Constructions and its environmental impact

The implementation of the Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) of buildings is a calculation that allows us to know how close an edification is to achieving an energy certification. This analysis is to observe the benefits that a building has and each year, new elements are incorporated, being that it is not currently about assessing energy consumption, water use, or economic cost; but it is considered the environmental impact that buildings produce both in their construction and in their usefulness phase or end of life.

All this system was assigned the name of Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) of the buildings and nowadays, when the planet and employees are also a priority, the analyzes have been integrated to detect how they can influence different selections: of conception, design, construction, and use. All this to study the environmental impact set of the building.

If you have ever heard that a building has certifications of sustainability, as they are: Leed, Breeam or Well; This means that the building in question tries to address this problem, the problem in these attempts falls on that many times people want to fill out the requirements with materials they consider “responsible” of the impacts of buildings, and truth is that these not always lead to getting the best benefits.

Yes, some materials are extraordinarily negative for the environment of the building, being these insulators, coatings and paintings; but many times a blind eye is made to other families of materials such as those implemented for installations, structures, and foundations. The building in its entirety must be taken into account if you want to choose to reduce in full the environmental impact caused by the building.

A super important data is that it does not make technical sense to try to justify the environmental sustainability of a building based on the selection and elimination of some materials considered “harmful”, if first, it is not evident that the contribution to the life cycle of the building is relevant.

This is why the analysis of the full life cycle of each building must be addressed on a case-by-case basis so that it is effective and to qualify for certification.