Environmental Impact Assessment Review 68 (2018) 1–9

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Environmental Impact Assessment Review

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/eiar

A comparative method of air emission impact assessment for building MARK

construction activities
Malindu Sandanayake, Guomin Zhang⁎, Sujeeva Setunge
School of Engineering, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, VIC 3001, Australia

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Different construction activities may indicate distinct environmental impacts due to their uniqueness. Ability to
Environmental impacts assess and compare the environmental impacts from different construction activities can aid the process of
Emissions minimising emissions at different building construction processes. The study presents a comparative impact
Buildings assessment methodology to evaluate environmental impacts at different activities during the building con-
Construction
struction stage. Significant impact related construction activities for five major impact categories namely global
Case study
warming potential (GWP 100), acidification potential (AP), Eutrophication potential (EP), Photochemical oxi-
dation formation potential (POFP) and Human toxicity potential (HTP) are compared from the global, regional
and local perspectives. A case study of a residential building in Australia is used to demonstrate the application
of the functions of the developed method. The results of the case study indicated that the method can be ef-
fectively used to compare environmental impacts of different construction activities at different geographical
perspectives considered. The method can be used by designers and contractors in comparing impacts of various
construction activities to identify the most emission effective construction processes.

1. Introduction
With the rising concern on the environmental impacts from pollu-
tant emissions and resource usages in a building life cycle, there is a
contemporary requirement for developing more environmental friendly
buildings (Yan et al., 2010). Initial research studies were concentrated
on minimising embodied emissions of materials and emissions at the
use phase of a building (Alcorn, 2003; Alcorn & Baird, 1996; Chau et al.,
2007; Chau et al., 2012; Sartori & Hestnes, 2007; Cole, 1998). With the
introduction of sustainable materials and energy efficient building
service options in a building, the construction stage has become the
inevitable focus of interest to reduce emissions from buildings
(González & García Navarro, 2006; Sandanayake et al., 2016; Yan et al.,
2010; Sandanayake et al., 2015; Sandanayake et al., 2017). However,
lack of comprehensive data and generic methodology has restricted
researchers to estimate life cycle impacts in spite of the theoretical
framework provided in ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 (Verbeeck & Hens,
2010; Mao et al., 2013; ISO14040, 1997; ISO14044, 2006).
Several impact studies attempted to measure the environmental
impacts at the construction stage of a building. Li et al. proposed a LCA
based environmental impact assessment model for construction pro-
cesses (Li et al., 2010) which was applied to earthwork construction to
understand the impact variations. The results indicated steel as an
impact substance contributes to the maximum impacts while pit sup-
port activity is the governing factor that contributes to environmental
impacts. Gangolells et al. developed a method for predicting the en-
vironmental severity of construction processes (Gangolells et al., 2009).
They defined the significance of environmental impacts in terms of the
impact duration, probability of occurrence and impact scale. The lim-
itation of this method is that it requires expert knowledge for each time
to evaluate the impacts of construction processes. A few other studies
concentrated on evaluating impacts from construction materials. Chau
et al. evaluated impacts on building materials and building service
components of commercial buildings using 8 case studies in Hong Kong
(Chau et al., 2007). The life cycle impacts of materials soon after in-
stallation and after 50 years were estimated for over 30 building ma-
terials. A limitation of the study is that it did not include foundation and
formwork in the calculations. Upton et al. estimated greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions and impacts of using wood in construction of build-
ings (Upton et al., 2008). The results of the study indicated that 27%
emissions can be saved by using wood on building construction.
However the study is highly case sensitive with lots of assumptions and
uncertainties.
A considerable amount of research was conducted only to evaluate
emissions associated with the construction stage of a building.
Guggemos et al. in their emission study compared environmental

