Steering green and sustainability through life cycle assessment software's in construction industry

Abstract

Oppression from construction industry to environment is unavoidable but construction industry has potential to more sustainable future for earth. Succeeding sustai nab ility terms in construction and building industry could not be limited to the quantity of building. Sustainabiliry could also achieve through considering design and select materi als without or with low environmental impact in building industry. There are various environmental impacts that are associated with the use of materials during the lifecycle of building materials from cradle to grav . such as: raw material extraction through materials processing , manufacture, distribution. use. re air and maintenance, and disposal or recycling. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the forma l methodology and process that investigates the environmental impact of a building material product at every stage in its life. LCA has been widely used in many countries and its current app lication has been extended to include government policy, strategic planning and product design. LCAs can be costly and time consuming, thus software technology use to eliminate these obstacl es in material assessment. Many kinds of LCA software exist with different capability whoever the selecting among existing sample is different. This paper is providing critical review and comparison some LCA software and standards with convinced specification. Finally, the process for environmentally sustainable design is highlighted with some standards that exist for LCA.