On course for sustainability: Design driven by early lifecycle analysis
Janneke Verkerk-Evers, Sustainability Lead for Permasteelisa Group in Europe, explores how our façade designers and engineers globally are using early lifecycle analysis to drive sustainable decision-making.
As the need to create more sustainable buildings intensifies, our team at Permasteelisa Group is focused on how to reduce the embodied carbon associated with our bespoke façades.
It has long been clear that carrying out a lifecycle analysis (LCA) is key – we can only make meaningful improvements if we understand the environmental impacts of a façade from materials and manufacturing through to installation, maintenance and eventual demolition. However, with a bespoke façade incorporating a wide range of materials and components, from multiple suppliers, an accurate analysis isn’t easy.
Traditionally, the main contractor would task external consultants with carrying out this exercise across all subcontracted works, sourcing and co-ordinating the necessary information. However, all too often, sending out information requests and compiling data from a wide range of sources led to errors of misinterpretation, omissions and double counting.
Our solution
In response, we brought the analysis in-house, starting to perform the LCA ourselves, early in a project.
We translate the data gained from our supply chain and from our own activities to quantify the impact across the various environmental impact categories within an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), such as ozone layer depletion, toxicity, over-fertilisation and global warming potential. This last category is a particular priority for many specifiers, contractors and building owners, as it relates to carbon emissions. At the moment the focus lies on lifecycle stages A1–A5, covering raw material extraction, factory assembly, through to on-site installation, but an EPD also gives information about the later stages up until demolition and waste processing of the materials.
This process enables us to obtain EPDs for our bespoke façades – and we are proud to have been the first façade company in the world to have done so.
However, more valuable is the way we use the data gained from the LCA to optimise the façade’s environmental performance, always of course in balance with criteria such as aesthetics, technical performance, functionality, availability of materials and costs.
Data-driven decisions
As Lead Concept Design Tim Debets explains, our clients appreciate having the LCA findings early in a project, when the sustainability of a façade design can still be influenced without major consequences. “This approach gives clients an early insight into the embodied carbon of their chosen design and a confirmation whether the targets set by the façade consultants can be met within current design and budget. We are able to provide complete and realistic values because our calculations are based on the full delivery chain, from design to procurement (non-supplier dependent), production, logistics and site installation.”
Where necessary, our designers and engineers can use this information gathered through the LCA to consider how to modify a design to increase sustainability. For example, to reduce unnecessary materials they might explore the impact of using different materials to clad the outside of an opaque panel, analysing factors such as weight, strength, thickness and fixing methods. Once the optimum materials have been identified, our procurement specialists might use information on production methods and associated carbon emissions to identify the best suppliers.
Continuous learning
Each time we carry out this process, we gain new knowledge about sustainable façade design that we can draw on for future projects.
For example, the first bespoke façade for which we gained an EPD was at the n2 office building at London’s Nova development. Here, our lifecycle analysis determined the total carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions associated with a complete façade panel, as well as emissions per square metre. It also identified the proportional impact of different components on carbon emissions. Glazing and aluminium extrusions were the two main contributors, followed by an opaque spandrel panel. Other factors like transport, energy use and waste during assembly had less impact.
We have since applied this knowledge to other façade designs, such as the 12-storey office building at 2 Aldermanbury Square in London, where a detailed analysis has been conducted, including the use of low carbon aluminium extrusions, which resulted in a 20% reduction in embodied carbon.
To date, we’ve developed 13 verified EPDs for custom façades in Europe, plus two in the United States, and we’re learning with each project.
Foundations for the future
As this suggests, as an organisation we’re deeply committed to driving continuous improvement in sustainable façade design.
Using the structure of an EPD to help us achieve this is undoubtedly helpful – it increases our clients’ confidence in the embodied carbon numbers we provide and also brings all the different components together into one document. While carbon emissions are currently the primary focus, we believe it is likely that other impact categories within EPDs are likely to gain more attention over time. In-house lifecycle analysis will be essential for tracking and managing these broader impacts.
However, as already suggested, the real value of an EPD lies in the work done before the certificate is published. By carrying out an early lifecycle analysis for our projects, we’re providing a powerful tool for decision-making and engineering, leading to more sustainable façades and shaping future designs.
Early insights mean better environmental outcomes, not only for individual projects, but for the built environment as a whole.