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: kevin.zhang@rmit.edu.au (G. Zhang).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2017.09.003
Received 11 December 2016; Received in revised form 12 September 2017; Accepted 12 September 2017
Available online 30 September 2017
0195-9255/ © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
M. Sandanayake et al.
emissions from concrete and steel buildings (Guggemos & Horvath,
2005). The results of the study signified that concrete buildings are
responsible for higher emissions at the construction stage while steel
buildings accountable for higher emissions from the whole building life
cycle perspective. Mao et al. conducted a comparative study on pre-
fabrication and conventional construction techniques of buildings to
measure GHG emissions (Mao et al., 2013). The study concluded that
adopting 10.5% prefabrication materials can achieve a GHG reduction
of 15.3%. Yan et al. in a similar study estimated GHG emissions from
building construction using a case study in Hong Kong (Yan et al.,
2010). They found out that the embodied emissions from materials
govern the total GHG emissions with a contribution of 82–87% of the
total GHG emissions. Further analyses also recommended emission re-
ductions by using recycled materials. Hong et al. revealed the im-
portance of considering human activities and materials used in lesser
quantities in construction stage emission studies (Hong et al., 2015).
The findings indicated that materials with negligible weight (0.1%) can
have a GHG reduction of 2–3%.
On the contrary, there are well developed LCA based environmental
impact assessment tools that have the capacity to assess building im-
pacts. The Building Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES)
software is developed by United States National Institute of Standards
and Technology, which measures both environment impacts as well as
cost of a product before producing an overall score (Lippiatt, 1998).
The environmental performance calculation is a cradle to grave ap-
proach, and the approach considers material acquisition, product
manufacture, transportation, installation, operation and maintenance
and recycling in the assessment process. According to the general LCA
methodology, it is required to follow a three-step procedure before
interpretation of results. The BEES model can assess six impact cate-
gories: global warming potential, acidification potential, nitrification
potential, natural resource depletion, indoor air quality, and solid waste
(Lippiatt, 1998). Since it uses US average data it does not include local
impact indicators such as human health potential. ENVEST 2 is the first
UK based environmental impact design software to evaluate impacts of
a building at the early design stage (Seo, 2002). It simplifies a complex
design process for easy evaluation of environmental impacts. Developed
by Building Research Establishment (BRE), it is a web based tool which
enables larger data sharing options for companies to benchmark com-
plicated designs. ENVEST 2 uses four major assessment criteria in the
impact assessment. Instead, OGIP and Eco-quantum tools use compre-
hensive assessment to estimate impacts at buildings
(Kellenberger & Althaus, 2009; Haapio & Viitaniemi, 2008;
Forsberg & von Malmborg, 2004). One advantage of these tools is that
they provide optimisation options for comparing impact variations
(Zabalza Bribián et al., 2009). Modeling complexities and lack of in-
depth level analyses are limitations of these tools.
However, none of these studies or tools have made attempts to
perform a thorough investigation of environmental impacts at various
construction stages in a building, especially in different construction
activities. Moreover, there applicability to Australian conditions are not
considered. These previous studies also lack a comprehensive system
boundaries or derived for few types of buildings and emission sources.
Besides most of the emission studies have only concentrated on esti-
mation of pollutant emissions with very few studies have made at-
tempts to portray the entire environmental profile by evaluating the
impacts. Consequently, the current study intends to bridge the previous
research gaps by addressing two major objectives. Firstly, it aims to
estimate the overall environmental impact profiles at the construction
stage of a building using a case study of commercial building con-
struction. Secondly, a comprehensive impact assessment is performed
for various construction activities within the construction stage. The
significance of these environmental impacts is determined at global,
regional and local perspectives based on the geographical location
considered. The ascertained impacts at various construction activities
will aid the contractors and designers to identify the construction
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Environmental Impact Assessment Review 68 (2018) 1–9
activities that involve significant environmental impacts and plan ac-
cordingly to minimise them.
2. Study scope and system boundary
2.1. System boundary
The ISO 14040 has no consented methodology to define the scope or
system boundary for considered study (ISO14040, 1997). Therefore, it
is vital to address the system boundary before commencing the analysis.
For this study, the major environmental impacts associated with con-
struction materials, energy use, equipment usage and transportation are
examined at the construction stage of a building. The impacts at the
operation and demolition stages are not considered. Even though em-
bodied emissions from materials are considered to be an upper stream
life cycle stage, recent studies have highlighted the relevance of in-
clusion of embodied emissions from materials in construction stage
emission studies (Yan et al., 2010; Mao et al., 2013; Hong et al., 2015).
Moreover, other impacts such as solid waste, land depletion and por-
table water usage are associated with construction activities, the major
objective of the study is to evaluate and compare environmental im-
pacts of air emissions. Thus, the scope of the study considers the en-
vironmental impacts from air emissions at different construction ac-
tivities of a building. As shown in Fig. 1, the system boundary includes
embodied emissions from materials, emissions from equipment, trans-
portation emissions and electricity usage emissions.
2.2. Functional unit
The functional unit of the study is set to m2 of the construction area.
The functional unit is chosen to maintain the uniform comparative basis
of impact assessment.
3. Methodology
3.1. Emissions evaluation
The emissions at the construction stage are exclusive because they
involve both greenhouse gas (GHG) and non-GHG emissions. These
emissions are evaluated using emission models and the emission factor
inventories are chosen to achieve consistency in measurement.
According to the IPCC report GHG emissions consist of six major pol-
lutant types mainly involving carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and
nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions (IPCC, 2007; Reveised, 2006). However,
studies have shown that CO2 emissions are dominant in construction
activities as a result of fossil fuel combustion (Mao et al., 2013)
Therefore, the study considers CO2 as GHG emissions in this study. Non-
GHG emissions include emission substances like carbon monoxide (CO),
nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxides (SO2), particulate matter (PM),
hydro carbons (HC) and non-methane volatile organic compounds
(NMVOC) due to partial combustion of fuel. Emission inventories from
inventory of carbon and energy (ICE), Australian greenhouse gas ac-
counts (AGGA), United States Environmental Protection Agency (US
EPA) and Australian National Inventory Report are used to estimate the
relevant emissions. Table 1 summarizes pollutants and the corre-
sponding inventories used to estimate emissions from each emission
source at the construction stage.
3.2. Models for emissions estimation
3.2.1. Embodied emission calculations for materials (EM)
Embodied emissions of materials are measured using the following
equation
EM = ∑ Qi ∗eim (1)
M. Sandanayake et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 68 (2018) 1–9

