A generic model of Exergy Assessment for the Environmental Impact of Building Lifecycle

摘要

A generic model of Exergy Assessment is proposed for the Environmental Impact of the Building Lifecycle, with a special focus on the natural environment. Three environmental impacts: energy consumption, resource consumption and pollutant discharge have been analyzed with reference to energy-embodied exergy, resource chemical exergy and abatement exergy, respectively. The generic model of Exergy Assessment of the Environmental Impact of the Building Lifecycle thus formulated contains two submodels, one from the aspect of building energy utilization and the other from building materials use. Combined with theories by ecologists such as Odum, the paper evaluates a building's environmental sus-tainability through its exergy footprint and environmental impacts. A case study from Chongqing, China illustrates the application of this method. From the case study, it was found that energy consumption constitutes 70-80% of the total environmental impact during a 50-year building lifecycle, in which the operation phase accounts for 80% of the total environmental impact, the building material production phase 15% and 5% for the other phases.