Application of comparative life cycle assessment to a proposed building for reduced environmental impacts: Assiut University Hospital Clinic as a case study

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture, College of Architecture and Planning, Qassim University, Qassim, 52571, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Although the buildings have many benefits, the construction industry represents a significant barrier to implementing strategic environmental plans. Specifically, in Egypt, as one of the developing countries, the building construction sector consumes around 40% of the global raw material extraction (World Resources Institute, 2015). Furthermore, the manufacturing industries and construction processes have 23% of all fuel combustion activities and have 22% of all GHG emissions according to the BIENNIAL update report (Ministry of Environment, 2018). This paper is a set of scientific papers that will be introduced to apply the integration methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Building Information Modelling (BIM) on a health clinic as a proposed building in Assiut University Hospital. The results have revealed that the significant harmful environmental impacts are respiratory inorganics, global warming potential, and non-renewable energy as the midpoint method and human health and resource depletion as an endpoint method. In particular, the GWP results of the steel, concrete, brick, and tiles are (3.4E5), (2.55E5), (9.67E4), and (4.31E4) kg 〖CO〗_2 equivalent, respectively, as a midpoint result. For the endpoint method, the weighting results showed that human health and resource depletion recorded the largest figures and the steel, concrete, brick, and tiles industries have massive environmental burdens. Additionally, the paper has summarised that there is an urgent need to introduce sustainable alternatives for building materials, mainly since these industries emit many of emissions such as 〖CO〗_2, P.M2.5, 〖SO〗_2 and C_2 H_4. Ultimately, the paper has introduced future recommendations for both proposed and existing buildings.

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References

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