LCA: LCA in the Design Process

Tool for Preliminary Design: ECOPRO

The tool addresses the design phase. A first design for a building exists. The decisions concerning the functional and constructive solutions as well as certain general material choices have to be made. At that moment the first cost estimates have to be made. ECOPRO uses the same data as for cost planning (element surface and choice of element from a catalogue ). An element is composed of layers which have material caracteristcs. So energy related values like lambda, mass, live time of a layer, environmental parameters, waste categories are associated to each layer and then added up for each and for 3 phases (construction, refurbishment, disposal). The same parameters as for ECOPT are attached to elements. Buildings are composed of elements for the structure, the fabric, interior divisions, coatings, equipment, exterior surface treatment.

Input :

• Quantity and Type of element (from catalogue)
• Climate related data
• Cost related data

  Output :

  Evaluation criteria identical to ECOPT. Additional reference units are elements. Different solutions can be compared to the reference value of ECOPT. The tool offers an assistance to identify the element groups and elements which might be responsible for not reaching the reference values. This is done by comparing the element group data of the alternative to average element group values from simulation.

  Availability : The tool is running under EXCEL 5 (Mac or Windows)

   

  
  > References

  ECOPRO manual - Ifib Universität Karlsruhe - 1995