Essential stakeholder contributions for establishing life cycle assessment (lca) in the construction industry: a desk study

Abstract

In recent times, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been evolved in globally as an analytical tool that systematically and holistically investigates cumulative environmental impacts associated with the entire building lifecycle from its cradle-to grave. Moreover, LCA approach has become a well-rooted concept internationally as a decision making tool due to the collaborative activities between main five (05) stakeholders i.e. academia, government, construction industry, civil society, and the natural environment. In contrast, it is difficult to find evidence on the application of LCA in Sri Lankan construction industry. Also, there is increasing interest in applying LCA, as Sri Lankan construction industry has been criticised due to the environmental pollution with the escalation of upcoming building projects. Hence, this study aimed to conduct a desk study by reviewing existing literature to disclose the activities, which the developed countries followed to integrate LCA into construction practice pertaining to aforesaid five stakeholder’s contributions. Literature findings highlighted that, academia have to undertake and disseminate fact-based and comprehensive research on the field of LCA in order to popularize the concept of LCA while government bodies, construction industry, civil society and natural environment have to take actions to embed LCA to the environmental regulations and environmental planning as a core element to take voluntary actions to build ecologically sustainable constructions by using LCA as a decision making technique. Environmental modeling software packages have to be introduced as a collaborative activity of academia, construction industry and natural environment to make it possible to integrate LCA to the construction industry.