Life cycle assessment in buildings: The ENSLIC simplified method and guidelines

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is currently used to a very limited extent in the building sector, for several reasons. Firstly, making an LCA evaluation of a building demands a specific tool to handle the large dataset needed and this tool has to be adaptable to the different decisions taken throughout the life cycle of the building. Such tools have been developed in a few countries, but they are exceptions. However, useful experience has been gained in these countries, providing a valuable source of data for developing guidelines for application in other countries. Since the results of a building LCA may contain complex information, the great challenge is to devise efficient ways for communication of the results to users and clients.