The construction and real estate sector contributed with about 18 tons of carbon dioxideequivalents which corresponds to almost 21 percent of Sweden’s total greenhouse gasemissions. Fact is that the construction and real estate sector contribute a significant part inthe climate impact.An approach to examine a building’s environmental impact is to implement Life CycleAssessment (LCA). By doing that a full picture of the climate impact during the building’slifetime can be seen. The results can be used to find out in what stage of the building processimprovements can be done to reduce the climate impact.The purpose of this study is to examine and understand how to execute Climate CycleAssessments and Life Cycle Assessments and how they can support the decisions forbuilding constructions with less climate impact. The aim is to examine digital conditions thatare required to be able to integrate the BIM-software Revit with One Click LCA. The study islimited to analyzing the frame and the foundation of a building. Only LCA-modules A1-3will be calculated because these modules are included in the mandatory climate declarationfrom year 2022. A1-3 includes raw material extraction, transport and manufacturing.The study is based on a qualitative method, where information is obtained from literaturestudies and semi-structured interviews to answer the questions of this study. The literaturestudy is done by using scientific articles, reports, and literature. Semi-structured interviewsare accomplished with relevant respondents. The software that is used to execute the analysisis One Click LCA, which is integrable with Revit due to an add-in in the program.The integration between BIM and LCA was tested by using One Click LCA:s add-in tool inRevit, a result was then available but a completion had to be done in One Click LCA:s webapplication to get a result that includes the carbon dioxide equivalents from the modulesA1-3. An update of One Click LCA:s add-in program should be developed to avoid extrawork and save more time. It is worth mentioning that the current add-in tool already haspossibilities to save money and time, it also increases the possibilities to reduce the climateimpact in an early stage.Keywords: Life cycle assessment, climate impact, BIM, Revit, One Click LCA

Idag görs livscykelanalyser (LCA) för att identifiera de byggkomponenter somorsakar stora koldioxidutsläpp i byggbranschen.Syftet med denna studie är att med hjälp av livscykelanalysverktyget One ClickLCA jämföra hur stora koldioxidutsläpp som bildas av materialen i enlimträstomme, som tillhör en inomhusarena jämfört med materialen i en fiktivstålstomme, som är dimensionerad för att klara samma laster och funktion somlimträstommen. Detta görs i syfte att lyfta fram skillnaderna mellankoldioxidutsläppen i produktskedet (A1-A3) mellan en limträstomme och enstålstomme.En konstruktör har konstruerat stålstommen för jämförelsen. Konstruktören togfram dimensionerna och byggmaterialen, men stålstommen blev inte tillräckligtgenomarbetad och projekterad för att jämförelsen skulle kunna göras direkt.I One Click LCA behövs mängderna och byggkomponenterna för båda stommarnaför att kunna göra fullständiga livscykelanalyser. Med mängder menas volymeroch vikter för byggkomponenterna. I studien saknades från början mängder förvissa av byggkomponenterna och en del av syftet blev därför att ta fram allamängder för stommarna. För att få rätt mängder i studien användes bland annat tvåprogram, Bluebeam och Excel. Med dessa program togs längdmåtten för olikabyggkomponenter från ritningar. Tillsammans med de övriga uppgifterna ombyggkomponenterna kunde mängderna sedan tas fram.I One Click LCA behöver resurser väljas. Dessa kan vara kopplade till specifikabyggkomponenter och innehåller data om hur stora koldioxidutsläpp sombyggkomponenter orsakar. Med byggkomponenter och mängder som grund valdessedan resurser i One Click LCA. När resurser väljs räknar programmet ut hur storakoldioxidutsläpp som bildas i produktskedet (A1-A3) för byggkomponenterna.Med mängder och resurser kunde två resultat erhållas i programvaran. Resultatetvisar att 55 ton koldioxid bildas av limträstommen och 779,9 ton koldioxid bildasav stålstommen. I stålstommen är det fackverken som orsakar mestkoldioxidutsläpp och i limträstommen är balkarna i högdelen av inomhusarenansom orsakar mest koldioxidutsläpp. / Today, life-cycle assessment (LCA) are performed to identify the buildingcomponents that cause large carbon dioxide emissions in the construction industry.The purpose of this study is to use the life-cycle assessment tool One Click LCA tocompare how large carbon dioxide emissions are formed by the materials in aglulam frame, which belongs to an indoor arena compared to the materials in afictitious steel frame, which is dimensioned to withstand the same loads andfunction as the glulam frame. This is done in order to highlight the differencesbetween the carbon dioxide emissions in the product phase (A1-A3) between aglulam frame and a steel frame.A designer has designed the steel frame for comparison. The designer producedthe dimensions and building materials, but the steel frame was not sufficientlyworked out and projected for the comparison to be made directly.In One Click LCA, the quantities and building components for both frames areneeded to be able to make complete life-cycle assessment. By quantities is meantvolumes and weights for the building components. The study initially lackedquantities for some of the building components and part of the purpose wastherefore to produce all quantities for the frames. To get the right amounts in thestudy, two programs were used, Bluebeam and Excel. With these programs, thelength measurements for different building components were taken from drawings.Together with the other information about the building components, the quantitiescould then be produced.In One Click LCA, resources need to be selected. These can be linked to specificbuilding components and contain data on how large carbon dioxide emissions thatbuilding components cause. Based on building components and quantities,resources were then selected in One Click LCA. When resources are selected, theprogram calculates how large carbon dioxide emissions are formed in the productphase (A1-A3) for the building components. With quantities and resources, tworesults could be obtained in the software. The results show that 55 tonnes ofcarbon dioxide are formed by the glulam frame and 779.9 tonnes of carbon dioxideare formed by the steel frame. In the steel frame, it is the trusses that cause themost carbon dioxide emissions and in the glulam frame, the beams in the upperpart of the indoor arena cause the most carbon dioxide emissions.

