Whole building life cycle assessment (WBLCA) of mass timber systems: European vs North American mass timber vs steel

45 pagesWhole Building Life Cycle Assessments (WBLCA) are helpful tools in the evaluation of the environmental impacts of all of the components in a building. Inputs (like material extraction and manufacturing) and outputs (such as carbon emissions) are measured over the entire life cycle of the building. The goal is to minimize the negative impacts on the environment over the whole life cycle of the building. In this case we performed the WBLCA for a mixed use building in San Francisco California utilizing the software Tally. We compared three different building systems, North American mass timber, Austrian mass timber, and steel. The results from our comparative analysis show that concrete is the majority of the global warming potential and embodied energy regardless of the system. This paper supports and has shown the potential of Mass Timber material being used in building industries to minimize environmental impact