Life Cycle Assessment of embodied and operational energy for a passive housing block in Austria

Finally, the apartment block “as built” to a passive house standard was compared with a low-energy equivalent building in order to question whether the increased input of materials for the passive house is justified in terms of the reduction of the energy demand during the operation of the building. It was found that the passive house performs better in terms of environmental impacts, but not significantly so (max. GWP saving of 7% in the 80 years scenario). The reasons are multifaceted, and include additional heating of the apartments by the occupants, uncontrolled window opening patterns and increased hours of occupancy.