AHP based life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) framework: a case study of six storey wood frame and concrete frame buildings in Vancouver

Abstract

Construction and building industry is in dire need for developing sustainability assessment frameworks that can evaluate and integrate related environmental and socioeconomic impacts. This paper discusses an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) based sustainability evaluation framework for mid-rise residential buildings based on a broad range of environmental and socioeconomic criteria. A cradle to grave life cycle assessment technique was applied to identify, classify, and assess triple bottom line (TBL) sustainability performance indicators of buildings. Then, the AHP was applied to aggregate the impacts into a unified sustainability index. The framework is demonstrated through a case study to investigate two six storey structural systems (i.e. concrete and wood) in Vancouver, Canada. The results of this paper show that the environmental performance of a building in Canada, even in regions with milder weather such as Vancouver, is highly dependent on service life energy, rather than structural materials.

Keywords:

• life cycle assessment (LCA)
• sustainability assessment
• concrete frame building
• wood frame building

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support received from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada to achieve the objectives of this study.

Notes

1. It is necessary to mention that there was no information regarding the operational energy scenario of an old mid-rise wood frame building available, as this type of building has been recently allowed to build based on BC building code (2009).

2. http://www.athenasmi.org/our-software-data/lca-databases/

3. The PDF can be interpreted as the fraction of species that has a high probability of no occurrence in a region due to unfavorable conditions caused by acidification and eutrophication.