Life-Cycle Assessment of Office Buildings in Europe

and the United States

Seppo Junnila1; Arpad Horvath2; and Angela Acree Guggemos3
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Sinhgad College of Engineering (SCOE) on 02/14/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Abstract: Office buildings are thought to be significant sources of energy use and emissions in industrialized countries, but quantitative
assessments of all of the phases of the service life of office buildings are still quite rare. In order to enable environmentally conscious
design and management, this paper presents life-cycle assessments of newly constructed European and U.S. office buildings from
materials production through construction, use, and maintenance to end-of-life treatment. The significant environmental aspects indicate
the dominance of the use phase in the quantified environmental categories, but draw attention to the importance of embedded materials
and expected maintenance investments throughout the assumed 50-year service life, especially for particulate matter emissions. The
relevance of the materials, construction, maintenance, and end-of-life phases relative to the use of buildings is expected to increase
considerably as functional obsolescence of office buildings becomes more rapid, and complete reconstruction and reconfiguration become
more frequent. By quantifying the energy use and environmental emissions of each life-cycle phase in more detail, the elements that cause
significant emissions can be identified and targeted for improvement.
DOI: 10.1061/共ASCE兲1076-0342共2006兲12:1共10兲
CE Database subject headings: Life cycles; Service life; Europe; United States; Buildings, office; Air pollution.

Introduction
Buildings are one of the largest energy consumers in any indus-
trialized country, and office buildings carry a significant share. As
transformation of the world economy toward service industries
intensifies, so do the investments into office and other commercial
buildings. It is, therefore, important to study the energy and en-
vironmental effects of office buildings throughout their life cycle.
Some clear indications of the importance of office buildings are
appearing. For example, in the United Kingdom, some 25% of
the new office buildings acquire an environmental assessment
and label 共Hasegawa 2002兲. The most appropriate method for a
holistic assessment is life-cycle assessment 共LCA兲, a systematic
study of the life-cycle 共materials manufacturing, construction/
manufacturing processes, use, maintenance, renovation, and end-
of-life treatment兲 and supply-chain environmental effects of
products, processes, and services 共Curran 1996兲.
A single but significant impact, life-cycle energy use, has
been studied for some office buildings. Energy for the use phase
has been found to be the largest life-cycle component 共Cole and
1
Senior Research Scientist, Faculty of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Finland. E-mail:
seppo.junnila@hut.fi
2
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Univ. of California, 215 McLaughlin Hall #1712, Berkeley, CA 94720-
1712 共corresponding author兲. E-mail: horvath@ce.berkeley.edu
3
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Construction Management, Colorado
State Univ., 1584 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1584.
E-mail: guggemos@cahs.colostate.edu
Note. Discussion open until August 1, 2006. Separate discussions
must be submitted for individual papers. To extend the closing date by
one month, a written request must be filed with the ASCE Managing
Editor. The manuscript for this paper was submitted for review and pos-
sible publication on December 3, 2003; approved on March 31, 2004.
This paper is part of the Journal of Infrastructure Systems, Vol. 12, No.
1, March 1, 2006. ©ASCE, ISSN 1076-0342/2006/1-10–17/$25.00.
Kernan 1996兲. Some studies have focused on energy use through
the evaluation of embodied energy of buildings. Embodied energy
for a building is typically defined as the energy used in the pro-
cessing of raw materials as well as in the manufacturing and
installation of materials and products in buildings 共Treloar et al.
2001a兲. It does not include the energy expended in the use, main-
tenance, and end-of-life phases. Embodied energy can be 20–50
times the annual operational energy of commercial buildings
共Treloar et al. 2001a兲 or as much as 67% of use phase energy over
a 25-year period 共Yohanis and Norton 2002兲. The building struc-
ture can be a significant component of embodied energy 共Cole
and Kernan 1996; Treloar et al. 2001a,b兲.
Limited research has been published thus far on complete
LCA of office buildings, but the first attempts have started appear-
ing in print 共Junnila 2003; Junnila and Horvath 2003兲. A
few studies of various building components have also been per-
formed. For example, LCA was used to create an environmental
assessment of steel piling and included the impacts from the
construction process, energy use, recycling, and reuse of the piles
共Gorgolewski 1999兲. Björklund et al. 共1996兲 have used LCA to
compare the environmental impacts of concrete and steel struc-
tural building frames, although it did not include the impacts
for some of the building and demolition activities. Another
LCA compared wood, steel, and concrete structural frames for an
office building in Canada, but did not include the impacts from
the end-of-life phase 共Canadian Wood Council 1997兲. LCAs of
various types of German windows and curtain walls were per-
formed as part of an overall assessment of construction materials
共IKP 1998兲.
While the previously referenced studies describe in various
detail office buildings and their components in Europe, Australia,
and Canada, there are no comparable studies in the literature from
the United States.
This paper contributes to the nascent LCA literature by assess-
ing two comparable office buildings from Europe and the United

10 / JOURNAL OF INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS © ASCE / MARCH 2006

