Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings

Placeholder page for the supporting reference Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings, part of the Examitect reading list for the ExAC.

On this page

LCA Practice Guide at a glance

Quick facts about the guide and where it lands on Examitect's ExAC study plan.

Full titleLife Cycle Assessment of Buildings: A Practice Guide
PublisherCarbon Leadership Forum, Department of Architecture, University of Washington
VersionVersion 1.1, June 2019
AuthorsKathrina Simonen, Monica Huang, Barbara X. Rodriguez, Lindsay Todaro
FundingCharles Pankow Foundation, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and Skanska USA
LanguagesEnglish
LicenceCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (free PDF)
Primary audienceBuilding professionals: architects, engineers, and contractors learning to use LCA in design practice
ExAC relevanceSupplementary resource for Section 3, category 13.2 Apply the principles of life cycle analysis

Why it matters for the ExAC

The ExAC tests whether you can reason about sustainability as a design decision. Category 13.2 in Section 3 asks you to apply the principles of life cycle analysis. The LCA Practice Guide is one of three supplementary resources listed for that category on Examitect's ExAC study plan. The other two are Embodied Carbon, A Primer for Buildings in Canada and Reducing Embodied Carbon in Buildings (RMI, 2021).

What this guide adds that the others do not is methodology. It teaches you how a whole-building LCA is structured, what goes into an inventory, how to define a system boundary, and how to interpret and check results. That process-level knowledge is what the ExAC tests when it presents a scenario and asks what step comes next, or what a team should do when an LCA result looks unusually high.

The guide also introduces vocabulary that shows up in LEED v4, the CaGBC Zero Carbon Building Standard, and the NBC 2020's emerging requirements for building energy and carbon reporting. Knowing the terms before the exam means you recognize them under time pressure rather than pausing to decode them.

ExAC sections this reference supports

Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Section 4

What this guide is

Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings: A Practice Guide is the Carbon Leadership Forum's introduction to LCA for building professionals. Version 1.1 was published in June 2019. The guide addresses three foundational questions: how do buildings impact the environment, what is LCA and how is it used to evaluate buildings, and what does the process of performing a building LCA actually look like?

The guide is organized in two parts. Part A (Introduction) explains the life cycle stages of a building, defines key impact categories, and surveys how LCA is used in the building industry. Part B (Implementation) walks through the five steps of conducting an LCA, from defining the goal and scope through reporting the results. A companion set of online resources, including technical guidance documents and a list of LCA tools, accompanies the guide.

Although the guide was developed for a North American audience, its authors note that the principles of LCA are generally applicable to any region, with differences in the relevant standards, datasets, and tools. That makes it useful context for Canadian practice and for the ExAC.

Inside the guide: two parts

The guide divides into a Part A Introduction and a Part B Implementation. Read them in order. Part A is short and gives you the conceptual frame. Part B is where the actionable methodology lives.

PartWhat it coversWhy it matters for the ExAC
Part A
Introduction		 How buildings generate environmental impacts across four life cycle stages (A, B, C, D). Definitions of emissions and impact categories. A survey of how LCA is used in the building industry, including for green building certification, carbon accounting, and design comparison. Gives you the vocabulary and the conceptual frame. Know the four stages, the five impact categories, and the difference between embodied and operational carbon before you open Part B.
Part B
Implementation		 The five steps of conducting a building LCA: define goal and scope, collect inventory, perform impact assessment, interpret results, and report results. Covers system boundaries, functional equivalence, reference study periods, scenarios, sensitivity analysis, biogenic carbon, and verification. This is the part the exam draws from for scenario questions. Know the five steps, the conditions under which you iterate, what a sensitivity analysis is for, and why biogenic carbon is contentious.

The guide also includes an abbreviations list and a references section. The abbreviations list is worth a quick read because LCA literature uses a lot of acronyms: LCI, EPD, EN 15978, WBLCA, GWP, EUI. Recognizing them in context saves time when you hit them in exam questions.

The five LCA steps

Part B organizes the LCA process into five steps. The guide stresses that this is an iterative process: you may return to step 1 after completing step 4 if the results do not meet your original goal or if you discover data gaps. Know both the steps and the logic of when to loop back.

