Comparing of the external bearing wall using three cultural perspectives in the life cycle impact assessment

Abstract

The main aim of this research is to perform cultural perspectives analysis of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) case study to understand if the use of different Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) approaches may lead to a very different conclusions. A LCA was applied to analyse the environmental impacts of external bearing wall of two different compositions. In this study, the environmental comparison of the constructions was performed using the ReCiPe method in software SimaPro while considering three approaches of cultural theory: the hierarchist, the individualist, and the egalitarian. The results were compared using midpoint and endpoint indicators. The endpoint LCIA showed that each approach provided a different conclusion except for the hierarchist and egalitarian approach in the Resources indicator. The results for midpoint LCIA were in all impact categories the same with the exception of the terrestrial acidification and marine acidification.