Life Cycle Assessment Using ATHENA? Impact Estimator for Buildings: A Case Study

摘要

Life cycle assessment is a means of calculating the environmental impact of processes. The ATHENA? Impact Estimator for Buildings was developed by the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute and software collaborator, Morrison Hershfield as a means of applying life cycle assessment to the construction of buildings. The Impact Estimator measures the environmental impact of the new construction of a building in the areas of: Primary Energy, Global Warming Potential, Human Health Respiratory Effects, Ozone Depletion, Weighted Resource Use, Water Pollution, and Air Pollution. It is the intent of this paper to use the software to evaluate a four story office building for four proposed structural framing systems currently under construction in Chicago. The building was designed with the intent of achieving LEED? Platinum certification. The results of the four life cycle assessments will be compared. During this comparison, the authors intend to examine the software to determine its validity as a tool for making sustainable design decisions based upon structural systems.