A theoretical review of building life cycle stages and their related environmental impacts

Abstract: There six life cycle stages of buildings are: raw material extraction; manufacturing; construction; operation and maintenance; demolition; and disposal, reuse or recycling. The life cycle stages of a building are all intensively involved, in that the use of natural resources, energy and water are consumed in each of them. This paper investigate the environmental impacts across each of these stages. Furthermore, the paper also highlight the role the building sector on the total global environmental impacts in terms of the building sector’s contribution to waste generation, pollution, amongst others. This is done in order to encourage and to inform ways which can be incorporated into the building sector in order to reduce their impact on the environment. The study is conducted with reference to existing theoretical literature, published and unpublished research. The study is mainly a literature review/survey on the life cycle stages of a building. The key findings from the study are that energy is consumed across all the stages of a building. Environmental impact such as greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation and pollution etc. associated with a building are declared to be of a great quantity due to many and relatively long life cycle stages a building have. This study is valuable to the South African built environment, construction industry, infrastructure development and/or sustainable urban development