A Life Cycle Assessment of the Mathematics Building

A Life Cycle Assessment for the Mathematics Building at the University of British Columbia (UBC) has been completed in conjunction with 29 other buildings at the UBC campus. The ultimate goal is to have a database of LCA’s for all buildings at UBC enabling comparisons to be made between buildings with different structure types, functions and over time. Only the structure and envelope are included in the building model and environmental impacts are only considered for the manufacture and construction phases. The Mathematics building, built in 1925, is a 2 story wood frame building and is comprised of 18 classrooms, 21 offices and a 250 person capacity lecture hall. 2 software programs - The Athena Sustainable Material Institute’s Environmental Impact Estimator and OnCentre’s OnScreen Takeoff - are used to assist with the material takeoff for the building. The EIE is used to assess the environmental impacts of building materials. The Math Building was found to have approximately 20 to 40% of the impacts per square foot that the average UBC building produces in terms of energy consumption, resource use, eutrophication potential, acidification potential, smog potential, human health effects potential and global warming potential. The high proportion of wood caused the ozone depletion potential to be 150% the average UBC building. Sensitivity analysis determined that the model is most sensitive to concrete for most impact categories and to wood for ozone depletion potential. Using a simple energy model, it was determined that if insulation is added to the walls and roof of the as built structure, the energy payback period is less than 2 weeks and the operating energy demand is reduced by 2,500GJ/year.[Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”]Applied Science, Faculty ofCivil Engineering, Department ofUnreviewedUndergraduat