Raw material
extraction
Building operation
Transport

Production of
construction materials at
the plant Material demolition

Transport
Transport
Arrival at distribution Transport equipment to the demolished materials
Electricity supply to site
plants site for

Transport
Recycling Reuse Land fill
Use of materials at the Use of diesel/electric
Other electricity usage at
construction stage equipment during
the construction site
construction

Recycling Within the system boundary

plants
Transport Outside the system boundary
Generation of
construction
construction waste
waste to
Landfill sites

Fig. 1. System boundaries considered for the research study.

Table 1 the vehicle and the deterioration rate of the vehicle.

Inventories used for emission estimation.

3.2.3. Emissions due to equipment usage (EEQ)

Emission source Pollutants Inventory used Reference
Estimation of emissions due to equipment usage is similar to esti-
Material embodied GHG ICE (Hammond et al., mation of emissions due to transportation. Since GHG emissions only
emissions 2011) depends upon the amount of fuel consumed (Zhang et al., 2017), it is
Emissions from GHG AGGA (AGGA, 2013)
estimated by Eq. (3). Non-GHG missions can be evaluated using the
equipment usage
Emissions from CO, NOx, SO2, US EPA (USEPA, 2010) general equation given below.
equipment usage PM, HC Ei = EFi ∗P∗T∗LF (4)
Emissions from GHG AGGA (AGGA, 2013)
transportation where: EFi is the emission factor for the emission element i considered
Emissions from CO, NOx, SO2, AUS NIR (NIR, 2011)
in g/(kW-hr); P is the rated power output of the equipment considered
transportation PM, NMVOC
in kW; T is the hours of use of the equipment for the activity considered;
LF is the load factor which is the fraction of available power during the
where, EM is the embodied GHG emissions from material (i) in kgCO2- operation of equipment.
eq, Qi is the amount of ith material used in kg and eim is the energy
factor or the emission factor for ith material in carbon dioxide equiva- 3.3. Impact categories
lents (kgCO2-eq/kg).
A comprehensive set of environmental impact categories were in-
3.2.2. Emissions due to transportation (ET) vestigated to identify the most relevant impact categories to address the
GHG emissions due to transportation are calculated using the fol- objectives of the study. Within the state-of-the-practice of life cycle
lowing equation. impact assessment, the following inventory flows and environmental
categories are included: energy demand, global warming potential,
Qj ∗ECj ∗EFj
E TGHG= photochemical oxidant formation potential (smog formation), acid-
1000 (2)
ification, eutrophication and human toxicity potential.
where: ETGHG is the GHG emissions due to transportation, Qj is the
quantity of the fuel type (j) in kL, ECj is the energy content factor for 3.3.1. Global Warming Potential (GWP 100)
fuel type (j) in GJ/kL and EFj is the CO2 emission factor for the fuel type It is a measure of greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2 and CH4
(j) in kgCO2-eq/GJ. which directly contribute to the climate change of the environment.
Non-greenhouse gas emissions due to transportation (ETnon-GHG) are These emissions are causing an increase in the absorption of radiation
estimated from the following equation. emitted by the earth, magnifying the natural greenhouse effect. The
measure of GWP 100 is kgCO2-equivalents.
ETnon − GHG = Au = 2 ijk ∗EF(I)ijk (3)
u=2
where: A is the vehicle kilometres travelled and EF(I)ijk is the ex- 3.3.2. Acidification Potential (AP)
haust emission factor for gas I from vehicle type i and age class j for fuel Acidification potential is a measure of emissions that cause acid-
type k in g/km. EF(I)ijk is dependent on the total distance travelled by ifying effects to the environment. Acid rains are a result of acidification

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M. Sandanayake et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 68 (2018) 1–9

impact. Acidification potential is assigned by relating the existing sul- Table 2

phur ions (S-), Nitrogen ions (N-), and halogens. It is measured in terms Characterisation factors (Ci) and the normalisation factors (N) for the emission substances
considered (Hermann et al., 2007).
of kg of SO2 equivalents.
GWP AP (SO2- EP (PO43 −) POFP (C2H4 HTP (C6H4Cl2
3.3.3. Eutrophication Potential (EP) (CO2-e) e) eq) eq)
Eutrophication potential is a measure of emissions that cause eu-
HC 23 − − 1 −
trophication effects to the environment. The eutrophication potential is CO − − − 0.3 −
a stoichiometric procedure, which identifies the equivalence between N CO2 1 − − − −
and P for both terrestrial and aquatic systems. EP is measured in terms NOx − 0.5 0.13 0.1 1.2
of phosphate (PO43 −) ions equivalents. PM − − − − 0.84
SO2 − 1.2 − 0.5 0.1
NMVOC − − − 1 −
3.3.4. Photochemical Oxidation Formation Potential (POFP) Na 6.21E 2.67E 4.16E + 08 1.61E + 09 6.96E + 10
it is a measure of emissions of precursors that contribute to low level + 11 + 09
smog, produced by the reaction of NOx and VOC's under the influence a
Reference (Hermann et al., 2007; Bengtsson & Howard, 2010).
of ultra violet (UV) light. POFP is measured in terms of ethylene (C2H4)
equivalents.
two major steps (Finkbeiner et al., 2006).