J. Infrastruct. Syst. 2006.12:10-17.

 States throughout their full life cycle. No studies thus far have
analyzed simultaneously and holistically similar office buildings
on two continents. The objective of the study was to find the
relative contribution of each building life-cycle phase to the total
energy and environmental effects over a 50-year lifetime in order
to focus attention on the life-cycle phases that demand further
study and improvement, and promote design for environment
practices for buildings. The study continues the tradition of esti-
mating the significant aspects of buildings, but broadens it to a
comparison where different conditions 共building designs, material
choices, energy types used, maintenance practices兲 may make a
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Sinhgad College of Engineering (SCOE) on 02/14/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
great deal of impact on the total energy and environmental effects
throughout the building life cycle.
Study Method
LCA has emerged as the method for the holistic assessment of the
environmental impacts of products, processes, and services. When
done correctly, LCA quantifies the energy and material inputs and
the various emission and waste outputs from an entire life cycle,
including raw material acquisition, materials production, use/
operation, maintenance/repair, and end of life. The ISO 共1997兲
standard can be used as guidelines. Typically, the LCA process
has three stages after the goals and scope have been determined:
inventory analysis, impact analysis, and improvement analysis.
Inventory analysis identifies and quantifies resource and energy
inputs as well as the product, waste, and emission outputs of the
system. Impact analysis uses the data from the inventory analysis
to determine the environmental and health effects associated with
a product’s life cycle 共Rice et al. 1997兲. Through improvement
analysis, the major impacts are identified and evaluated for pos-
sible reduction. In this study, the focus is on inventory analysis
for quantifying resource inputs and emissions and wastes, and
interpretation for identifying environmental “hot spots.”
The LCA framework was selected to analyze the environmen-
tal aspects of two office buildings: a typical new office building
in Southern Finland and a typical new office building in the
Midwest region of the United States. Fifty years of use was as-
sumed to be the life cycle.
For the European building, material and energy flows were
quantified primarily based on design and construction plans and
specifications in cooperation with the designers. The processes
related to different energy and material flows were studied, and
the emissions data were largely collected from the actual materi-
als manufacturers and energy providers in Finland. The emissions
data include process and supply-chain emissions, which were
typically less than three years old at the time of the research, and
have been verified by an independent third-party organization
共Neuvonen 2000兲. As is typical in Finland, combined heat and
power production were used to supply the building, and the envi-
ronmental effects were allocated equally to heat and electricity.
For the U.S. building, identification and quantification of ma-
terial and energy flows were performed based on design estimates
and estimates of the construction work involved for a typical
U.S. office building. Process-based emissions data were used
for all life-cycle phases, except for the materials manufac-
turing phase, and the material and electricity components of
the other phases. Material emissions data include manufac-
turing process 共direct兲 as well as supply-chain 共indirect兲
emissions. This is achieved by quantifying the life-cycle impacts
of the materials using economic input-output analysis-based
LCA 关Hendrickson et al. 1998; Carnegie Mellon University
JOURNAL OF INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS © ASCE / MARCH 2006 / 11
J. Infrastruct. Syst. 2006.12:10-17.
共CMU兲 2003兴 that utilizes data from the U.S. Department of
Commerce’s commodity-by-commodity input-output matrix aug-
mented by various resource use, waste, and emissions factors.
Presenting the European Case Study
The European building chosen for the study is a new office build-
ing in Southern Finland 共Junnila 2003兲. The building has
4,400 m2 of gross floor area and a volume of 17,300 m3. Roughly
two hundred persons work in the building, which has four floors
of mainly office space and some commercial and laboratory
space. The structural frame is a steel-reinforced concrete beam-
and-column system. The overall mass of the materials used in
the building is 1,190 kg/ m2 in the original construction phase and
240 kg/ m2 in the maintenance phase. The heat energy consump-
tion of the building is estimated at 141 kWh/ m2 / year, or on
average 6% above the heat consumption of energy-audited
office buildings in Finland. The electricity consumption is esti-
mated at 70 kWh/ m2 / year, which is some 30% below the
average in Finland 共Motiva 2001兲. The life-cycle phases studied
included materials manufacturing, construction, use, maintenance,
and end of life. Each life-cycle phase accounted for the transpor-
tation of materials. Transportation to the wholesaler’s warehouse
was included in the building materials phase. Transportation from
the warehouse to the site was counted among the construction
phase effects.
Materials
The study included the substructure, foundation, structural frame,
external envelope, roof, internal complementary elements 共e.g.,
doors, partition walls, suspended ceilings, railings兲, internal sur-
faces, elevators, mechanical services, and electrical services, or
69 different building elements. This is in accordance with the
Finnish building classification system 共Kiiras and Tiula 1999兲.
The categories not included in the study were the construction
site 共e.g., fence and lighting兲 and internal equipment 共e.g., re-
frigerators in the building’s lunch areas兲. The bill of quantities,
architectural and engineering drawings, and the architect’s speci-
fications served as sources for calculating the amount of each
building material 共42 different building materials in total兲.
Construction
Electricity, heat, and steam used on site, equipment utilization,
transportation of building materials to site 共average distance was
50 km兲, and materials used on site in the construction processes,
but not permanently attached to the building, such as formwork,
temporary structures, etc., were estimated in this phase.
Use Phase
The use of the building included heat and electricity for 50 years.
The energy calculations in the design phase were performed using
the WinEtana energy simulation program 共WinEtana 2001兲 by
HVAC and electrical engineers.
Maintenance
The use of building materials and the corresponding construction
activities were estimated for 50 years of maintenance. However,