In this thesis a future-world case was undertaken of the life cycle assessment (from cradleto grave) of a single-family house. The house is expected to be constructed by the end of2021 in Borlänge, a city located in Dalarna County. The aim of this study is to investigatewhether the building materials in external walls and roof surpass in terms ofenvironmental impacts compared with other building materials suggested by the authorsof this thesis.Six scenarios were evaluated in terms of the environmental impacts for two buildingelements, external wall, and roof. A base case scenario is taken into consideration foreach building element, considering the fact, that the thermal performance characteristicsof the building materials are comprehensively provided. Consequently, four scenarios aredetermined by the authors.One Click LCA program was used to calculate the environmental impacts of thebuilding materials through the lifecycle of the house during a time horizon of 50 years.Hemp fiber insulation material is planned to be used in the external walls; thus, it isconsidered the baseline case for this thesis. The first study is corresponded to the externalwalls, and it was found that glass wool insulation is more environmentally friendly thanhemp fiber and rock wool insulation.Wood material is planned to be used in the roof; thus, it is considered the baseline casefor this thesis. The second study is corresponded to the roof, and it was found that woodmaterial is more environmentally friendly than concrete and steel.Therefore, the suggested material by the authors surpasses the baseline case materialenvironmentally in respect of external walls, but this was not the case regarding the roof.

Environmental issues have been a trending topic for some time now due to constant changes. One of the most contributing industries is the construction sector. In Malmo, the construction industry is responsible for 20% of the total climate impact in the city. The first regional roadmap has been initiated in Malmo, which is called LFM30. Their focus is to increase the perspective of life cycle assessment (LCA), where different methods and materials are reviewed. The purpose of this degree project was to analyze and compare these to tools from different criteria, such as required knowledge, user-friendly, comparison-options, results and applicability in the early stages. These criteria have been analyzed in a case study, where a specific case has been examined. Climate impact has been calculated with BM and One Click LCA. The study was limited to Malmo and the initiative LFM30 and its affiliated companies. The case study shows that there’s good opportunity to develop this further, but to reach climate neutrality and climate positivity soon, it’s required that climate calculations are implemented as early as possible. The comparison between the two programs showed that BM is more limited function-wise but works more accurate and user-friendly than One Click LCA.

