Developments in Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) - application to the construction and demolition sector in France

Anne-Lise Fevre-Gautier (1) , Antoine Beylot (1) , Stéphane Vaxelaire (1)

1 BRGM - Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM)

The results of a project aiming at developing a methodology for sustainability analysis dedicated to infrastructures and buildings construction projects will be presented. This research project was carried out in collaboration with ADEME (French agency of environment and energy control), University of technology of Troyes, the Industrial Ecology Club (guild) of Aube and Eiffage (French public works firm). The project is based on a specific case-study concerning the construction of a part of the ring road of Troyes city (Aube, France) where alternative construction materials and techniques, such as secondary raw materials and local natural resources, have been used. A sustainability LCA framework was designed, built on environmental and social LCA methodologies to assess the environmental and social efficiency of such construction projects. It was applied to the case study to compare its global performance with a similar case which would have been conducted in "business as usual" conditions. An environmental LCA was conducted, based on existing international standards. At the same time, a S-LCA methodology was developed on the basis of UNEP-SETAC Guidelines and applied to the French sector of building and construction, to assess social impacts supported by the system's stakeholders. Results showed a high contribution of natural mineral resources use in the total environmental impact, due to extraction and transportation. It was also demonstrated that the energy necessary for asphalt production was much higher than the one for its implementation. Environmental impacts are thus highly dependent on asphalt production and natural mineral resources' quantities and origin. Regarding social impacts, specific impacts categories, indicators and data were searched for and an impacts screening was conducted. Based on sectorial data, it focuses on two stakeholders' categories: workers and local communities. Final results highlight the fact that S-LCA needs strong methodological developments to address intra Europe comparative case-studies and to produce methodologies for system definition, data inventory, impacts characterization, reference databases and indicators.

Domaines: Environnement et Société

Anne-Lise Fevre-Gautier, Antoine Beylot, Stéphane Vaxelaire. Developments in Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) for Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) - application to the construction and demolition sector in France. 6th SETAC World Congress/SETAC Europe 22nd Annual Meeting, May 2012, Berlin, Germany. ⟨hal-00671271⟩