3.3.5. Human Toxicity Potential (HTP)

HTP, is a measure that reflects the potential harm of a unit of
chemical released into the environment, is based on the toxicity of a
compound. It is used to weigh emissions inventoried as part of a life-
cycle assessment (LCA) or in the toxics release inventory (TRI) and to
aggregate emissions in terms of a reference compound. HTP is mea-
sured in terms of dichlorobenzene (P- C6H4Cl2) equivalents. HTP in the
current study represents both respiratory organics and inorganics toxic
matters.
Global Warming Potential is included in the study because of its
growing importance to the global environmental and political/eco-
nomic realm. Acidification, Eutrophication, Photochemical Ozone
Formation and Human toxicity are included because they reflect the
environmental impacts of regulated and additional emissions of interest
among the construction industry and the public (Li et al., 2010).
3.4. Impact assessment method
The impact assessment methodology is shown in Fig. 2. It mainly
consists of two stages. The initial stage includes the standard impact
assessment methodology of converting the emissions into potential
impacts considered for the analysis. The conversion process includes
• Step 1 – Convert each emission value into the corresponding impact
category using characterisation factors
• Step 2 – Normalise the converted potential impacts based on the
severity using the corresponding normalisation factors
If Pi is the emission value for the pollutant substance i and Ci,j the
characterisation factor for pollutant i and impact category j, the total
converted impact potential (Ii,j) can be found based on the following
equation.
n
Ii, j = ∑ Pi∗Ci, j
i=1 (5)
The selection procedure corresponding characterisation factors (Ci,j)
is explained in detailed in in (Hermann et al., 2007). The selection of
normalisation factors depends on the area of study and the scope of the
study. Table 2 highlights the normalisation factors used for the current
study. The normalisation factors corresponds to a report published by
Building Product Innovation Council (BPIC) (Bengtsson & Howard,
2010). The study was conducted as a robust, comprehensive and au-
thoritative environmental assessment of building design in Australia.
Based on the similarities in country of application and the scope of the

Conversion of
Emission emissions Impact category Integration using weighting factors

Photochemical
NMVOC oxidation

CO Acidification Global

HC
Characterization Eutrophication
and Single
SO2 Normalization Climate Change index Regional
(GWP) (IES)

NOx
Respiratory
inorganics
GHG Local

Respiratory
PM organics

Fig. 2. Impact assessment method for the research study.

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M. Sandanayake et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 68 (2018) 1–9

