Life-cycle environmental effects of an office building

This paper quantifies the significant environmental aspects of a new high-end office building over 50 years of service life. A comprehensive environmental life-cycle assessment-including data quality assessment-was conducted to provide detailed information for establishing the causal connection between the different life-cycle elements and potential environmental impacts. The results show that most of the impacts are associated with electricity use and building materials manufacturing-in particular, electricity used in lighting, HVAC systems, and outlets; heat conduction through the structures; manufacturing and maintenance of steel; manufacturing of concrete and paint; water use and wastewater generation; and office waste management. Construction and demolition were found to have relatively insignificant impacts. The identified most significant aspects are quite predominant; 7% of all counted aspects cover over 50% of the life-cycle impacts. Practical applications of the study's results could be in the environmentally conscious design and management of office buildings.