StepWhat you doKey decisions and concepts
1
Define goal and scope		 State why you are conducting the LCA, who the audience is, and what the analysis will cover. Functional equivalence (the "apples-to-apples" description of the building), reference study period, system boundary (physical scope plus life cycle scope), and which impact categories to assess.
2
Collect inventory		 Gather material quantities, lifespans, transportation distances, construction activities, operational energy use, and end-of-life scenarios for everything within your system boundary. LCA tools use LCI databases to attach impact factors to materials. Know what an LCI is and why EPDs can serve as product-specific inputs.
3
Perform impact assessment		 Use an LCA tool or manual calculations to convert the inventory into environmental impact results by life cycle stage and building component. Separate results by stage. The five most common impact categories: GWP, acidification potential, eutrophication potential, ozone depletion potential, smog formation potential.
4
Interpret results		 Check for errors, break down results by component and stage, perform sensitivity and uncertainty analyses, and develop conclusions. A typical embodied carbon figure for structure, foundation, and enclosure is under 1,000 kg CO2e/m2 based on the Embodied Carbon Benchmark Study cited in the guide. Values significantly above that signal a possible error.
5
Report results		 Document goal, scope, inventory, scenarios, results, and interpretation in a format that can be verified by a third party if needed. If the LCA will be shared externally or used to support a comparative assertion, verification by an independent reviewer is required under ISO standards.

Key LCA terms every ExAC candidate should know

The guide introduces vocabulary that the ExAC reuses without redefining. Learn these terms before you read, so you spend study time on the content rather than the language.

TermWhat it means on the ExAC
Life cycle assessment (LCA)A methodology for quantifying the environmental impacts of a building across its full life: from raw material extraction through manufacturing, construction, use, and end-of-life.
Life cycle inventory (LCI)A database of emissions and resource use associated with materials and processes. LCI databases are the data source behind LCA tools. Different LCIs reflect different regional practices and are not always directly comparable.
Embodied carbonGreenhouse gas emissions from producing, transporting, installing, maintaining, and disposing of building materials. Reported as global warming potential in kg CO2 equivalent.
Operational carbonEmissions from running the building: heating, cooling, lighting, and plug loads. Corresponds to life cycle stage B6 in the EN 15978 standard.
Cradle-to-gate (A1 to A3)A life cycle scope limited to raw material supply (A1), transport to the manufacturing facility (A2), and manufacturing (A3). Also called "up-front embodied carbon."
Cradle-to-graveA life cycle scope spanning raw material extraction through end-of-life demolition and disposal, including all use-stage impacts.
Whole-building life cycle assessment (WBLCA)An LCA applied to an entire building. Typically covers structure, enclosure, and foundations at minimum. Required for LEED v4 embodied carbon credits and the CaGBC Zero Carbon Building Standard.
Environmental Product Declaration (EPD)A standardized, third-party-verified document reporting the environmental impacts of a specific product. Used as product-level input data in a WBLCA. EPDs produced under different program operators are not always directly comparable.
Global warming potential (GWP)A measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas traps relative to CO2 over a defined period. Reported in kg CO2 equivalent. The most commonly tracked LCA impact category in building projects.
Functional unitAn objective description of the building's key function used to ensure "apples-to-apples" comparisons in LCA. In whole-building LCA, this is called functional equivalence.
Reference study period (RSP)The time span, in years, used as the basis for the LCA. Affects operational energy totals and the number of material replacement cycles counted. The guide recommends running the model at both fifty and one hundred years when the building lifespan is uncertain.
Biogenic carbonCarbon stored in biological materials such as wood. Whether to credit carbon sequestration in wood products is a contested issue; the guide presents two reporting options rather than prescribing one.
Sensitivity analysisA technique for identifying which variables in the LCA have the greatest effect on the results. Used in step 4 to flag uncertain inputs and strengthen conclusions.

How it compares to other ExAC sustainability references

Three supplementary references share category 13.2 on Examitect's ExAC study plan. Each plays a different role. Read them together, not as substitutes for each other.

