Lawson, W R (1996) Life cycle energy analysis of buildings revisited. Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction, 1(3), pp. 83-94. ISSN 1366-4387
Abstract
Much emphasis has been given to the energy consumption of buildings in use and more recently to embodied energy, the energy consumed in procuring the materials and constructing and maintaining the building. However, an energy efficient building may not necessarily be an environmentally sound building. Energy consumption is only one way in which the environmental impacts of a material or building may be assessed, albeit a relatively easy to measure way. Care should be taken in the assignment of embodied energy values to materials and buildings as they may be subject to wide variations. These may be due to the methodological assumptions underlying the assessment or reflect actual differences in technology and energy consumption. It is necessary to have the boundaries of the system being studied clearly defined to avoid possibly misleading conclusions being drawn. This is not necessarily a problem unless unlike methods or absolute values are sought rather than relative values.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | sustainability, embodied energy, life cycle assessment |
| Index terms: | energy consumption, embodied energy, energy-efficient building, life cycle assessment, environmental impact, variation, boundaries, life cycle energy |
| Subjects: | energy systems, contractual condition, environmental impact, property law, sustainable design |
| Topics: | Sustainability, Legal Issues, Contract Administration |
| Descriptive scope: | 2 PC |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here