LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT ON ENERGY CONSUMPTION OF

BUILDING MATERIALS PRODUCTION

Xu Zhang 1†, Jing Wang 1, and Zhijia Huang 2

1
College of Mechanical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200029, China
2
College of Architectural Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Anhui China, 243002

ABSTRACT
Through modeling and computing, life cycle energy consumption (LCEC) and environmental
emission (LCEE) of twelve building materials in production process are analyzed by means of
life cycle assessment (LCA). The inventory analysis includes energy upstream, transportation
and production phases. Inventory analysis of energy upstream phase is carried out using
iterative computation, while direct energy consumption and environmental emission, indirect
energy consumption and environmental emission are considered. The outcomes show that
LCA integrated value (16.73) of steel production is the highest. The straw bale’s (0.06) is the
lowest, which is therefore called environmental friendly material.

KEYWORDS
building materials; life cycle assessment; inventory analysis; environmental emission; energy
upstream phase; iterative computation

INTRODUCTION
As the important material goods of capital construction, building materials have satisfied
construction demands and brought serious environmental problem simultaneously. But
conventional environmental impact assessment (EIA) of products has been merely limited to a
single project or a certain phase, which ignored the energy consumption and environmental
emission in the entire consumption system. As a new analysis tool for the overall process of
environmental system, life cycle assessment is used to evaluate the regional or global
environment impact of the product and its service system in the whole life cycle. Sequentially
the improvement or innovation can be put forward, and the development of prosperous
economy and sustainable environment can be achieved.
.

BASIC CONTENT OF LCA

ISO Concept Frame of LCA
It is the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) and International
Organization for Standardization (ISO), two international organizations, who have made such
a significant contribution to LCA. The triangle frame of SETAC and rectangular frame of ISO
are the most representative methodology of LCA at present. ISO14000 (Environmental
Management-LCA- Principles and Frame) was issued by ISO in June, 1997, which has several
important modifications based on the SETAC frame and has been an international standard
guiding the entrepreneurs. LCA is divided into four associated, constantly repeated sections by

†
Corresponding Author: Tel: +86 021 65983605,
E-mail address: e-mail: zhangxu-hvac@mail.tongji.edu.cn
ISO: goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation (See
Fig .1).

Guiding application
Life cycle assessment frame
-product development and improvement
-strategic planning
Goal and scope
-public policy making
definition
-market exploration
-others

Result
Inventory
Intepre-
analysis
tation

Other factors
-technical factors
Impact
-economical factors
Assessment
-marketable factors
-social factors

Fig.1 LCA technical frame of ISO and related concepts（ISO,1997）

Definition of LCA in ISO14000

(1) LCA is a kind of evaluation technology for environment factors relating to the product and
its service or activities, including producing input and output inventory about the research
system; evaluating potential environmental impact on the input and output inventory;
interpreting inventory analysis and impact assessment result associated with the purpose of
the study. The interpretation part includes three procedures: identifying priority cases
according to LCI (Life Cycle Inventory); making integrity, sensitivity, uncertainty, and
consistency data checks; drawing the conclusion, submitting the advice or proposal to improve
the environment, and giving the research report.
(2) Environment load and potential environmental impact of the product run through the entire
course of the life cycle－raw material obtaining, production, using, and final disposition, which
we call ‘from cradle to grave’. The categories of environmental impact to be considered include
resource utilization, human health, and ecological effects.
(3) LCA can help to identify or improve the environmental factors in every life cycle phase. It
can also be used for the decision-making of enterprises, governments or non-governmental
organizations (strategy and plan, priority items determination, or product and its process
design and re-design, for example). It can still be used for parameter choosing concerned with
environmental behavior (including measuring techniques), and marketing (statement on
environment, ecological symbol plan, declaration of product environment).
GOAL AND SCOPE DEFINITION
The first step of LCA is goal and scope definition. Twelve building materials are selected for the
research in our present study, including fired-clay brick, unfired brick, fly ash block, hollow
fired-clay block, concrete block, straw bale (a kind of eco-building material) and six kinds of
raw and processed building materials (See Tab.1). The whole LCA process involves
utilizations of resource and energy, and emission of environmental pollution. Experimental
data are accumulated and demonstration is offered for the similar research.
The scope of the study involves product system, boundary, data requirement, hypothesis and
restrictions, etc. LCIA includes 3 phases: energy upstream phase, transportation phase, and
building materials production phase. Inventory analysis parameters (environmental load
factors) include energy consumption, greenhouse gasses and criteria pollution emissions. The
total energy consumption includes fossil energy and renewable energy; greenhouse gasses
includes CO2、CH4、N2O; criteria pollution includes VOC、CO、SOx、NOx、PM10. The data of
LCI input was collected after 2001, but for the huge quantity of the data, it is hard to make the
data boundary accordant completely, so when expected data is unattainable, data from other
years will be adopted.

