Ivy (Huixin) Peng
Towards More Consistent and Transparent Toxicity Assessment within Life Cycle Assessment in the Building Sector
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a well-recognized tool for quantifying environmental impacts and is widely applied in the building sector. As a powerful tool for accelerating sustainability and promoting healthier and greener development, LCA has nonetheless shown shortcomings in certain aspects. LCA examines a wide range of environmental impact categories, among which human toxicity, as one of the impact categories, shows some inconsistencies.
Human toxicity impacts in building materials are an important topic and should receive much more attention to avoid carbon tunnel vision. Toxicity impacts, which are directly related to human health, are linked to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), which explains the importance of this research.
This research has focused on LCA and human toxicity of building materials and has extended into several related areas, including the data quality of life cycle inventory databases (e.g. ecoinvent), the differences in toxicity characterization among different life cycle assessment methods, and toxicity reporting in environmental product declarations (EPDs). The materials examined include common systemic materials used in construction, and the scope is extending to a wider range of material groups. The final goal of the research is to contribute to the development of LCA in assessing toxicity impacts, thus making it a more robust tool.
Supervisors
Dr Emina Petrovic & Fabricio Chicca
Qualifications
- Master of Architecture, Victoria University of Wellington 2024
- Bachelor of Engineering in Architecture, Xi'an University of Science and Technology 2023
Publications
Peng, H., & Petrović, E. K. (2024). Understanding the Differences in LCA Tools for Building Environmental Impact Assessment: A Comparative Analysis of New Zealand House Case Study.
Peng, H., Petrović, E. K., & Chicca, F. (2025). Quantifying toxicity underreporting in Environmental Product Declarations for building materials: A case study of PVC
Conferences
2024 – Architectural Science Association (ASA) Conference, Brisbane, Australia – Oral presentation
2025 – International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH), Wellington, New Zealand – Poster presentation
2025 – Architectural Science Association (ASA) Conference, Melbourne, Australia – Oral presentation