modernization, expansion, reconstruction, or other similarly fun-
 damental improvements were excluded from the analysis. The
building plans and specifications served as sources for building
material quantity estimations, and appropriate guidelines 共Build-
ing Information 1998; CEM/HUT 1993兲 were used to estimate the
service lives of each material.
End of Life
Assuming that the entire building would be demolished, the end-
of-life phase included demolition activities and transportation of
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Sinhgad College of Engineering (SCOE) on 02/14/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
waste building materials to a landfill 50 km away. A similar case
study 共Junnila and Saari 1998兲 served as a basis for estimating the
energy needed for demolition.
European Case Study Results
Table 1 shows the life-cycle emissions, while Fig. 1 presents the
proportions of the respective life-cycle phases in total energy use
and emissions. The use of the building is clearly the most signifi-
cant phase with 50–90% of all emissions, especially dominant in
energy use and CO2 emissions with 87 and 83%, respectively. The
next most important life-cycle phases are the materials 共6–28%兲
and maintenance 共4–15%兲, particularly in terms of emissions of
particulate matter smaller than 10 ␮m 共PM10兲. The construction
and the end-of-life phases cause fewer emissions than the other
life-cycle stages.
As Table 1 shows, each life-cycle phase has been divided into
subcategories or life-cycle elements. The most significant life-
cycle elements are in the use phase. Electricity and heating each
cause roughly 30–45% of the overall emissions. All the other
identified life-cycle elements produce significantly less emissions.
Materials
A few life-cycle elements cause most of the emissions in this
phase. Concrete and steel are each responsible for more than 20%
of the emissions in every studied impact category. Concrete
causes 12–40% and steel 14–34% of the emissions in various
categories. Also, building boards and paper and insulation cause
over 15% of the emissions in several emission categories.
Construction
In the construction phase, equipment use produces most of the
emissions, contributing between 24 and 60% of the total. Other
life-cycle elements with notable emissions are the materials used
at the construction site and the use of electricity.
Use Phase
In the use phase of the building, all the studied life-cycle elements
共electricity and heating兲 dominate the overall LCA results.
Maintenance
The most significant maintenance stage emissions are due to the
paints, steel, and insulation. They all produce more than 20% of
the emissions in several emission categories. Building boards and
glass both have a relatively high 共15%兲 proportion of emissions in
a single emission category.
12 / JOURNAL OF INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS © ASCE / MARCH 2006
J. Infrastruct. Syst. 2006.12:10-17.
End of Life
The use of demolition equipment is the most significant source
of emissions with 61–94% of the total in this life-cycle phase,
followed by transportation of demolition materials to a landfill
with 6–39% of the emissions.
Presenting the U.S. Case Study
The U.S. building chosen for the study is a typical office building
in the Midwest region. The location and size was selected to
match as closely as possible the climatic conditions in the Euro-
pean case study. The five-story building has 4,400 m2 of gross
floor area, and a volume of 16,400 m3. The structural frame is a
steel-reinforced concrete beam-and-column system with shear
walls at the core. The exterior envelope of the building consists
of an aluminum curtain wall. The overall mass of the building
materials used in construction is 1,290 kg/ m2 and in maintenance
70 kg/ m2. The life-cycle phases used for the U.S. building are
identical to the European case: materials manufacturing, con-
struction, use, maintenance, and end of life. The effects of mate-
rial transportation were included in each life-cycle phase. All
transportation effects from material extraction to product manu-
facturing were included in the materials phase, while the effects
of transportation of materials from the supplier to the construction
site are included in the construction stage.
Materials
This phase included the analysis of the following building
elements: foundation, structure, roof, external envelope, interior
finishes 共e.g., partition walls, ceilings, doors, floor covering兲,
elevator, stairs, mechanical and electrical services. The amount of
each material studied is derived from a quantity takeoff of the
design. The study includes 54 different building elements consist-
ing of 23 different building materials. The environmental effects
of the building materials include the effects of their respective
supply chains 共CMU 2003兲. The transportation effects from ma-
terial extraction through the storage of the supplier’s finished
product are also included in this phase.
Construction
The effects of the construction phase of the building are from
materials transport from the supplier to the job site, as well as
from the use of construction equipment on site. Transportation
data for each material are based on estimated round-trip distances
for a delivery truck. Round-trip distances range from 20 共for con-
crete兲 to 3,000 km 共for carpet兲. Assuming diesel consumption of
0.25 L / km, CO2 emissions are calculated as 670 g / km 共EPA
1996兲. Energy use is estimated at 9 MJ/ km. Transportation emis-
sions of NOx are 5.1 g / km 共EPA 1995兲.
Construction equipment emissions are based on the average
hours of operation and the equipment horsepower. The equipment
type and duration of use are estimated using R. S. Means 共2001兲.
Equipment horsepower is estimated from a sampling of typical
diesel engine sizes. Energy use is 7.5 MJ/ hp· h 关Intergovernmen-
tal Panel on Climate Change 共IPCC 1996兲兴. Equipment emissions
of CO2, NOx, SO2, and PM10 are 522, 14.1, 0.9, and 1.0 g / hp· h,
respectively 共EPA 1996兲.
 Table 1. Environmental Emissions and Energy Use of an Office Building in Southern Finland with 50 Years of Service Life
Energy CO2 SO2 NOx PM10
Phase 共GJ兲 共Mg兲 共kg兲 共kg兲 共kg兲
Materials 共total兲 15,000 1,300 2,300 4,000 2,100
Landscaping 共gravel, etc.兲 2 0 0 1 0
Concrete 4,200 450 280 1,600 760
Steel, reinforcing 1,000 47 64 110 35
Steel, cast iron 3,900 440 530 540 440
Nonferrous metals 1,300 82 340 310 190
Masonry 230 25 82 87 NA
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Sinhgad College of Engineering (SCOE) on 02/14/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Timber 80 0 0 14 3
Plastic, rubber, etc. 390 21 120 120 36
Building boards, paper 890 56 360 350 110
Insulation 1,500 76 310 260 360
Waterproofing 22 1 4 7 1
Glass 850 58 84 410 10
Finishing 共flooring, glues, etc.兲 320 18 40 89 150
Paints 300 12 82 45 13
Others NA 2 NA 24 NA