ReferenceWhat it adds
Life Cycle Assessment of Buildings, A Practice Guide (CLF, 2019)The methodology guide. Explains how a WBLCA is set up, what goes into an inventory, how to define a system boundary, and how to check and report results. Read this to understand the process.
Embodied Carbon, A Primer for Buildings in CanadaThe Canadian companion. Same concepts as the CLF guide, with Canadian materials data, policy context, and rating-system mapping specific to the CaGBC and provincial regulators.
Reducing Embodied Carbon in Buildings (RMI, 2021)The design decision guide. Proves with case studies that up-front embodied carbon can be cut significantly at low cost premium. Read this to understand which materials and decisions move the number.
CHING, Building Construction Illustrated (Chapters 1.03 and 12.03)The primary resource for category 13.2. Covers climate analysis for site design (1.03) and building materials with sustainability implications (12.03). Read CHING first; the CLF guide adds LCA methodology on top of that foundation.
CHOP, Chapter 2.5The other primary resource for 13.2. Covers the architect's responsibilities in sustainable design within Canadian practice. Sets the professional-practice frame around the LCA methodology.
NECB 2020Code-level operational energy requirements. Operational carbon is stage B of LCA. The NECB and the LCA guide are the two halves of the building carbon picture.

How to study the LCA Practice Guide for the ExAC

The guide is shorter than the primary references. A focused read takes two to three hours. Work through it in this order:

  1. Read Part A first, all of it. The Introduction is roughly twelve pages and covers the four life cycle stages, the five impact categories, and the logic of why LCA matters for buildings. Do not skip ahead to the five steps until you can describe why buildings have life cycle impacts and how those impacts are measured.
  2. Learn the four life cycle stages by letter. The guide uses A, B, C, and D throughout without always restating the full names. A is production and construction, B is use, C is end-of-life, D is beyond the system boundary. The exam uses this shorthand too.
  3. Work through the five implementation steps in order. Read each step, then write a two-sentence summary of what you decide in that step. If you cannot summarize it, re-read it. Know the conditions under which you loop back to an earlier step.
  4. Spend extra time on Step 1 (scope) and Step 4 (interpretation). System boundary decisions and result interpretation are the most likely exam topics. Know what "functional equivalence" means, what a reference study period is, how a sensitivity analysis works, and what a result of more than 1,000 kg CO2e/m2 might signal.
  5. Read the biogenic carbon section carefully. The guide presents two options for reporting carbon sequestration in wood products. Know what the two options are and why the issue is contested. A question about a mass-timber project and carbon reporting traces directly to this section.
  6. Connect EPDs to the WBLCA workflow. An EPD is the product-level data source for a WBLCA. Know what an EPD contains, why EPDs from different program operators are not always comparable, and when EPD data can substitute for LCI data.
  7. Practice with Examitect questions. Drill life cycle analysis, embodied versus operational carbon, and system-boundary scenarios on Examitect to confirm you can apply the five steps under exam pressure.

ExAC sections this guide supports

The guide is named as a supplementary resource for one category, but the concepts apply across Section 3 and feed into Section 4 specifications questions.

ExAC sectionWhere the LCA Practice Guide shows up
Section 1
Design and analysis		Indirect. Material and structural decisions made during schematic design and design development have the largest impact on up-front embodied carbon. Running an early-stage LCA supports cost management and sustainable design in this section.
Section 2
Codes		The NBC 2020 and NECB 2020 focus on operational energy and code compliance. LCA methodology sits alongside, not within, the code framework. This guide is not listed for Section 2 categories.
Section 3
Sustainability and final project		Primary use. Supplementary resource for category 13.2 Apply the principles of life cycle analysis. Concepts also feed 13.1 (climate change impacts on design) and 13.3 (sustainable architectural design strategies).
Section 4
Construction and practice		Indirect. Specification writing (selecting products with EPDs), bid evaluation (comparing structural systems), and substitution decisions during construction all connect to LCA concepts covered in this guide.

Tips for Intern Architects reading this guide

If you are practising under the Internship in Architecture Program (IAP), these tips connect the guide's concepts to real project work.

Tip 1, ask your office if any projects have run an LCA. If yes, ask to see the scope definition and results. Seeing what goes into a real inventory, and where the data gaps were, makes the five steps concrete rather than abstract. If no project has run one, that gap itself tells you something about how widely LCA has been adopted in your market.