study, the normalisation factors are adopted in the current study. Table 3
However, as mentioned in the report the uncertainties include large Resulting weigthing factors obtained for the three perspetcives considered.
discrepancies with other public factors and lack of country specific
k = global GWP AP EP POFP HTP Wj,k Wj,k*Total
information (Bengtsson & Howard, 2010). The potential impacts are
then normalised based on the environmental severity to obtain the GWP 1.00 2.93 2.93 2.28 4.00 0.41 0.98
normalised potential impacts (Ii,j)N as shown in the equation below. AP 0.34 1.00 1.58 1.25 1.73 0.18 1.06
EP 0.34 0.63 1.00 0.43 0.83 0.10 0.95
Ii, j POFP 0.44 0.80 2.31 1.00 2.41 0.20 1.08
(Ii, j )N =
N (6) HTP 0.25 0.58 1.21 0.42 1.00 0.10 1.03
Total 2.37 5.91 9.04 5.38 9.97 1.00 5.09
where; N is the normalisation factor for each impact category con- k = regional GWP AP EP POFP HTP Wj,k Wj,k*Total
sidered. GWP 1.00 0.38 0.52 0.50 0.60 0.11 1.00
AP 2.64 1.00 0.47 1.00 1.58 0.21 1.09
The second stage is to integrate the converted impacts into a single
EP 1.93 2.13 1.00 1.65 2.45 0.33 0.99
index in order to compare the significance at desired levels. The in- POFP 2.02 1.00 0.61 1.00 1.58 0.21 1.00
tensity of the environmental impacts for emissions considered in HTP 1.67 0.63 0.41 0.63 1.00 0.14 1.02
building construction can vary significantly at various geographical Total 9.26 5.14 3.00 4.78 7.20 1.00 5.14
locations. Therefore the study introduces three different geographical k = local GWP AP EP POFP HTP Wj,k Wj,k*Total
GWP 1.00 0.47 0.50 0.34 0.36 0.09 0.96
perspectives to compare the significance of environmental impacts.
AP 2.13 1.00 1.00 0.38 0.44 0.15 1.07
EP 1.99 1.00 1.00 0.47 0.35 0.14 1.06
3.4.1. Global perspective POFP 2.93 2.61 2.13 1.00 0.82 0.30 1.01
Global perspective intends to investigate the effect of environmental HTP 2.78 2.26 2.90 1.22 1.00 0.33 0.98
Total 10.82 7.34 7.53 3.42 2.96 1.00 5.08
impacts on the global environment. For instance, the effect of non-GHG
emissions from construction equipment usage on the global environ-
ment may be insignificant due to minimum usage compared to other 1. The total average pairwise comparison responses are collected for
emissions whereas the effect of embodied GHG emissions from mate- each impact category at each geographical perspective considered
rials may be significant on the global environment. and tabulated in a matrix form.
2. The column total for each impact category is then calculated, as
3.4.2. Regional perspective shown in italics in Table 3.
Impacts from certain environmental emissions can be significant on 3. Each term in the 5 × 5 matrix is then divided by the corresponding
a region. Thus, regional perspective focuses on scrutinising the sig- column total calculated in the previous step.
nificance of environmental impacts on a region. 4. Add the row totals of the previous for each impact category.
5. Divide the obtained value from the number of impact categories
3.4.3. Local perspective (five in this study) to find the weighting factor (Wj,k) for the jth
Local perspective aims to evaluate the effect of environmental im- impact category and the kth comparison perspective considered, as
pacts of emissions on the construction site and its surrounding en- shown in bold. The resulting weighting factors are shown in Table 3.
vironment. For example, non GHG such as NOx and SO2 emissions from 6. A consistency test is executed to check the consistency of the jud-
equipment usage may have more adverse human health effects to the gements of the participants.
local public than GHG emissions.
A procedure suggested by Hermann et al. which combines multi- The consistency index (CI) is a measure to effectively check the
criteria analysis and life cycle assessment is used to develop the sig- consistency of expert judgements (Mendoza et al., 1999). The following
nificance impact indicators for the three geographical perspectives three-step procedure is used to calculate the CI:
considered and to define the level of significance of impacts for the two
damage categories defined in Fig. 2 (Hermann et al., 2007). An online ▪ Multiply the weighting factor for each impact category (Wj,k) with
questionnaire was created to obtain expert opinions on the relative the corresponding column total (Total) for each impact and add all
significance of impacts at global, regional and local levels respectively. of them together to obtain the total, as shown in the 8th column in
A total number of 110 questionnaire requests were distributed among Table 3.
experienced individuals with a request to forward the questionnaire ▪ Subtract the number of response categories (the number of impact
link to other colleagues with expertise knowledge in the relevant issue categories in this study is 5) from the total obtained the preceding
considered. Genuine and completed responses obtained from the step.
questionnaire survey were used to collect the required data sample. Out ▪ The CI can then be obtained by dividing this value by the total
of the 110 questionnaires sent 85 completed responses were collected number of impact categories less one. If the CI acquired is less than
which achieved a response rate of 77.3%. Out of the 85 respondents, the tolerance level of 10%, the collected expert judgements can be
71% were environmentalists working in the construction industry, 15% considered as being consistent.
were construction managers and engineers and 14% were designers.
80% of the respondents had > 10 years of experience and the re- The CIs for all the three perspectives are shown below:
maining respondents had 5–10 years of experience in the construction (CI) global = (5.09–5)/ (5–1) = 2.27% < 10% tolerance level.
industry. A 5 point Likert scale was used in which two of the each (CI) regional = (5.14–5)/ (5–1) = 3.5% < 10% tolerance level.
impact categories are compared with each other for the three per- (CI) local = (5.08–5)/ (5–1) = 1.96% < 10% tolerance level.
spectives. “5” in the Likert scale represents extremely important and “1” All three CIs are less than the tolerance level of 10%, indicating that
represents equally important. As per the response, if the comparison the obtained expert judgements are consistent.
between GWP and AP from the global perspective is recorded as “3”, it
indicates that GWP is moderately important compared to AP from the
global perspective. Similarly pairwise comparisons of all the impacts 4. Case study
from the three geographical perspectives are taken as one response.
The calculation of the weighting factor (Wj,k) follows the standard A case study of residential building construction is considered for
Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) calculation procedure as shown the comparative analysis. The general project details are shown in
below: Table 4. The construction project was located in an urban environment,

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M. Sandanayake et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 68 (2018) 1–9

