Life Cycle Assessment Models for Building Systems

This dataset is a set of life cycle assessment (LCA) models for select building systems and components that have been developed by the Applied Economics Office of the Engineering Laboratory. An LCA model consists of two components: an inventory and a dataset(s). An inventory compiles and quantifies environmentally relevant flows: products, materials (including waste and emissions), or energy as defined in ISO 14040. Datasets contain environmentally relevant information of the process producing or treating the related flow. Datasets are commonly referred to as "processes" or "process models" in LCA literature. The models published here are "bridged" (i.e., call on) to publicly available life cycle inventory (LCI) databases available on the Federal LCA Commons (USLCI and eLCI databases). These models are built in openLCA, a free, public LCA modeling software tool. Users can download the ZIP file and upload directly into openLCA to use the models. The models are examples and provide a template (i.e., starting point) for structuring an LCA model for the specific product. The inventory should not be considered representative for an entire industry. The models will also be available in NIST's building systems repository on the Federal LCA Commons (https://www.lcacommons.gov/lca-collaboration/NIST/building_systems/datasets).