Life Cycle Assessment of an Apartment Building: Comparison of an Attributional and Consequential Approach

Life cycle assessment (LCA) as tool to improve sustainability of the construction sector is receiving increasing attention. Different methodological approaches of LCA have already been applied in other research fields, however they have barely been applied on buildings. This study conducts a screening LCA of an apartment located in Buggenhout, Belgium, according to the two main approaches, respectively attributional (ALCA) and consequential (CLCA). Not only the as-built situation is taken into account, but also two brief optimization scenarios are included. The aim is to identify and compare possible differences in results between the two approaches when applied on the same case.The results indicate a shift in proportions between the different life cycle stages, in particular at the end-of-life stage. However, more important are the differences between individual materials and components, which can result in different proposals for optimization. The two included optimization scenarios support this statement, the first one for the selection of insulating materials and the second one for two different actions to improve energy efficiency (increasing insulation vs. installing a heat pump).