Life cycle assessment of construction projects

The construction industry is one of the world's largest consumers of natural resources such as wood, sand, gravel and stone. The extraction of these resources damages the environment and the climate. The construction industry therefore faces major challenges in terms of sustainable development.

GHG balancing of buildings in the early planning phase is already becoming more and more common practice. Common assessment systems such as BNB, QNG or DGNB have firmly anchored the CO₂e parameter in their criteria catalogues with a high weighting. The ifeu calculates the emissions required by the certification systems.

However, civil engineering is also increasingly becoming the focus of attention, with a technical guideline for the establishment of so-called CO₂ shadow prices for infrastructure construction measures at EU level. At state level, ordinances are and have already been passed that implement Section 13 of the Federal Climate Protection Act, which requires CO₂ emissions to be taken into account in the planning, selection and implementation of investments and in procurement.

The ifeu supports authorities in the preparation of CO₂ indicators for standardised infrastructure construction measures or calculates detailed construction projects in various design variants in order to identify the alternative with the lowest CO₂ impact.