The new sustainability requirements in the building regulations came into force on January 1, 2023, and this places a number of demands on the parties involved in the construction industry.
But now there is help for the requirement for life cycle assessment (LCA). BUILD has released the LCAbyg tool for calculating the life cycle assessment, and at the same time, a collaboration between Arkitema, COWI, the Danish Council for Sustainable Construction, Molio, the Danish Agency for Housing and Planning and Realdania has developed the LCAcollect tool, which can be used to collect the required data for the life cycle assessment.
LCAbyg
To meet the new sustainability requirements in the building regulations, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) must be carried out. A life cycle assessment is a calculation of the total climate impact of a building throughout its lifetime and includes the construction, operation and maintenance of the building as well as its demolition.
This calculation is based on information about the building components and the building's energy consumption.
The requirement applies to all new buildings where a regulatory petition is submitted after January 1, 2023, and is therefore relevant to a wide range of parties.
This begs the question: Do you have to learn a long and complicated formula in order to comply with the requirement?
The answer is no.
BUILD has done just that with their new tool, LCAbyg, which calculates life cycle assessments for buildings.
You enter information about the building components and possibly the building's energy consumption, and LCAbyg can then calculate the building's environmental profile and resource consumption.
LCAbyg has been in the works for almost 7 years and has also been available in an early version, but now the program has been released in a new improved version that is more user-friendly and has new features.
LCAbyg now includes methods for calculating limit value exceedances related to specific building assumptions and, as a new feature, it is now also possible to import data into the system from the register 'EPD Norway'.
Is LCAbyg expensive?
The answer is no.
LCAbyg is currently free and can be downloaded here: https://www.lcabyg.dk/da/download-legacy/
As mentioned, a number of data must be entered in LCAbyg. This, of course, raises the questions:
What data do I need to collect? and
How do I keep track of my LCA data during construction?
Now you can get help with the LCAcollect system.
What is LCAcollect?
LCAcollect is a web-based platform for collecting the statutory LCA data for the building materials used in the building in question, which is necessary to perform an LCA calculation and thus document the building's climate footprint. The platform structures data from the different actors in a building in one place and with a uniform data structure.
LCAcollect became available on March 1, 2023 and is a brand new tool for LCA data and calculations.
LCAcollect makes LCA documentation digital and directly integrable into the overall LCA calculation if performed in LCAbyg. The two systems can talk directly to each other and can therefore create a unified and simple method for documenting the life cycle of a building.
Is LCAcollect expensive to get hold of?
The answer is no.
LCAcollect is freely available and you can sign up as a user and get direct access at: Molio- construction knowledge center
You then create your project and can invite the project partners to report the data from the different building components they need to deliver directly into the system.
It is also possible to communicate about the submitted material via the platform.
If you work extensively or exclusively with LCA calculations, it will also be possible to purchase access to a pro version of LCAcollect.
So there are plenty of opportunities for help with the new calculations.
At CLEMENS, we recognize that the building and construction sector needs to work towards becoming more sustainable, and we are committed to the new sustainability requirements of the Building Regulations (BR18).
We therefore also organize - both on our own and together with partners - courses, theme meetings and morning meetings about the new requirements, and everyone is welcome. We offer both free courses and special courses can also be purchased. Therefore, do not hesitate to contact Attorney Cristine Ussing (see contact information below) if you or your company would like more information about the new requirements and the practice of LCA calculations.
