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Life cycle assessment and critical review for a new building at UBC in Vancouver, BC

University of British Columbia. Sustainability Office

The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the environmental impacts of the new building and to critically review the previous study done by Amiri and Hashemi. It also contributes to a benchmark study, against which new building projects can be compared. This report is intended for an all those who wish to know more about LCA at UBC, and in particular of the Pharmacy Building; next years’ students; and for evaluation as the term project in CIVL 498C. This project is undertaken at a high level of detail; the results are sorted into major element groups, which are entire classes of elements grouped together. The high level element groups are A11 Foundations, A21 Lowest Floor Construction, A22 Upper Floor Construction, A23 Roof Construction, A31 Walls Below Grade, A32 Walls Above Grade, and B11 Partitions. This is congruent with the CIQS MasterFormat. Another element of scope is the limitation of the system boundary. For this project, the system boundary only considers the life cycle from cradle to gate; i.e. the process chain including extraction of raw materials, transportation, refining, transportation of refined materials, production into products, transportation to the construction site, and then construction. The use and the end-of-life stages are not considered. This limitation in scope reflects the time budget that the students are expected to put into the project. One of the first tasks of this project was to sort the provided files into the major element groups. After being sorted, the model needed to be critically reviewed. It was found that almost no changes needed to be made, few changes could be made with the current level of acceptable accuracy, and those changes that could be made could not be made with the available resources. After the critical review, the results were interpreted and compared against the benchmarks set by the class. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”

Text

University of British Columbia. CIVL 498; UBC Social Ecological Economic Development Studies (SEEDS) Student Report

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0108898

Applied Science, Faculty of; Civil Engineering, Department of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/