Table 1 Research object

Material Structural blocks Raw and processed

number building materials

1 fired-clay brick
2 hollow fired-clay block
3 unfired brick
4 fly ash block
5 concrete block
6 straw bale
7 glass
8 cement
9 lime
10 plaster
11 steel
12 mineral wool

INVENTORY ANALYSIS
LCIA is quantification and analysis of the input (energy consumption) and output
(environmental emission) data in life cycle of the production or its service system in the
determinate scope, and involves mass data collecting and a lot of calculating. A LCIA
calculating program with a large quantity of calculating and iteration function is made－
BESLCI (Building Energy System Life Cycle Inventory), which is based on the software
platform of Microsoft Excel, including sixteen worksheets. However, this program should be
upgraded when introducing new materials or new blocks. So the calculating procedure need to
be reprogrammed and the old database should be updated continuously when it is used.
INVENTORY ANALYSIS OF ENERGY UPSTREAM PHASE
Energy is made ready for use after the phases of exploitation, transportation, output, feeding
and distribution, which is called energy upstream phase. According to the International Energy
Agency's classification of energy, it can be divided into primary energy and secondary energy.
Energy exploitation mainly reflects primary energy production, and energy production phase
mainly reflects secondary energy production process. Evaluation parameter of energy
upstream phase is the amount of energy consumption (unit: kJ) and pollution emission (unit: g)
to the environment for 1GJ energy production, the functional units of which are kJ·GJ -1 and
g·GJ -1.

Energy consumption
According to the characteristics of energy production, it can be divided into three categories.
First, all of the energy is used as a “process fuel”, such as coal which is completely combusted
in power generation process. Second, energy is partly used as a process fuel, and the
remaining part is taken as the raw materials, such as coal exploitation process. Some coal is
used as fuel in combustion process (producing emissions), and the remaining part is utilized
as a raw material (not producing emissions). Third, all of the energy having been dealt with is
used as a raw material, with no chemical reaction, such as natural gas compression and
liquefaction.
For the first case, a direct energy can be calculated with formula DE = 1 η , and for the latter
two cases, formula DE = 1 η − 1 . A process may consume a variety of fuels, and they are
distributed according to the proportion of different types of energy consumption, viz. energy
structure Si. Due to the significant differences among different energy production path and
characteristics, upstream life-cycle energy consumption should be calculated to a primary
level for reasonable evaluation criteria. The formula is as follows:

PE = ∑ DE i (1 + PE pro ,i + K ⋅ PE fee ,i ) (1)

-1
where, DE is direct energy consumption of each energy output units, kJ·GJ , and DEi=DE·Si;
η is energy efficiency of the process, defined as the ratio of energy output to energy input; Si is
the share of energy consumption structure of the No.i fuel in the process, and ∑Si=1; PE is life
-1
cycle energy consumption of the No.i fuel in production phase, kJ·GJ ; PErpo,,i is life cycle
-1
energy consumption in production phase of No.i fuel, kJ·GJ ; PEfee,,i is life cycle energy
consumption in exploitation phase of No.i fuel, kJ·GJ -1; K is loss coefficient.
The first term in brackets of Eq.1 indicates the energy contained in process fuel itself (DE). The
second term is the energy consumption of production, and the third is the energy consumption
of exploitation, which are called indirect energy. Energy loss coefficient mainly reflects
unproductive losses in process of energy exploitation, production and transportation where the
losses are caused by the leakage when loaded and unloaded. It is usually measured with "loss
ratio" in China, such as the loss of crude oil fields. Energy loss coefficient can be expressed as
loss ratio plus 1. In the process of energy consumption calculation to input energy efficiency
and end-use energy structure is needed, which can be determined by inspection of the data
and literature.

