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Sustainable building design suffers from a lack of reliable life cycle data. The purpose of this paper is to compare life cycle costs of sustainable building projects, examine the magnitude of various cost drivers and discuss the implications of an emerging shift in cost drivers.

This paper is based on data from 21 office buildings certified in Denmark according to the sustainable certification scheme DGNB.

The paper supports previous findings that construction costs and running costs each roughly make up half of the life cycle costs over a 50-year period. More surprising is the finding that the life cycle costs for cleaning are approximately twice as high as the supply costs for energy and water.

The data set is based on actual construction costs of office buildings constructed in 2013-2017. Although all running costs are calculated rather than measured, they are based on a more detailed, specific and industry-supported set of calculation assumptions than is usual for life cycle costing studies because of extensive collaborative work in a number of concomitant national research and development projects.

Authorities, clients and building professionals heavily emphasise energy-saving measures in new Danish buildings. The paper suggests redirecting this effort towards other more prominent cost drivers like cleaning and technical installations.

This paper provides a notable contribution to the academic understanding of the significance of different cost drivers as well as the practical implementation of life cycle costing.

The architecture, engineering and construction industry faces several challenges when performing life-cycle cost calculations. On the basis of activity theory, this study aims at improving our understanding of the current cost calculation in design practices as an activity system with a number of built-in contradictions.

Drawing on one of the authors’ practical experience from a design office, the research design comprises a paradigmatic case study of a Danish architecture firm, in which data are gathered through documents, observations, interviews and physical artefacts. Moreover, this paper applies a literature review on barriers for adopting life-cycle costing.

The paper identifies a number of primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary contradictions between practices of design, cost calculations and data management. Thus, hypotheses are formulated on how and to what extent these different contradictions shape cost calculations in design practices to obstruct or support the application of life cycle costing principles in design.

This study is part of an ongoing research project. Thus, additional analysis is required before the authors may conclude on final results.

This paper identifies a number of factors that obstruct or support the implementation of life cycle costing in current design practices.

This paper provides new insights into the various contradictions that shape data management in architectural offices as a prerequisite for improving life cycle design practices.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the production cycle of glazed porcelain stoneware, from the extraction of raw materials to the packaging of the finished product, with the aim of verifying the effects of integrating an environmental impact assessment into the decision-making process for managing the life cycle, to make it economically and ecologically sustainable, in a holistic approach along the supply-chain.

The research is performed using the life cycle assessment and life cycle costing methodologies, to identify environmental impacts and costs, that occur during extraction of raw materials, transportation, ceramic tiles production, material handling, distribution and end-of-life stages within a cradle to grave perspective.

Through the use of a comprehensive analysis of the environmental impact assessment and related externalities, three possible strategic options to improve the environmental performance and costs of ceramic tile production were formulated, leveraging sustainability as a competitive advantage.

This exploratory research opens future lines of investigation, the first of which is to confirm the technological feasibility and market responsiveness to the three strategic solutions hypothesised thanks to the use of an innovative eco-design technique.

The research has allowed testing and validating the tools of environmental impact assessment (life cycle assessment) and economic impact assessment (life cycle costing as structured methodologies in a life cycle management framework, to help companies implement competitive strategies based on sustainability.

The aviation industry has seen consistent growth over the past few decades. To maintain its sustainability and competitiveness, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of the environmental impacts across the entire life cycle of the industry, including materials, processes and resources; manufacturing and production; lifetime services; reuse; end-of-life; and recycling. One important component of aircraft engines, integral rotors known as Blisks, are made of high-value metallic alloys that require complex and resource-intensive manufacturing processes. The purpose of this paper is to assess the ecological and economical impacts generated through Blisk production and thereby identify significant ‘hot-spots’.

This paper focuses on the methodology and approach for conducting a full-scale Blisk life cycle assessment (LCA) based on ISO 14040/44. Unlike previous papers in the European Aerospace Science Network series, which focused on the first two stages of LCA, this publication delves into the “life cycle impact assessment” and “interpretation” stages, providing an overview of the life cycle inventory modeling, impact category selection and presenting preliminary LCA results for the Blisk manufacturing process chain.

