Life Cycle Assessment of a passive house in a seismic temperate zone

This paper presents the results of a detailed LCA study of a low-energy consumption building (thermal energy for heating equal to 11 kWh/m(2) year) located in Perugia, Italy, according to European ISO 14040 and 14044. The building matches the criteria of environmental sustainability and bio-architecture, complying with the "PassivHaus" standard. All life cycle phases were included in the research: acquisition and production of materials, on-site construction and use/maintenance, demolition and material disposal (100% landfilling and demolition with waste recycling). A life span of 70 years was considered. The research was therefore focused on cradle-to-grave life, based on data collected by authors, integrated with data from the literature. In particular the study was carried out to analyze: the benefits due to the use of recycled materials, a solar PV (during the utilization years) and the final demolition of the building. The LCA modeling was performed using the SimaPro software application, connected to the ecoinvent database. The results show that applying energy saving measures (highly insulated building envelope and passive-house standard, solar PV, waste recycling and recycled products in pre-production phase) could significantly decrease the impact of modern dwellings, with the consciousness that new ways of building do not always provide a positive environmental outcome. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.