Economic distress and deindustrialization over the past 50 years has led to wide-spread structural abandonment in the United States, peaking at an estimated 7.2 million abandoned homes in the United States in 2012. Such large-scale structural abandonment typically necessitates removal of buildings from the landscape, typically via demolition. While expedient, demolition contributes millions of tons of debris to landfills. Deconstruction has emerged as an alternate strategy to demolition, and reduces landfilling through the increased salvage and reuse of building materials. As a result, deconstruction has been suggested as an environmentally-friendly alternative to demolition; however, deconstruction is often costlier and more time-intensive. Despite these differences, little existing literature has focused on assessing the comparative environmental, social, and economic impacts of deconstruction and demolition. This research seeks to answer the question, "what are the environmental, social, and economic impacts of building demolition and deconstruction?" and proposes a preliminary sustainable life cycle assessment framework, which is the primary contribution. The framework focuses on development of a life cycle inventory matrix for observed environmental, economic, and social aspects related to demolition and deconstruction projects. The framework was developed (1) through a comprehensive literature review, (2) interviews with demolition and deconstruction professionals, and (3) field observation and measurement of selected impact categories. Flows for the assessment framework have been proposed as (1) environmental—landfilling of debris, energy use and fuel consumption, and air/ water/soil pollution; (2) economic—energy and fuel costs, equipment and labor rates, value of salvaged materials, hazardous material abatement,and tax exemption; and (3) Social—public health, worker and jobsite safety, noise, and job creation and community involvement.
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