After the Paris agreement 2015 the Energy Commission in Sweden proposed a goal for Sweden of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2045. The focus in this report has been on how buildings in Sweden could reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Year 2017 the government gave a task for Boverket in Sweden (National Board of Housing, Building and Planning) to investigate the possibility to introduce a climate declaration on buildings. The idea is a life cycle analysis (LCA) should be performed on the building in order to get a building permit. An LCA include all CO2 emissions emitted from resources used for raw material extraction, production of materials, construction site operations, user phase and also the demolition and disposal in the end of life of the building. The first draft from Boverket was published in February 2018 where they recommended a simple declaration. They recommended in the beginning to only include a few components in the declaration, and to only include the production phase. The major interest in this report have been to gain more understanding on how to perform LCAs and also how the LCA result could be used to decrease CO2 emissions. A case study was made on a residential building project called Mården, in Umeå Sweden. The first part in this thesis was to determine the phase in the buildings life cycle with the largest potential for decreasing CO2 emissions. When the LCA was performed on case study building Mården it was difficult to use exact data, since only 20 % of the construction products where declared in an environmental product declaration (EPD). Therefore the other 80 % where approximated with similar products declared in an EPD, or with generic data (general data for a type of product). An EPD is an LCA on a single product and could therefore give exact information on CO2 emissions for a specific product. However, several improvements where implemented in the buildings life cycle and where compared with this reference case. The result from the LCA showed the energy use in the user phase emitted the largest amount of CO2 emissions, and therefore also where the phase with the largest potential for reducing CO2 emissions. When the Swedish district heating mix where replaced with an energy source with 50 % less CO2 emissions, the emissions for the whole life cycle could be decreased with 20 %. Smaller improvements such as more environmental friendlier concrete, shorter transport distance between manufacturer and construction site or less water usage resulted in a decrease by 1.6-7 %. It was though shown these smaller improvement could result in a large decrease of CO2 emissions if more buildings also would improve the same thing. 2.4 million tons of CO2 emissions could for example be reduced in Sweden if 50 % of Sweden’s all new building projects would improve their choice of concrete. To make sure buildings could reduce their CO2 emissions there is important LCAs are performed before the building is constructed, to make sure all phases in the life cycle can be improved. If an LCA will be performed when the building is constructed, it is only possible to improve a few parts in the user phase, since the other phases already have passed. The second part in this thesis was to compare the different LCA softwares; (i) One Click LCA (needs license, from Finland), (ii) e-tool (free, from Australia) and (iii) BM (free, from Sweden). When more exact data were tried to be used in e-tool and One Click LCA the results were similar for the CO2 emissions from the production phase. E-tool only resulted in 6 % higher CO2 emissions in the production phase than One Click LCA. The LCA in the eventual future climate declaration will probably be performed with generic data, since in an early stage the contractors will not have detailed information on their construction products. An LCA was thus performed in each software with generic data, and the result differed a lot. The CO2 emissions from the production phase resulted in 36 % and 23 % less CO2 emissions in BM and e-tool than in One Click LCA. If several softwares will be allowed in this eventual climate declaration, the judgment could be difficult since different generic data is used in each sofware. The generic data were also different for one type of product in a single software, where the CO2 emission could differ with as much as 50 % between two types of generic data for one type of products. This leads to a difficulty when choosing generic data since there will be lack of information on the construction products at the time when this eventual climate declaration should be performed. A main focus for the future development should be on evaluating a standard database that could be used in EU. If a future law will be implemented it could be valuable to declare detailed rules on how to perform the LCA. Since depending on who will perform the LCA different results could occur due to different data used or assumptions on things like products, boundaries or used resource. However, this master thesis has shown there is possible to use the LCA methodology to find solutions for decreasing the CO2 emissions for buildings.

This study compared the Global Warming Potential (GWP) impact of two single-family dwellings situated in Halmstad and Norrköping. The aim of this thesis work is to investigate how building materials types, material quantities, and geographical boundaries affect the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) results. This study focuses on climate declaration (A1-A5) LCA stages and was conducted in collaboration with Fiskarhedenvillan. The study uses a comparative LCA of various building components and materials. One Click LCA student license was used to calculate the CO2e emissions from the GWP impact category. The study found that the building in Halmstad generated 6,3% lower CO2e emissions compared to the building in Norrköping. The reason mainly was affected by the use of roofing materials. The building in Halmstad used reinforced bitumen while the building in Norrköping used concrete tile roofing. The study investigates that reinforced bitumen generates lower emissions in A1-A4 stages compared to concrete. The geographical boundaries affect the A4 stage. The building in Halmstad generated higher CO2e emissions compared to the building in Norrköping as it has long distances to the building materials suppliers. The research verifies that the A1-A3 stages considerably generate most of the emissions (70-80%) compared to A4 and A5. The A5 stage results remain the same per meter square of both dwellings considering the use of generic data from One Click LCA.

Energy efficiency of the building sector is a key strategy to achieve national climate goals in Sweden and other European countries. In this thesis, several renovation scenarios for a case study office building in Sweden are analysed and compared based on their energy performance, environmental impacts, and economic costs from a life cycle perspective. As a baseline, the case study building was simulated in IDA ICE and compared with the simulated renovation scenarios. For the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and the Life Cycle Costs (LCC), the commercially available software OneClickLCA was used. The renovation scenarios were carried out over three rounds: (i) material type scenarios where five insulation materials (glass wool, rock wool, hemp fiber, Expanded Polystyrene (EPS), and Extruded Polystyrene (XPS)) and two frame materials (wood and steel) are compared; (ii) insulation thickness optimization from economic and environmental performance perspectives (iii) comparison of combination with other typical renovation measures such as changing of windows, improving specific fan power, heat exchanger efficiencies, and lightings. The results show that glass wool gives the most economical and environmental performance, followed by rock wool and EPS. When considering other environmental indicators, hemp fiber presents the best environmental option. However, it is not competitive with traditional insulation materials from an economic perspective. The insulation thickness scenarios show different optimal economic and environmental performance points, giving total energy savings of 5 % and 9,5 %, respectively. When considering other typical energy efficiency measures, the highest impact on the energy performance was found when improving the specific fan power (SFP) and switching to LED lights with total electricity reductions (including user-based electricity consumption) of 4 % and 14 %, respectively. Conclusively, the case study showed how the electricity and heating demand of the studied office building could be reduced, and the environmental and economic consequences of the different energy-efficiency measures.