Life-cycle assessment (LCA) has been used to assess product development processes “from cradle to grave” for many years. With the current push toward sustainable construction, LCA has gained importance as an objective method to evaluate the environmental impact of construction practices. A substantial amount of construction-related LCA work has been published recently; however, most of this work has been fragmented and a systematic compilation of this literature has not been undertaken. This article presents a structured review of building construction-related LCA literature, classified under four categories: LCA applications for construction products selection; LCA applications for construction systems/process evaluation; LCA tools and databases related to the construction industry; and LCA methodological developments related to the construction industry. Current challenges for using LCA in construction are discussed and potential areas for future research are highlighted. This review and similar efforts...

Energy performance contracting (EPC) has emerged as a useful project financing and delivery tool for building retrofits, particularly among building ownerships which have experienced reduced funding for capital projects. Through EPC, a contractor (called the EPC contractor or the energy service company) guarantees minimum energy savings performance and enables the building owner to finance the project using utility savings over the length of the project (which is typically 12–15 years, or longer). Despite its growing use, there is a dearth of literature regarding a contractor's risks related to the delivery and execution of EPC building retrofits. This is particularly important as the performance guarantee effectively transfers project performance risk from the owner to the EPC contractor. This research proposes a project factors-based risk framework for EPC building retrofits, initially developed through a comprehensive review of relevant literature and project documents and refined through the elicited expertise of 19 highly experienced EPC contracting professionals. A Delphi technique-based expertise elicitation strategy was used to confirm the findings of the a priori (literature-based) framework and provide additional analysis related to risk causes and control measures as well as relative risk importance. This information was used to construct a refined risk framework which provides insight into the lengthy project performance period during the earliest phases of the project's life cycle. This has the advantage of providing rapid screening of the project factors that can potentially lead to the greatest project performance risks.

The life cycle of the built environment consists of new construction, then rehabilitation and, finally, removal. This concept has taken on a unique importance with the widespread property abandonment in certain urban areas such as Detroit, Michigan. Large concentrations of abandoned properties cause blight and lead to social decline which threatens the public health and community welfare. With increases in the amount of structural abandonment comes issues of government intervention, funding of removal operations, and the large-volume of waste stream generated from removal of these structures. A new area of focus, known as “Domicology” is emerging in response to this abandonment crisis. It examines the life-cycle continuum of building and infrastructure abandonment, and studies the policies, practices, and consequences of human structural abandonment with the goal of finding approaches to reduce the negative environmental, social, and economic impacts of such unsustainable abandonment. The objectives of the research include an overview of various approaches and associated costs for demolition and deconstruction, and development of a comparison matrix for demolition and deconstruction. In addition, it discusses parameters related to urban blight removal in Detroit, Michigan. It is hoped that this discussion will help promote environmentally responsible options in the removal of urban abandoned structures.

Energy performance contracting provides guaranteed minimum energy savings to building owners, enabling them to finance project costs using utility savings over the duration of the project. This has been an attractive project delivery method for organizations with reduced budgets for capital projects, particularly among correctional facilities which frequently have lengthy periods of deferred maintenance and ongoing building operations and maintenance concerns. This research builds on a previously developed project factors risk framework for energy service companies undertaking building retrofits. This paper proposes a risk analysis and evaluation model that includes quantitative, expert-based, and probabilistically derived information. Expected cost was used to evaluate risks over lengthy project life cycles and a new metric was developed for use in the model—expected life cycle value. Model results reveal that the most critical risk factors relate to the reduced availability of “low-hanging fruit” energy conservation measures, work scopes based on traditional design-bid-build procurement, unavailable or inaccurate facility information, facility age and current code requirements, and conducting the investment grade audit too quickly. The life cycle cost-based risk model employed in this paper is proposed as an advancement over traditional risk management methods, and it is expected to be applicable, with modification, across other municipal and state government subdomains, especially high security projects.