Construction 共total兲 4,800 200 500 1,800 400

Materials in construction 1,300 45 220 310 75
Electricity 1,700 46 87 100 140
Heat 320 22 29 41 66
Machinery 1,200 92 110 1,100 140
Steam NA 4 0 8 0
Transport of building materials 310 22 5 270 10

Use phase 共total兲 204,000 11,000 9,900 20,000 3,700

Electricity, others 共e.g., outlets, HVAC兲 74,000 3,300 3,300 6,200 2,000
Electricity, lighting 30,000 1,400 1,400 2,500 830
Heating 100,000 6,200 5,200 11,000 820

Maintenance 共total兲 9,500 700 2,300 2,500 1,100

Landscaping 共gravel, etc.兲 2 0 0 1 0
Concrete 360 32 26 110 25
Steel reinforcing 1 0 0 0 0
Steel, cast iron 1,300 230 290 290 240
Nonferrous metals 930 52 210 110 93
Masonry 240 25 82 87 NA
Timber 76 0 0 14 3
Plastic, rubber, etc. 160 8 52 50 14
Building boards, paper 890 56 360 350 110
Insulation 1,000 60 260 190 290
Waterproofing 22 1 4 7 1
Glass 850 58 84 410 10
Finishing 共flooring, glues, etc.兲 320 18 40 89 150
Paints 3,000 120 820 450 130
Construction and transportation of materials 350 29 23 338 31

End of life 共total兲 800 60 50 700 90

Equipment 510 37 45 430 80
Transportation of materials 300 22 4 270 5

Total 234,100 13,260 15,050 29,000 7,390

Note: NA⫽not available.

JOURNAL OF INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS © ASCE / MARCH 2006 / 13

J. Infrastruct. Syst. 2006.12:10-17.

 Table 2. Environmental Emissions and Energy Use of Different
Life-Cycle Elements of a U.S. Office Building
Energy CO2 SO2 NOx PM10
Phase 共GJ兲 共Mg兲 共kg兲 共kg兲 共kg兲
Materials 共total兲 31,100 2,000 9,300 8,000 2,700
Aluminum 79 4 63 25 7
Bitumen 69 4 15 19 5
Carpet 1,303 80 308 295 136
Ceramic tile 1,122 79 130 224 39
Concrete 3,084 213 1,308 1,593 309
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Sinhgad College of Engineering (SCOE) on 02/14/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.

