Making sense of LCA results when evaluating multiple building designs–comparison of interpretation concepts

Abstract

Identifying environmental hotspots and comparing design options are the most common goals in building life cycle assessment (LCA). Our paper focuses on the latter by identifying and evaluating various concepts for interpreting LCA results that can be applied when comparing multiple design options. The term LCA interpretation concept is introduced. Eight approaches were analysed and classified into three groups; (i) raw LCA data, (ii) benchmarking and (iii) single score indicator interpretation concepts. Features and attributes for making sense of LCA data were defined and used to evaluate how the investigated LCA interpretation concepts support decision-making. Finally, the results were compared and evaluated whether the applied LCA interpretation concepts could influence the designer's perception of environmental superiority. The outcomes show substantial differences in the ability of LCA interpretation concepts to support the decision-making process. Benchmarking, weighting and normalization are essential to making environmental decisions when comparing multiple design options coupled with multiple environmental indicators. Otherwise, the risk of decision-making dilemmas due to data overflow is high. Our case study with 21 design options showed that the perception of environmental superiority and inferiority may be conditioned by the selection of the LCA interpretation concept.