A whole life cycle performance-based ECOnomic and ECOlogical assessment framework (ECO2) for concrete sustainability

• Published in: Journal of cleaner production Vol. 292; p. 126060
• Main Authors: Hafez, Hisham, Kurda, Rawaz, Al-Ayish, Nadia, Garcia-Segura, Tatiana, Cheung, Wai Ming, Nagaratnam, Brabha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 10.04.2021
• Subjects: Built environment; Carbon sequestration; Concrete; Concrete mixtures; End of lives; Environmental impact; Framework; Life cycle assessment; MCDA; Multi-criteria decision analysis; Reinforced concrete; Sustainability; Sustainability assessment; Sustainability objectives; Sustainable development; Whole life cycles; Life cycle assessment; Concrete; Sustainability; Framework; MCDA
• ISSN: 0959-6526; 1879-1786; 1879-1786
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126060

Concrete is the primary building material worldwide with a substantial impact on the built environment sustainability. Hence, it is necessary to assess concrete’s combined functionality, economic and environmental impact. In this paper, two concrete sustainability assessment frameworks, MARS-SC and CONCRETop, were studied. Building on the identified gaps, a new framework, ECO2 was developed. ECO2 is a multi-criteria decision analysis framework that accounts for carbon sequestration of concrete, impact allocation of raw materials, and the impact from the use and end-of-life phases. Hence, it could be used to optimize the proportions of a concrete mix based on a user-defined sustainability objective. A case study concluded that, due to the whole life cycle scope, the environmental impact calculated through ECO2 is 20% higher than that by MARS-SC and CONCRETop. In case of reinforced concrete, where service life requirements are different, the ranking of the alternatives according to ECO2 will significantly change comparatively.