Elevator 502 32 140 118 23

Mineral fiber board 942 65 324 257 107
Fig. 1. European case study proportions of emissions attributed to ceiling tile
each life-cycle phase Glass 3,432 236 647 1,196 185
Gypsum board 892 62 104 148 63
Insulation—extruded 90 5 18 18 3
polystyrene
Use Phase Insulation—fiberglass 3,118 216 631 705 827
The use phase of the building includes the effects of heating, Paint 99 6 20 25 6
cooling, lighting, and electricity use. The energy use and emis- Steel—metal stairs 856 54 239 161 43
sions are estimated based on data for electricity and natural gas Steel—studs, doors, 2,302 146 642 432 115
use for typical office buildings 关Energy Information Administra- frames, grid
tion 共EIA兲 1998兴 and commercial lighting energy consumption Steel—reinforcement bar 3,916 248 1,092 736 196
共Vorsatz et al. 1997兲. For a Midwest office building, yearly elec- Water heater 12 1 3 3 1
tricity use is estimated as 184 kWh/ m2 and natural gas use is HVAC multizone units 1,842 120 579 543 109
17.5 m3 / m2 共EIA 1998兲. The annual lighting energy use is as- Switchgear 67 4 21 18 3
sumed to be 56 kWh/ m2 共Vorsatz et al. 1997兲. Emissions from Emergency generator 50 3 15 13 3
electricity and lighting are calculated using CMU 共2003兲. Emis- Copper—tubing and wire 1,083 76 1,298 303 204
sions of CO2, NOx, SO2, and PM10 from natural gas combustion Steel—piping, ductwork 6,218 394 1,734 1,168 311
are 1,922, 1.6, 0.01, and 0.1 g / m3, respectively 共EPA 1998兲.
Polypropylene—piping 1 0 0 0 0

Maintenance Construction 共total兲 5,500 400 800 8,300 700

Materials 1,005 64 224 420 166
The maintenance phase includes the materials, equipment, and
Transportation 253 19 9 114 26
transportation used in standard building upkeep during the as-
sumed 50-year service life, including maintenance on the follow- Equipment 4,199 293 526 7,787 552
ing building elements: roof, carpet, elevator, ceiling tile, interior
partitions, and paint. The environmental effects of materials are Use phase 共total兲 297,600 22,200 82,700 48,500 3,400
determined based on service life as well as the estimated quanti- Lighting 46,567 4,487 25,137 12,862 886
ties and values of all maintenance materials. The service life Electricity 106,628 10,274 57,560 29,451 2,030
for each element was estimated based on experience and expert Natural gas 144,375 7,401 37 6,167 469
opinion, and ranged from 4 years for the carpet to 25 years for
the elevator. The energy use and emissions associated with the Maintenance 共total兲 21,600 1,300 5,200 5,000 2,100
maintenance materials are calculated using CMU 共2003兲. The Bitumen 137 8 30 37 11
effects from transportation are based on type of truck and typical Carpet 15,637 955 3,693 3,535 1,633
distance for materials procurement. The emissions from con- Elevator 502 32 140 118 23
struction equipment are based on equipment type, hours operated, Mineral fiber board 1,885 129 648 513 214
and engine size. The emissions from transportation and construc- ceiling tile
tion equipment use are calculated as described previously in the Gypsum board 621 43 73 103 44
Construction section. Paint 989 58 199 249 56
Steel—studs, doors, 1,620 103 452 304 81
End of Life frames, grid
Transportation 116 9 4 52 12
The end-of-life phase includes the demolition of the building and Equipment 47 3 6 89 6
transport of the demolished materials to a landfill. The entire
building is assumed to be demolished after 50 years. The trans- End of life 共total兲 3,300 200 400 5,800 400
portation environmental effects are based on an average round Equipment 3,065 212 378 5,717 406
trip distance of 64 km from the site to the landfill. The construc-
Transportation 188 14 7 85 19
tion equipment emissions are based on the equipment types, of materials
duration of work, and engine horsepower. The equipment types
and duration of work are estimated using R. S. Means 共2001兲.
Total 359,100 26,100 98,400 75,600 9,300
Engine horsepower is based on typical diesel equipment size.

14 / JOURNAL OF INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS © ASCE / MARCH 2006