Table 4 recorded as the highest pollutant substance for each emission source.
Details of the case study. Moreover, the amount of GHG emissions from embodied emissions
from construction materials were considered overwhelmingly high
Detail Case study
compared to the direct GHG emissions from construction equipment
Total construction area (m2) 58,560 and transportation vehicles. Nevertheless, the short term impacts from
No. of floors 48 these direct emissions can be important for decision makers to maintain
Environment condition Urban
a sustainable construction site. Thus it is important to carefully address
No. of basements 3
Type of building Residential the impacts at the construction stage to identify the significant impact
Foundation type Pile related construction activities.
Location Melbourne
5.2. Total impacts at construction

the emission variations based on the external environmental factors are To calculate the total impacts the air emissions calculated for the
assumed to have negligible effect. case study should be converted using the methodology suggested
above. Table 7 illustrates the potential impacts and normalised impacts
4.1. Major construction activities considered for the construction activities of the case study. The potential impacts
(Pi) are estimated by multiplying the corresponding emission potentials
14 major construction activities pertaining to the foundation and with the characterisation factors for each impact category. The poten-
structure construction are considered for the analysis. Material con- tial impacts are then normalised by the normalisation factors provided
sumption, energy use from the operation of construction equipment and in Table 2.
transportation vehicles, electricity consumption and construction waste As per Eq. (1), the total impacts at global, regional and local levels
generated for activity are considered for the activity based impact as- are calculated for the give impact categories considered. The sig-
sessment method. The durations of the activities are shown in Table 5. nificance of total impacts for the total building construction from
global, regional and local perspectives are calculated as shown in
4.2. Implementation of assessment method and justification for using Table 8. As shown in table the impact significance for three different
Australian case studies perspectives are determined based on the weighting factors and the
normalised impacts calculated in the previous section. The results sig-
The developed methodology for impact assessment from construc- nify the dominance of GWP at all the three perspectives considered with
tion activities are represented in Fig. 3. Emission inventories in Aus- over 95% contribution of impacts. This is due to the impact of embo-
tralian contexts are used to develop the emission estimation models died GHG emissions from highly used construction materials at the
corresponding to pollutant substances of GHG, NOx, CO, SO2, PM, HC construction stage. This dominant GWP contribution from material
and NMVOC wherever possible. Different inventories such as inventory embodied emissions is highlighted in Fig. 4.
of Carbon of Energy (ICE) and United States of Environmental Protec- Contributions from other impacts are negligible at global perspec-
tion Agency (US EPA) factors were used due to lack of comprehensive tive although a fair contribution was recorded from POFP at regional
inventories for Australian conditions. Therefore two Australian case and local perspectives. However, it was observed that certain con-
studies are used to demonstrate the functions of impact assessment struction stages and activities do not involve any construction mate-
method. The assessment methodology can be used for any country or rials. Moreover studies have shown the importance of considering non-
region by appropriately replacing the Australian emission inventories GHG emissions at various construction stages of a building
with the relevant country specific emission inventories for a specific (Sandanayake et al., 2016; Li et al., 2010). Therefore, the impact re-
country. presentations at total building level can be different to the impact levels
from individual construction activities. Thus, the necessity to conduct
an activity level impact assessment is justified and hence the following
5. Results and discussions section concentrates on conducting a comprehensive impact assessment
at the activity level for the building construction stage.
5.1. Emissions from activities
5.3. Impact assessment at activity level
Total and activity level emissions for the case study are tabulated in
Table 6. The emission results signify that GHG emissions govern the The total impacts assessment illustrated the dominance of GWP
total emissions at the construction stage. GHG emissions were also contribution at construction stage in which a major share originating
from construction materials. Subsequently, the impact assessment at
Table 5
activity level aims to identify the activities with significant impacts
Construction activity details fir the case study.
prior to optimising the planning and execution process in construction.
Stage ID Activity Duration (days) Accordingly, the normalised impacts for each activity are calculated
using the Eq. (2) mentioned in the preceding section. Fig. 5 highlights
Foundation A1 Excavation works 92
the normalised impacts for the activities considered in the case study.
Foundation A2 Pile/Pile cap concreting 45
Foundation A3 Raft concreting 11 It is noted that impacts related to activities in building structure
Foundation A4 Backfill and compaction works 18 construction have emission contribution with > 80% of the total im-
Foundation A5 Loading works 38 pacts. Slab concreting recorded the highest amount of impacts with a
Foundation A6 Handling reinforcement 29 37% of the total impacts due to the heavy material usage. Activities
Foundation A7 Other miscellaneous works 48
Structure A8 Installation/dismantling works 24
corresponding to foundation construction recorded fewer impacts with
Structure A9 Building core construction 26 the highest impact of 6.2% noticed from pile construction activity.
Structure A10 Columns 30 However it is worthwhile to examine the significance of each individual
Structure A11 Formworks 78 impact at global, regional and local perspectives.
Structure A12 Reinforcement 45
Fig. 6 illustrates the activity level impact assessment at global per-
Structure A13 Slabs Pour (concrete) 113
Structure A14 Wall construction/installation 35 spective. The results signify that material related activities (A3, A4, A9,
A12, A13 and A14) possess a significant GWP impact while a relative

6
M. Sandanayake et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 68 (2018) 1–9

Emission substances GHG Non-GHG

Emissions from
materials
Emission ICE N/A
inventories
Emissions from
Equipment
Emission models
AUS NGA US EPA
Emissions from
Calculate emissions Transportation
AUS NGA AUS NIR

