCA.

Baseline Result

Result Option 1

Result Option 2

Result Option 3

The results showed that only Option 3 met the LEED v4 WB-LCA requirements, with a 10% reduction compared to the baseline in four impact categories: Global Warming Potential, Acidification, Tropospheric Ozone Formation, and Non-Renewable Energy Depletion. This design option will help the project achieve WB-LCA credits under LEED v4.

Carbon Footprint study of a Health care campus, Navi Mumbai (India)

A Carbon footprint analysis of proposed buildings at a healthcare center was conducted by us (Essential India). The analysis used the "Cradle to Grave" approach, which includes the following stages:-

a) A1 to A3 (Product Stage)

b) A4 to A5 (Construction Process Stage)

c) B1 to B5 (Use Stage, B6 – Operational Energy Use & B7 – Operational Water Use)

d) C1 to C4 (End of Life Stage).

Using the One Click LCA tool, the carbon footprint analysis was carried out for the baseline building and proposed building. The embodied carbon in the baseline case building was found to be 66,704 tCO2e and in the proposed case building was 57307 tCO2e. The proposed case had 14.08% (9397 tCO2e) fewer carbon emissions compared to the baseline case. This reduction was mainly due to the use of concrete with 30% fly ash content, and steel with 15% recycled content in the proposed buildings. The project also aimed to purchase steel, block work, and glazing materials within 400 km and ready-mix concrete within 50 km. As per the study, the carbon emission intensity in the base case building is 554 kgCO2e/m2. Whereas in the proposed case, the carbon emission intensity is 474 kg CO2e/m2. As per the comparison with the global embodied carbon benchmark, the base case building falls in ‘D grade’ whereas the proposed building falls under ‘C grade’. The below chart shows embodied carbon intensity for the base building and proposed building along with the global benchmark value.

In both cases, all six impact categories were analyzed. All impact categories show a reduction in the proposed building compared to the baseline building. The below graph shows the impact categories and percentage reduction.