Dynamic life cycle assessment of building stocks: a systematic review

Abstract

The considerable environmental impact of the building sector on resource use and emissions drives the need for comprehensive environmental impact assessments to support sustainability efforts. As buildings become operationally more efficient, the environmental impacts of construction materials become more important. Incorporating spatiotemporal dynamics into building stock modelling can enhance assessment accuracy, informing policymakers on strategies to mitigate environmental impacts.

This systematic review analyses recent scientific literature on environmental modelling, focusing on life cycle assessment and material flow analysis studies of building stocks, their impact assessments, and associated spatiotemporal dynamics. The review identified 27 relevant studies, from which information was extracted on various aspects such as study goals, scope, methodologies, and impact categories. The selected studies were also analysed for spatiotemporal dynamics inclusion, identifying 17 dynamic parameters further grouped into five categories. The dynamic parameters were investigated for the methods and data sources used to predict their temporal evolution or spatial distribution.

The results revealed a shift towards large-scale and data-driven modelling, assessing macro-level changes in the building stock. The study identified several limitations related to building stock modelling practices, such as the need for clearly defined modelling methods, consideration of various impact categories, and uncertainty analysis. The findings on dynamic parameters identified common approaches when modelling building stock changes, potentially aiding in establishing standardised methods for dynamic building stock modelling, thus improving consistency and comparability between studies. Further research is needed to investigate the impact of chosen approaches on results and examine the interconnected nature of these parameters.