Characterisation
factors
Normalisation
factors

Convert pollutant
emissions to potential
impacts

Fig. 3. Assessment methodology.

increase in POFP and AP impacts are recorded for activities with fewer
materials (A1, A6, A7 and A8). These observations further signify that
GWP is the most important impact category from the global perspec-
tive. This might a major reason for most of the emission studies at
building construction to only consider GHG emissions (Yan et al., 2010;
Mao et al., 2013; Hong et al., 2015; Forsythe & Ding, 2014). However
the activity impacts at regional and local perspectives demonstrate a
discrete distribution. Fig. 7 indicates the impacts distribution for ac-
tivities considering regional perspective. The significant GWP con-
tribution observed at global perspective seems to be reducing at re-
gional level witnessing higher contributions from AP and POFP
impacts. It signifies increasing importance of impacts related to water
quality, eco system, flora and fauna at the regional level. Moreover AP,
EP and POFP impacts contributions are increased significantly for ac-
tivities with no materials (A1, A6, A7 and A8) compared to global
perspective.
Activity level impact assessment at local perspective is shown in
Fig. 8. The impact distribution signifies a further reduction of GWP
impact with attaining considerable contributions from POFP impact.
For excavation activities (A1) GWP contribution is reduced to 50%
while POFP impact contribution is increased for > 30%. Moreover,
activities A1, A4, A6 and A7 are recorded with a considerably high HTP
impact. As expected this is due to the dust and human health effects
generated from excavation, compaction and small demolition works.
Since both POFP and HTP impacts are directly contributes to air pol-
lution and human health effects, emissions (non-GHG emissions) con-
tributing to these impacts should be given more importance at local
perspective. Consequently, the significance of considering direct emis-
sions at the construction stage is emphasized by these observations.
Interestingly, the fewer-material consumed activities at the foundation
construction stage (A1, A4, A5, A6, A7 and A8) displayed this unique
impact distribution while a significant change was bot observed for
fewer-material consumed activities at the structure construction stage
(A11 and A12).
6. Conclusions and suggestions
The environmental impacts at building construction stage in
Australia have increased at an alarming rate due to the large number of
executed construction projects. A typical construction project involves
several construction activities that possess unique environmental im-
pacts. The significance of these impacts can differ considerably based
on the geographical perspective considered. However previous impact
studies have seldom concentrated on impacts at such levels while fo-
cusing only on impacts at materials and operation stages of a building.
Subsequently, the study developed an integrated impact assessment
methodology to assess and compare environmental impacts at global,
regional and local perspectives, considering the geographical location.

Table 6
Emissions estimated for each construction activity for the case study (rounded to the nearest first decimal point).

Materials Emissions from construction equipment (kg) Emission from transportation (kg)

ID GHG (tons) GHG (tons) HC CO NOx SO2 PM GHG (tons) CO NOx PM SO2 NMVOC

A1 0 178.9 42.9 324.9 631.6 102.8 49.9 402.03 4747.3 3898.9 271.0 566.8 1128.2
A2 2855.6 131.0 45.7 333.4 756.7 110.1 49.3 240.10 1990.1 1636.8 113.8 593.7 483.11
A3 1110.5 47.8 20.1 153.5 296.1 45.0 22.9 93.4 773.90 636.5 44.3 230.9 187.88
A4 0 87.5 20.9 144.6 259.6 34.5 20.8 0 0 0 0 0 0
A5 0 60.7 3.2 31.4 53.67 7.4 2.5 0 0 0 0 0 0
A6 0 50.5 14.7 94.0 285 35.5 14.4 0 0 0 0 0 0
A7 0 131.5 37.8 281.0 626.2 85.1 42.4 0 0 0 0 0 0
A8 0 247.1 31.1 229.6 488.5 52.4 71.1 115.1 1292.3 898.5 191.1 399.7 242.41
A9 4324.8 270.6 34.1 251.5 535.1 57.4 77.8 126.0 1415.3 984.1 209.3 437.8 265.49
A10 4888.9 162.2 0 0.00 0 0 0 142.5 1600.0 1112.4 236.6 494.9 300.12
A11 1412.9 486.5 0 0.00 0 0 0 427.4 4799.8 3337.3 709.7 1484.6 900.4
A12 7333.3 458.9 57.8 426.4 907.2 97.4 131.9 213.7 2399.9 1668.7 354.9 742.3 450.2
A13 18,521.3 614.3 0 0.00 0 0 0 539.7 6061.3 4214.4 896.3 1874.8 1137.0
A14 5829.1 193.3 0 0.00 0 0 0 169.9 1907.6 1326.4 282.07 590.1 357.84
Total 46,276.3 3840.7 308.2 2270.3 4839.5 627.7 482.9 2469.6 26,987.4 19,714.0 3308.8 7415.3 5452.6

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M. Sandanayake et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 68 (2018) 1–9

Table 7
Potential impacts and normalised impacts for the construction activities.