The result shows that the milled titanium Blisk has a lower CO₂ footprint than the milled nickel Blisk, which is less than half of the global warming potential (GWP) of the milled nickel Blisk. A main contributor to GWP arises from raw material production. However, no recycling scenarios were included in the analysis, which will be the topic of further investigations.

The originality of this work lies in the detailed ecological assessment of the manufacturing for complex engine components and the derivation of hot spots as well as potential improvements in terms of eco-footprint reduction throughout the products cradle-to-gate cycle. The LCA results serve as a basis for future approaches of process chain optimisation, use of “greener” materials and individual process improvements.

Recently, there has been a shift toward the embodied energy assessment of buildings. However, the impact of material service life on the life-cycle embodied energy has received little attention. We aimed to address this knowledge gap, particularly in the context of the UAE and investigated the embodied energy associated with the use of concrete and other materials commonly used in residential buildings in the hot desert climate of the UAE.

Using input–output based hybrid analysis, we quantified the life-cycle embodied energy of a villa in the UAE with over 50 years of building life using the average, minimum, and maximum material service life values. Mathematical calculations were performed using MS Excel, and a detailed bill of quantities with >170 building materials and components of the villa were used for investigation.

For the base case, the initial embodied energy was 57% (7390.5 GJ), whereas the recurrent embodied energy was 43% (5,690 GJ) of the life-cycle embodied energy based on average material service life values. The proportion of the recurrent embodied energy with minimum material service life values was increased to 68% of the life-cycle embodied energy, while it dropped to 15% with maximum material service life values.

The findings provide new data to guide building construction in the UAE and show that recurrent embodied energy contributes significantly to life-cycle energy demand. Further, the study of material service life variations provides deeper insights into future building material specifications and management considerations for building maintenance.

Quality in the construction industry is an important issue yet ignored during the initial stages of the life cycle of a project, that is, the design and construction stage. The contribution of stakeholders, especially the architects is generally suspended though it has huge significance in terms of cost and time related to quality. This research endeavors to examine the issues related to the design and construction stages of the project from architects' purview, to understand the relative importance of these issues in the Indian construction industry.

The study of qualitative data conducted formed a basis for online quantitative data collection that was further analyzed with the help of cross-tabulation and multiple correspondence analysis methods.

The study concludes that the budget of a project is a corresponding factor related to quality concern for architects. The study also established that the quality issues corresponding to high budgets are closely related to the construction stage and are identified as preparation of checklist, and bidding process of hiring the contractor on the lowest bid.

The study is limited to analyzing the perspective of architects; however, other stakeholders of the construction industry may represent a different opinion.

This research emphasizes the importance of the client's role, and need for integration and coordination among stakeholders in the construction industry for effective quality control and management.

The research presents an exhaustive literature review on quality issues and its importance with respect to cost implications, standard practices, sustainability and the life cycle of the project.

The purpose of this study is to identify how the responsibilities and costs of planning, controlling and executing the material, resource and waste flows are shifted between actors when introducing a construction logistics setup (CLS) as a product innovation in a construction project, compared to the traditional way of organizing these activities.

This study is an analytical conceptual research study which aims to bring new insights into a problem through logical relationship building. Empirical data are gathered in two cases where CLSs are used, through observations and interviews regarding how the activities within the order-to-delivery process are performed. The results have been discussed at workshops with suppliers, installation companies, contractor firms and trade unions.

The outcome of this study is a model for illustrating how costs and responsibilities are shifted in the construction project and supply chain when a CLS is introduced. The cost shift is dependent on the activity shift that accompanies the services included in the setup.

The practical contribution of this work is twofold. First, this study provides a methodology of how to evaluate the impact of logistics services on the actors in the construction project. Second, this study shows shifts in costs and responsibilities in logistics activities with the introduction of construction logistics services.

The theoretical contributions of the model and this study lie in the inclusion of a multi-actor perspective in total cost modelling in supply chains.