Life cycle environmental assessment of an educational building in Northern India: A case study

This paper quantifies the significant environmental effects of a three storey building in Northern India. The building has a floor area of 3960 m2 and projected service life of 50 years. In this study, a comprehensive life cycle environmental assessment of the building was conducted to find out the energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by the building. This study shows that RCC framework and steel in the building are the highest contributor in GHG emissions for all three floors. Also, it has been shown that second floor has the biggest share in contribution to the total impact. In addition to this, 59% of the total energy is consumed only in the operation phase. In most of the buildings, life cycle phases have significant impact in some category, however; only two life cycle phases viz. construction and operation seem to be more significant in all impact categories (energy and emissions).