The effect of data age on the assessment of a building’s embodied energy

Abstract

Data used to quantify the embodied energy of a building, known as life cycle inventory (LCI) data, varies widely in temporal relevance. The energy associated with construction material production and building construction changes regularly due to improvements in manufacturing and construction processes, and energy mix and intensity. Older LCI data may not be representative of the current industry. Due to the time and costs involved in compiling LCIs, many studies rely on outdated data, yet no studies have considered the effect of data age on the analysis of a building’s embodied energy. A reliable embodied energy value is critical to ensure energy reduction efforts have been effective. This ..