Environmental emission
The environmental emissions of fuel production phase are expressed by

(
TEM j = ∑ DEi EFi j + TEM pro
j
,i + K ⋅ TEM fee ,i
j
) （2）

j
where, TEMj is the total emission of the No.j pollutant; TEM pro ，i
is the emission of the No.j

pollutant in the No.i fuel production phase, g·GJ-1). TEM fee

j
，i
is the emission of the No.j
-1
pollutant in the No.i fuel exploitation phase, g·GJ . EFi j is No.j pollutant emission factor of
the No.i fuel combustion, g·GJ-1.
The first term in brackets of Eq.2 indicates direct emission of the process, and the latter two
constitute indirect emissions, which indicate energy production and exploitation, respectively.
Pollutant emission factor is a key parameter in the inventory analysis, which is generally
achieved through data investigation. For SO2 and CO2, emissions can, nevertheless, be
calculated by sulfur and carbon balance, respectively.

EFSO 2 = 1000000 / LHV ⋅ ρ ⋅ S ratio ⋅ 64 / 32 （3）

EFSO 2 = [1000000 / LHV ⋅ ρ ⋅ C ratio −

(0.5EF VOC )
+ 0.43EFCO + 0.75EFCH 4 ] ⋅ 44 / 12
（4）

-1 -3
In Eqs. 3 and 4, LHV is low calorific value of the fuel, kJ·kg or kJ·Nm ; ρ is the density of fuel,
-3
kg·Nm ; Sratio is sulfur mass fraction of fuel; Cratio is the carbon mass fraction of fuel; EFSO2 is
the emission factor of SO2, g·GJ-1. The other molecular formula also expresses emission factor.
Based on the inventory analysis model and statistical data proposed above, the inventory of
energy upstream phase can then be calculated. The results are listed in Tab.2.

Table 2 Life cycle energy consumption and environmental emissions of energy upstream
phase
Total energy Total environmental emissions/g·GJ-1
-1
consumption/kJ·GJ
PM10 SOX NOX CO CH4 N2O CO2
Carbon 47426 1.73 19.74 21.09 3.52 0.04 0.06 4265
Crude oil 80677 4.21 30.22 16.95 8.04 0.04 0.08 5,591
Diesel oil 207229 17.53 55.17 37.82 13.34 0.29 0.16 15,796
Natural gas 93383 2.13 32.54 25.78 5.51 0.33 0.10 7,542
Electricity 3,074,072 97.83 1642.38 1171.13 199.77 2.05 2.90 298,210

INVENTORY ANALYSIS OF PRODUCTION PHASE

Building envelopes consume a large amount of materials related to raw and processed
construction materials (cement, glass, steel and timber, etc.), traditional building materials
(bricks, tiles, ash, sand, stone, etc.) and new construction materials (hollow bricks, building
blocks, etc.). Inventory analysis of production phase includes non-metallic mineral production,
transportation, and building materials production. Production phase is based on the materials
consumed per ton of material resources as well as environmental emissions. The functional
units include kg·t-1, kJ·t-1 and g·t-1, which reflects the resources, energy consumption and
environmental emissions per ton materials in non-metallic mineral mining, materials production
and transportation phases, respectively.

Inventory analysis model

Computational logic of construction materials inventory analysis model is shown in Fig. 2.

Input

Emission Combustion Material Comprehensive Energy Plant

factor technology consumption consumption structure location

Calculating
Direct consumption for
different resources

Total consumption Urban

Total emission emission

Fig.2 Computational logic of construction materials inventory analysis model

Energy consumption
Comprehensive energy refers to the overall energy consumption when producing one unit
product. Energy unit covers a various kinds of forms, so energy is converted into standard coal
when making energy statistics. Conversion coefficient can be calculated with thermal
equivalent. Life cycle energy consumption of building materials in production phase is obtained
by

PE = ∑ DE i (1 + K ⋅ PE fee,i + PE pro ,i ) + ∑ M m ⋅ PE m （5）

where, PE is the life cycle energy consumption of building materials in production phase, kJ·t-1
or kJ·GJ-1; DE is the direct energy consumption of production, kJ·t-1; M is the material
-1
consumption coefficient kg·t ; K is the energy loss coefficient; Subscript i, m are the type of
energy and raw material types, respectively. The first ∑ is the same as that in Eq.1. The first
item in the brackets is the direct energy production consumption, and the latter two items are
the upstream energy consumption. The second ∑ is the life cycle energy consumption of
building raw materials in energy production process. Building raw materials inventory model is
resolved by an iterative solution. It is the same as the energy inventory model. Urban
emissions are not considered here.
Environmental emission
Environmental emissions of building materials in production phase is derived by