J. Infrastruct. Syst. 2006.12:10-17.


Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Sinhgad College of Engineering (SCOE) on 02/14/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Fig. 2. U.S. case study proportions of emissions attributed to each
life-cycle phase
Emissions from transportation and equipment use are calculated
as described previously in the Construction section.
U.S. Case Study Results
Table 2 presents the life-cycle energy needs and emissions, while
Fig. 2 shows the proportions of the respective life-cycle phases in
total energy use and emissions. While the use phase dominates
all categories but PM10, most of the life-cycle phases, especially
materials and maintenance have significant values in at least one
of the environmental aspects. In each energy and emissions cat-
egory, the three highest values account for at least 89% of the
total. The use phase has at least a 46% share in all categories.
Materials and maintenance phases each have a proportion of 22%
or more in a single category. Construction and end-of-life phases
have relatively small impacts overall.
By analyzing the energy use and environmental emissions
of each life-cycle phase in more detail 共Table 2兲, the elements
that cause significant emissions can be identified and targeted
for improvement.
Materials
For building materials, the largest contribution to energy use and
emissions comes from steel products 共in piping, steel reinforcing
of concrete, metal studs, HVAC units, etc.兲. Other significant ma-
terial groups include concrete, glass, insulation, and copper. All
these materials have significant impacts in all categories. Copper
tubing and wire are used for plumbing and electrical systems, and
have significant impacts in four of the categories.
Table 3. Data Qualitya Assessment of the European Building Case Study
Acquisition Independence
Phase method of data supplier
Building materials 2 1
Construction 3 1
Use 2 2
Maintenance 2 1
End of life 2 1
a
Maximum quality= 1, minimum quality= 5.
J. Infrastruct. Syst. 2006.12:10-17.
Construction
Equipment use accounts for the majority of energy use and emis-
sions in the construction stage.
Use Phase
The use phase is the largest contributor to overall energy use and
emissions. Lighting and electricity have significant impacts in all
five categories, while natural gas has significant impacts in four
categories.
Maintenance
Compared to transportation and equipment use, materials are re-
sponsible for the majority of the energy use and emissions in the
maintenance phase. By far, carpet has the greatest impact in all
five categories. This is aided in part by the short 共4 year兲 assumed
service life of carpet, explained by wear and tear, but also fre-
quent replacement due to tenant changes. The steel components,
mineral fiber ceiling tiles, and paints also have significant impact
in at least four of the categories. Their service lives are 25, 17,
and 4.5 years, respectively.
End of Life
Although the end-of-life phase contributes minimally to the over-
all life-cycle energy use and emissions, the demolition equipment
emissions are notable. In fact, it is slightly more than the energy
use and emissions from equipment used in the construction stage.
The energy use and emissions from the demolition equipment are
on the same order as concrete, glass, and insulation materials in
the building.
Data Quality Assessment
Assessment of the quality of data used in the analysis is very
important in LCA interpretation as higher quality lends more
credibility to the results, increases the robustness of the findings,
and gives more confidence to the LCA practitioner to draw cor-
rect conclusions and eventually make defensible decisions using
the results. The secondary, i.e., emission, data used in this study
were targeted at the level of good, which corresponds to number
two in the used data quality assessment framework 共Lindfors et
al. 1995兲. 关Details of the data quality assessment matrix are found
in Junnila and Horvath 共2003兲.兴 In practice this means that data
should have at least the following qualities: should be calculated
data based on measurements, verified information from an enter-
prise that might have an interest in the study, representative data
Geographical Technological
Representativeness Data age correlation correlation
2 2 2 2
2 2 3 4
1 1 1 1
1 2 2 2
2 1 2 3
JOURNAL OF INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS © ASCE / MARCH 2006 / 15
 Table 4. Data Qualitya Assessment of the U.S. Building Case Study
Acquisition Independence
Phase method of data supplier
Building materials 1 1
Construction 3 1
Use 1 1
Maintenance 3 1
End-of-life 2 1
a
Maximum quality⫽1, and minimum quality⫽5.
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Sinhgad College of Engineering (SCOE) on 02/14/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
from smaller number of sites but for adequate periods, less than
5 years old, average data from a larger area in which the area
under study is included, and from processes and materials under
study but maybe from different enterprises.
Tables 3 and 4 show the results of data quality assessment for
the European and U.S. case studies. Of the 30 categories assessed
based on the guidelines from Lindfors et al. 共1995兲, only four in
the European and seven in the U.S. case study were considered to
have average or lower-than-average data quality. While compari-
son with other LCA studies is impossible given that data quality
assessment is still not widely practiced, data quality in this study
can be considered relatively good. The category that deserves the
most improvement in both cases is technological correlation that
gauges the similarity of the technology for which data were found
to the technology used in the current LCA study. For example,
in lieu of specific data on office building construction, data on
typical construction processes were utilized in both countries, an