Potential Impacts (Pi) Normalised Impacts (Pi/N)

Act GWP AP EP POFP HTP GWP AP EP POFP HTP

A1 580,900.00 3005.26 588.97 3454.10 6534.35 0.1417 0.0094 0.00453 0.0360 0.00115
A2 3,226,692.00 1968.27 311.15 1786.63 3433.74 0.7870 0.0062 0.00239 0.0186 0.00060
A3 1,251,718.00 770.82 121.24 706.32 1339.72 0.3053 0.0024 0.00093 0.0074 0.00024
A4 87,490.00 154.77 33.75 100.66 342.59 0.0213 0.0005 0.00026 0.0010 0.00006
A5 60,710.00 29.88 6.98 19.25 70.87 0.0148 0.0001 0.00005 0.0002 0.00001
A6 50,510.00 159.82 37.05 78.63 373.28 0.0123 0.0005 0.00029 0.0008 0.00007
A7 131,490.00 363.95 81.40 205.86 827.07 0.0321 0.0011 0.00063 0.0021 0.00015
A8 602,150.18 1258.35 180.31 1104.12 2071.14 0.1469 0.0039 0.00139 0.0115 0.00036
A9 5,201,418.97 1378.19 197.48 1209.28 2268.40 1.2686 0.0043 0.00152 0.0126 0.00040
A10 5,193,485.63 1150.05 144.62 1138.78 1775.21 1.2667 0.0036 0.00111 0.0119 0.00031
A11 2,326,667.44 3450.14 433.85 3416.33 5325.62 0.5675 0.0108 0.00334 0.0356 0.00093
A12 8,005,884.35 2336.93 334.86 2050.52 3846.41 1.9527 0.0073 0.00258 0.0214 0.00067
A13 19,675,320.56 4356.91 547.87 4314.22 6725.30 4.7989 0.0136 0.00421 0.0449 0.00118
A14 6,192,232.87 1371.21 172.43 1357.77 2116.59 1.5103 0.0043 0.00133 0.0141 0.00037
Total 52,586,670.00 21,754.54 3191.95 20,942.45 37,050.29 12.8260 0.0680 0.02455 0.2182 0.00650

Table 8 100.00
Calculation of impact significance at global, regional and local level. 95.00

Impact Normalised Weighting factor Impact significance 90.00

impacts (Pi/ ∗
(Pi N)∗ (Wglobal)
100 85.00
N) ∑ (Pi N)∗ (Wglobal)
AP
80.00
Global Regional Local Global Regional Local EP
75.00
POFP
GWP 12.8260 0.41 0.11 0.10 98.89% 95.27% 94.79%
70.00 HTP
AP 0.0680 0.18 0.21 0.11 0.23% 0.99% 0.56%
EP 0.02455 0.10 0.33 0.15 0.05% 0.55% 0.26% 65.00 GWP
POFP 0.2182 0.20 0.21 0.27 0.82% 3.12% 4.22%
HTP 0.00650 0.10 0.14 0.37 0.01% 0.06% 0.17% 60.00

55.00

50.00
5% A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10 A11 A12 A13 A14
7%
Fig. 6. Activity level impact assessment at global perspective.

Materials
Equipment The impacts are evaluated for five major impact categories namely
GWP, AP, EP, POFP and HTP. A case study was then utilised to validate
Transportation
the functions, applicability of the developed methodology.
88% The case study demonstrated the applicability and the importance
of carrying out an activity level impact assessment at the building
construction stage. Using the activity level data available from project
Fig. 4. Relative contributions for GWP from various emission sources. plan can be utilised to calculate emissions which can then be effectively
used to evaluate impacts from various construction activities. The im-
pact analysis conducted at activity level for the case study revealed
600 40.0%
significance of concentrating on individual impacts at different per-
37.0%
35.0%
spectives. These findings also implied the importance of minimising
500 non-GHG emissions at regional and local perspectives which may have
Normalised impacts in hundreds

30.0% adverse human health and environment effects to the neighbouring

public at the construction site.
400
25.0% The impact assessment considered in the current study was con-
centrated on comparing impacts of construction activities. The assess-
300 20.0% ment model utilised databases from different regions due to the lack of
process based inventories for Australian conditions. Thus, proper re-
15.1% 11.6%
15.0% placement of inventories can provide more conclusive results. The in-
200
9.8% ventories used in the study is indicative which can be replaced.
9.8% 10.0%
6.2% Moreover, the assessment method is suitable for comparing impact
100 significances of construction activities rather estimating. The study also
1.5% 2.4% 1.2% 4.7% 5.0% considered only GHG emissions from materials, as many previous stu-
0.2% 0.1% 0.3% dies have emphasized the dominance of GHG emissions for indirect
0 0.0%
A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 A10 A11 A12 A13 A14
impacts such as embodied emissions from materials (Yan et al., 2010;
Mao et al., 2013; Hong et al., 2015).
Fig. 5. Normalised impacts at activity level. Further studies are encouraged on investigation of environmental
impacts in activities corresponding to activities in other types of

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M. Sandanayake et al. Environmental Impact Assessment Review 68 (2018) 1–9

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