(
TEM j = ∑ DE i EFi j + K × TEM fee
j
,i + TEM pro ,i
j
)
（6）
+ ∑ M m × TEM mj

The first ∑ is the direct emissions of the process. The second ∑ is total life cycle emissions of
building raw materials, which constitute indirect emissions of building materials production.
The first item in the brackets is direct emissions of the production and the latter two items are
the total emissions of energy upstream phase, which constitute indirect emissions of building
materials production. All emission data are total emissions here, and urban emissions are not
involved.
Based on the inventory analysis model and statistical data above, the production and
transportation inventory of twelve kinds of building materials discussed in this study can
therefore be calculated. The results of life cycle inventory analysis are shown in Figs.3~5.

40 Total energy consumption/GJ·t-1 34.83

35
30
25 19.94 19.48
20
15
10 6.76 5.69
5 2.10 0.97 0.85 2.36 1.62 2.58
0.14
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Material number
Fig.3 Life cycle energy consumption of construction materials production

PM SOX
20 Criteria pollution emission/kg·t-1
NOX CO
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Material number
Fig.4 Life cycle major pollution emission inventory of construction materials production
 4000 CO2 emission/kg·t-1 3493

3000

1959
2000 1582 1570
1169
1000
462
209 89 131 216 256
11
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Material number
Fig.5 Life cycle CO2 emission inventory of construction materials production
Life cycle impact assessment
Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is a technical assessment process of environmental
factors on the basis of life cycle inventory output data for showing a more obvious result,
including qualitative and quantitative analysis. According to LCA technical frame of ISO14040,
LCIA includes three steps: classification, characterization and weighting evaluation.
2
The factors are classified to fossil energy (FE, kJ/m ), greenhouse gases emission (GGE,
2 3 2
kgCO2/m ), and criteria pollution impact (CPI, Nm /m ). GGE includes CO2, N2O and CH4.
CPI includes PM, SOx, NOx and CO. Characterization is based on methods of critical dilution
volume and equivalent factor and integrated assessment includes normalizing and
weighting evaluation. Fired-clay brick is taken as the base-line case, so the results of life cycle
assessment are shown in Figs.6~7.
18 Integrated value
16
14
12
10 CPI
8 GGE
6 FE
4
2
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Material number

Fig.6 Categories impact compare

18 Integrated value 16.73
16
14
12
9.37
10
8 6.76
6
4.06 3.68
4
1.00 1.38 0.86 1.23
2 0.43 0.48 0.06
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Material number