acceptable but not perfect solution. Similarly, maintenance data
are sparsely documented in the United States 共“acquisition
method” category兲. Data age is a perennial problem in LCA.
In the European case study, the life-cycle phases that scored
less than targeted 共less than 2兲 were the construction phase with
the acquisition method, geographical correlation, and techno-
logical correlation, and the end-of-life phase with technological
correlation. The construction phase did not score quite as targeted
because it included calculated data partly based on assumptions
instead of only calculated data 共the unit data were taken from
another similar case study兲, some of the data were collected
from another area with similar production conditions instead of
the area under study 共data for energy used on site were collected
from another city in Southern Finland兲, and the data were col-
lected from related processes instead of processes under study
共the unit data were collected from a similar office case study in
Southern Finland and from an all-purpose landfill instead of a
construction waste landfill兲. In the end-of-life phase the data
were collected from related processes instead of processes under
study 共the secondary data were taken from an all-purpose landfill
instead of construction waste landfill兲. However, the lower
than expected data quality in the construction and end-of-life
phases should not have any major impact on the overall result
since the contribution of those two phases together is only
between 2 and 9%.
In the U.S. case study, the data acquisition method, the data
age, and the technological correlation categories had scores less
than 2, primarily because of the use of estimated data in the
analysis that were on occasion more than 5 years old, and the lack
of collected information specifically for this research.
Interpretation of Results
Even though the buildings are on two different continents and the
case studies include comparable construction technologies but
16 / JOURNAL OF INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS © ASCE / MARCH 2006
J. Infrastruct. Syst. 2006.12:10-17.
Geographical Technological
Representativeness Data Age correlation correlation
2 3 2 2
2 3 2 3
2 1 1 1
2 3 2 3
2 1 2 2
dissimilar operating and maintenance schedules with different
input energy mixes, the proportions of emissions associated with
the different life-cycle phases of the two buildings are similar.
The use phase dominates energy consumption 共70%兲 and all
of the emissions except PM10. Materials production and mainte-
nance are significant in PM10 emissions, especially for the U.S.
case. In general, the maintenance phase 共which includes the
manufacturing and transportation of maintenance materials, and
the construction involved in building upkeep兲 has a larger en-
vironmental burden than the construction phase 共which only
includes the use of temporary materials and equipment on the
construction site兲. End-of-life treatment is only somewhat rel-
evant for overall NOx and PM10 emissions. Construction and
demolition are relatively more important for NOx emissions
and PM10 emissions in the United States than in Finland, while in
addition to the use phase, SO2 emissions from materials manufac-
turing and maintenance should be targeted for reduction in the
Nordic country. Maintenance appears to carry a more significant
PM10 burden in the United States.
Even though the two buildings are in somewhat different
climates and are dissimilar in geometric design and material
composition 共though both use a comparable total amount of
materials兲, it is worth noting the differences in the absolute values
of energy use and emissions. Overall, the Finnish building uses a
third less energy, and emits half the CO2, a third of NOx, and a
fifth of PM10 associated with the U.S. building’s life cycle mainly
due to the differences in the use phase. The energy used for the
operation of the Finnish building is only one-half of the U.S.
building, and the emission profiles of energy carriers in Finland
are less intensive due to combined heat and power production.
As well, there are differences between the two continents in
energy mixes for electricity generation that help explain the
different emission intensities. In Finland, the energy mix in the
combined heat and power plants is 67% natural gas, 32% coal,
0.2% oil, and 0.3% biogas 共Vantaa Energy 2000兲. In Minnesota
共a state where the U.S. building could be located兲, the electricity
mix is composed of 40% petroleum, 21% coal, 22% natural
gas, 7% nuclear, 5% hydropower, 5% wood and waste, and 0.1%
geothermal, wind, and solar energy 共EIA 2001兲.
A 50-year service life was assumed in this paper, but there are
indications that the average service life of office buildings is de-
creasing. For example, there is a recent trend on both sides of the
Atlantic to completely reconstruct and reconfigure office build-
ings from the 1960s that do not meet the functional and esthetic
criteria of the current and future tenants. Therefore, the relevance
of the nonuse phases, i.e., the materials, construction, mainte-
nance, and end-of-life stages relative to the use phase of buildings
is expected to increase as functional obsolescence of office build-
ings becomes more rapid, and complete reconstruction and
reconfiguration become more frequent. Knowing the expected en-
ergy and emissions profiles of the life cycle of current and future
 office buildings should prove to be useful in environmentally
informed decision making.
Acknowledgments
S.J. wishes to thank TEKES 共National Technology Agency of
Finland兲 for funding this research. A.H. is grateful for the support
of a Career Grant from the National Science Foundation’s Divi-
sion of Civil and Mechanical Systems, and a Technologies for
Sustainable Enterprise grant from the Environmental Protection
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Sinhgad College of Engineering (SCOE) on 02/14/13. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
