Ivy Peng
Enhancing Life Cycle Assessment Data Quality: A Framework for Toxicity Reporting in the Construction Sector
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a well-recognized tool for quantifying environmental impacts and is widely applied in the building sector. The role of LCA extends beyond the assessment of building materials and products, reaching even the urban scale. As a powerful tool for accelerating sustainability and promoting healthier and greener development, LCA has nonetheless shown shortcomings in reporting human health impacts. This limitation arises partly because priority is often given to indicators such as climate change and energy use.
Human health impact is the most direct type of impact, serving as a way to explicitly communicate the potential harm to people caused by emissions or resource consumption from the selected processes. This research first identified the issue of potential underestimation of toxicity in LCA for building materials through a review of LCA databases and published Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). A case study on PVC, one of the most widely used plastics in the construction sector, revealed clear underreporting of toxicity in LCA results, particularly at the end-of-life stage. The toxicity impacts from disposal processes are significantly underestimated, while the trade-off between recycling, its “greening” effect, and associated toxicity is largely overlooked. Further work seeks to quantify the extent of underreporting and investigate the reasons behind it. The final outcome is to develop a framework that addresses this issue and proposes solutions for better integrating human health impacts within LCA.
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. In F. Zhang, R. Yu, C. Bischeri, T. Liu, & M. Khoshbakht (Eds.), Harmony in architectural science and design: Sustaining the future. Proceedings of the 57th International Conference of the Architectural Science Association 2024 (pp. 584–591).
Conferences
On Thursday, 28th November 2024, I presented my paper, Understanding the Differences in LCA Tools for Building Environmental Impact Assessment: A Comparative Analysis of a New Zealand House Case Study, at the 57th International Conference of the Architectural Science Association 2024.