Fig.7 Integrate impact assessment

CONCLUSIONS
Based on the domestic and international theory researches on LCA, 12 different types of
building materials are studied by this method. There involves goal and scope definition,
inventory analysis of every phases, and impact assessment according to the inventory output
results.
1) As described in Fig.3, the sequence of total life cycle energy consumption (unit: GJ·t-1) of six
types of building materials production is steel (34.83), glass (19.94), mineral wool (19.48),
cement (6.76), plaster (2.58), lime (5.69); the sequence of 6 types of blocks is fly-ash
blocks(2.36), fired-clay brick (2.1), concrete block (1.62), hollow fired-clay block (0.97), unfired
brick (0.85), straw bale (0.14). The total life cycle energy consumption of steel is the largest,
and it belongs to high-energy consumption industrial goods. So it is imperative to reduce
energy consumption of steel production process through technical transformation and to
control the resources and energy consumption from the source.
2) PM10 (4.9kg·t-1) and CO (5.5kg·t-1) emission of cement, and SOx (4kg·t-1) and NOx (2.6kg·t-1)
emissions of glass are larger than those of the other raw building materials. Although
production energy of lime is much lower than glass, life cycle emissions of CO2 are basically
the same. It results from the fact that a lot of CO2 is produced by the decomposition of
limestone in lime production process.
3) Fly-ash block and concrete block contain much cement, therefore their total life cycle energy
consumption and emissions are among the largest ones of the six blocks. A lot of coal is
consumed in the process of fire-clay brick production, so its energy consumption and certain
environmental emissions ranks second rate(SO2 1.1kg·t-1，CO2 209kg·t-1). The total energy
consumption of unfired bricks is less than hollow fired-clay brick, but of which PM10 (0.5kg·t-1),
CO (0.6kg·t-1) and CO2 (131kg·t-1) emissions are greater. This is because unfired bricks make
use of cement as curing agent.
4) The various indexes of straw bale are the lowest, which shows the best
environment-friendly performance. It can save not only production energy consumption, but
also use energy, due to its lower heat transfer coefficient and good insulation properties, and
its minimal environmental emissions when abandoned or disposed. It can help promoting
straw recycling and improving housing conditions in rural areas of north China, especially in
poverty-stricken areas, where the straw bale can be used to improve the insulation properties
of rural housing, and to save expenditure of winter heating of the family.
5) Cement is one of the main architectural materials, and it is also one of the main ingredients
in many new construction materials (unfired brick, fly-ash block, concrete block, etc.). Thereby
reducing energy consumption and pollutant emissions in cement production is the key to
popularize new construction and improve its life cycle environmental performance.
6) The integrated value sequence of six types of block production is fly ash block (1.38),
fired-clay brick (1), concrete block (0.86), unfired brick (0.48), hollow fired-clay block (0.43),
straw bale (0.06). And the sequence of six types of building material production is Plaster
(34.83), lime (34.83), cement (34.83), glass (34.83), mineral wool (34.83), steel (34.83). The
integrated value of straw bale is the lowest, which indicates its optimal environmental
performance among the twelve building materials during the energy consumption process
when producing each ton of it. And straw bale buildings have good prospects in the northern
region of China. Till 2010, China will ban fire-clay brick use in all the cities. National output of
fire-clay brick is controlled at 400 billion pieces below.
7) Results of inventory analysis expressed by a wide range of forms can hardly reflect the
overall characteristics and trends of ecological environment. In particular, there is a lack of
understanding in policy support and consumer support, while LCA must provide a simple,
reliable index of social value judgments when used in social practice. So LCA study need to
consider LCIA more and more, and LCIA methodology may become a research focus in the
field of LCA study. It is a promising new direction for the development of LCA to turn from
inventory analysis to impact assessment.

REFERNCES
1. 2003. < Industrial statistics yearbook of China(2002)>[M]. China statistics Press(in Chinese)
2. Adisa Azapagic. 1999. Life cycle assessment and its application to process selection,
design and optimisation[J]. Chemical Engineering Journal, 73(4):1－21
3. Arnold Tukker. 2000. Life cycle assessment as a tool in environmental impact assessment[J].
Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 20(8):435－456
4. B. L. P. Peuportier. 2001. Life cycle assessment applied to the comparative evaluation of
single family houses in the French context[J]. Energy and Buildings, 33(5): 443－450
5. Göran Finnveden. et al. 1995. Solid waste treatment within the framework of life-cycle
assessment[J]. Journal of Cleaner Production, 3(4):189－199
6. G. Rebitzer. et al. 2004. Life cycle assessment: Framework, goal and scope definition,
inventory analysis, and applications[J]. Environment International, 30(7):701－720
7. Huang Z J. 2003. The model and case study of the life cycle assessment of building
compound energy systems[D]. Doctor dissertation of Tongji University, 9(in Chinese)
8. ISO14040. 1997. Environmental management-Life cycle assessment-principle and
framework
9. ISO14041. 1998. Environmental management-life cycle assessment-goal and scope
definition and inventory analysis
10. Li B F. 2003. Life cycle assessment of hydrogen infrastructure using industrial
hydrogen-rich mixture gas in Shanghai[D]. Master dissertation of Xi’an University of
architecture and technology, 4(in Chinese)
11. Su Q. 2003. Life cycle assessment of energy sources supply systems and propulsion
systems of urban buses[D]. Master dissertation of Tongji University, 3(in Chinese)
12. Wang J. 2005. Life cycle assessment of typical residential building envelope in cold area
towns[D]. Master dissertation of Tongji University, 3(in Chinese)
13. Wang S B. 1998. Methodology and the latest developments of life cycle assessment [J].
Shanghai Environmental Sciences, 17(11):7－11(in Chinese)
14. Yang J X. et al. 2002. Methodology and application of life cycle assessment on production
[M]. China Meteorological Press(in Chinese)