Agency.
References
Björklund, T., Jönsson, Å., and Tillman, A.-M. 共1996兲. “LCA of building
frame structures: Environmental impact over the life-cycle of concrete
and steel frames.” Technical Environmental Planning Rep. No.
1996:8, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden.
Building Information. 共1998兲. “RT building information file 18-10663.”
Building Information Ltd., Helsinki, Finland 具http://
www.rakennustieto.fi/RT-kauppa/Index.htm典 共Nov. 25, 2002兲.
Canadian Wood Council. 共1997兲. “A case study: Comparing the environ-
mental effects of building systems.” Rep. No. 4, Ottawa.
Carnegie Mellon University Green Design Initiative 共CMU兲. 共2003兲.
“Economic input-output life-cycle assessment 共EIO-LCA兲 model.”
具http://www.eiolca.net典 共May 15, 2003兲.
CEM/HUT. 共1993兲. “Target costs for facility managers.” Construction
Economics and Management Rep. No. 119, Faculty of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, Helsinki Univ. of Technology, Helsinki,
Finland.
Cole, R. J., and Kernan, P. C. 共1996兲. “Life-cycle energy use in office
buildings.” Build. Environ., 31共4兲, 307–317.
Curran, M., ed. 共1996兲. Environmental life-cycle assessment, McGraw-
Hill, New York.
Energy Information Administration 共EIA兲. 共1998兲. “1995 commercial
building survey, a look at commercial buildings in 1995: Charac-
teristics, energy consumption and energy expenditures.” Rep. No.
DOE/EIA-0625, Office of Energy Markets and End Use, DOE,
Washington, D.C.
Energy Information Administration 共EIA兲. 共2001兲. “State energy data
report 1999, Table 155: Energy consumption estimates by source,
1960–1999, Minnesota.” Rep. No. DOE/EIA-0214(99), DOE,
Washington, D.C.
EPA. 共1995兲. “Compilation of air pollutant emission factors—mobile
sources, heavy-duty diesel trucks,” Rep. No. AP-42, Washington, D.C.
EPA. 共1996兲. “Gasoline and diesel industrial engines—Emission factor
documentation. Rep. No. AP-42, Washington, D.C., Sec. 3.3.
EPA. 共1998兲. “External combustion sources, Section 1.4: Natural gas
combustion,” 5th Ed., Rep. No. AP-42, Washington, D.C., Vol. 1,
Chap. 1.
Gorgolewski, M. 共1999兲. Environmental assessment of steel piling, Steel
Construction Institute, Berkshire, U.K.
Hasegawa, T. 共2002兲. “Policy Instruments for Environmentally Sustain-
able Buildings,” Proc., CIB/iiSBE Int. Conf. on Sustainable Building
2002, CD-ROM, EcoBuild, Oslo, Norway.
Hendrickson, C., Horvath, A., Joshi, S., and Lave, L. B. 共1998兲.
“Economic input-output models for environmental life cycle
JOURNAL OF INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS © ASCE / MARCH 2006 / 17
J. Infrastruct. Syst. 2006.12:10-17.
analysis.” Environ. Sci. Technol., 32共7兲, 184A–191A.
IKP 共Institute for Polymer Testing and Polymer Engineering. 共1998兲.
“Integrated lifecycle assessment 共LCA兲 of windows and curtain
Walls,” Rep., Verband der Fenster und Fassadenhersteller, Frankfurt,
Germany.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. 共1996兲. “Revised 1996
IPCC guidelines for national greenhouse gas inventories: Workbook.”
具http://www.ipccnggip.iges.or.jp/public/gl/guidelin/ch1wb1.pdf典 共Nov.
23, 2002兲.
ISO. 共1997兲. “Environmental management, life cycle assessment, prin-
ciples and framework.” SFS-EN ISO 14040, Finnish Standards
Association SFS, Helsinki, Finland.
Junnila, S. 共2003兲. “Estimating the environmental aspects of an office
building’s life cycle.” Proc., Int. Conf. of Structural Engineering and
Construction, Balkema Publisher, Lisse, The Netherlands.
Junnila, S., and Horvath, A. 共2003兲. “Life-cycle environmental effects of
an office Building.” J. Infrastruct. Syst., 9共4兲, 157–166.
Junnila, S., and Saari, A. 共1998兲. “Environmental burdens of a Finnish
apartment building by building elements in the context of LCA.”
Construction Economics and Management Rep. No. 167, Faculty of
Civil and Environmental Engineering, Helsinki University of Tech-
nology, Helsinki, Finland.
Kiiras, J., and Tiula, M. 共1999兲. “Building 90—the Finnish building
classification system.” Rep., The Finnish Building Centre Ltd.,
Helsinki, Finland.
Lindfors, L.-G., Christiansen, K., Hoffman, L., Virtanen, Y., Juntilla, V.,
Hanssen, O.-J., Rønning, A., Ekvall, T., and Finnveden, G. 共1995兲.
“Nordic guidelines on life-cycle assessment.” Rep. No. Nord 1995:20,
Nordic Council of Ministers, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Motiva. 共2001兲. “Energiankatselmustoiminnan tilannekatsaus.” Motiva
Publication No. 1/2001, Information Centre for Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy Sources, Helsinki, Finland 具http://www.motiva.fi/
kirjasto/Energiakatselmukset/典 共Oct. 10, 2002兲.
Neuvonen, P. 共2000兲. “The environmental declarations of building
products in Finland.” Proc., CIB/GBC/Novem 2nd Int. Conf. on
Sustainable Building 2000, Aeneas Technical Publishers, Best, The
Netherlands.
Rice, G., Clift, R., and Burns, R. 共1997兲. “LCA Software Review,” Int. J.
LCA, 2共1兲, 53–59.
Means, R. S. 共2001兲. “Building construction cost data,” Rep., Kingston,
Mass.
Treloar, G., Fay, R., Ilozor, B., and Love, P. 共2001a兲. “Building materials
selection: Greenhouse strategies for built facilities.” Facilities,
19共3/4兲, 139–149.
Treloar, G., Fay, R., Ilozor, B., and Love, P. 共2001b兲. “An analysis
of the embodied energy of office buildings by height.” Facilities,
19共5/6兲, 204–214.
Vantaa Energy. 共2000兲. “Environmental report 2000.” 具http://
www.vantaanenergia.fi/典 共Oct. 14, 2002兲.
Vorsatz, D., Shown, L., Koomey, J., Moezzi, M., Denver, A., and
Atkinson, B. 共1997兲. “Lighting market sourcebook for the U.S.”
Rep. No. LBNL-39102, Energy Analysis Program, Environmental
Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Labora-
tory, Berkeley, Calif.
WinEtana 1.0 LT. VTT. 共2001兲. Technical Research Centre of Finland
具http://www.rte.vtt.fi/benchnet/econbase/winetana/典 共July 4, 2003兲.
Yohanis, Y. G., and Norton, B. 共2002兲. “Life-cycle operational and
embodied energy for a generic single-storey office building in the
U.K.” Energy, 27, 77–92.