Tip 2, recognize that LCA scope varies widely. When someone says "we did an LCA," ask which life cycle stages were included and whether MEP systems were in or out of scope. Cradle-to-gate (A1 to A3) and cradle-to-grave give you very different numbers. The exam tests whether you can identify the scope from a description, not just accept a number at face value.

Tip 3, GWP is one of five impact categories, not the only one. The guide covers acidification, eutrophication, ozone depletion, and smog formation potential in addition to global warming potential. On the ExAC, you may need to name all five or identify which category a specific emission type affects. Do not study GWP in isolation.

Tip 4, the iterative nature of LCA matters. The guide is explicit that LCA is not a linear process. You define a scope, collect data, run the numbers, and often discover that the data you collected does not match your original scope. The exam may present a scenario where a team needs to go back to step 1 or step 2. Know the conditions that trigger iteration.

Tip 5, connect EPDs to specifications. When you write or review a spec section, you can require EPDs as a product submission. The guide explains what EPDs contain and why data from different program operators is not directly comparable. Knowing this helps you write a spec that requests comparable EPDs rather than any EPD.

Tip 6, wood and biogenic carbon are nuanced. The guide does not prescribe a single approach to carbon sequestration in wood products. It gives two options: ignore sequestration (conservative) or include it with specific additional reporting requirements. If a mass-timber project comes up on the exam, expect a question about the appropriate reporting approach rather than a simple carbon-footprint calculation.

Tip 7, know the 1,000 kg CO2e/m2 benchmark. The guide cites the Embodied Carbon Benchmark Study, which found that the typical embodied carbon of a building's structure, foundation, and enclosure is under 1,000 kg CO2e/m2. That figure is a sanity check for LCA results, not a code limit. If your result is higher, the guide says to look for errors or explain why the value is unusually high.

Common ExAC scenarios where this guide is the answer

If a scenario sounds like one of the following, the reasoning traces back to the LCA Practice Guide or its companion references.

  • A design team is comparing two structural systems early in schematic design. They need to define the functional equivalent, choose the reference study period, and decide which life cycle stages to include in the comparison.
  • An LCA of a concrete building shows embodied carbon results above 1,000 kg CO2e/m2. The project architect needs to determine whether to accept the result or investigate for errors before presenting it to the client.
  • A mass-timber project team wants to claim a carbon benefit from wood sequestration. What are the two reporting options and what additional documentation does each require?
  • A LEED v4 project requires an embodied carbon credit. The architect needs to know that a WBLCA is the required analysis method and that the comparison is a proposed design against a baseline design of equivalent scope and function.
  • A product representative provides an EPD for a cladding system, but the EPD was produced under a different program operator than the one used in the project's LCA software. What is the implication for using this data in the analysis?
  • A project team changes the structural system late in design development. They need to understand which LCA steps they must repeat and what aspects of the scope definition may need to change.
  • An intern is asked to run a sensitivity analysis on concrete content in a residential project. What does that mean, and what would a large sensitivity result tell the team about opportunities to reduce embodied carbon?

How Examitect reinforces the LCA Practice Guide

Reading the guide gets you the concepts. Examitect's question bank puts those concepts into the scenario format the ExAC uses. Category 13.2 questions on Examitect draw on the LCA Practice Guide, the Canadian Embodied Carbon Primer, and the RMI report together, because the ExAC does not signal which specific reference an answer comes from. Each answer explanation points to the relevant concept so you can go back to the source if you need to.

You also get scenario-based questions that connect LCA methodology to real project decisions, full-length mock exams that mirror ExAC pacing, and free study notes for every section. Try a few sample questions first, then check pricing when you want the full bank.

LCA Practice Guide and ExAC FAQ

It is a practice guide published by the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington (version 1.1, June 2019). The guide introduces life cycle assessment for building professionals, explains why buildings have environmental impacts, and walks through the five key steps for conducting a whole-building LCA.

The Carbon Leadership Forum, based in the Department of Architecture at the University of Washington. The guide was funded by the Charles Pankow Foundation, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, and Skanska USA. It is available as a free PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.

Supplementary. On Examitect's ExAC study plan, it is listed as a supplementary resource for Section 3, category 13.2 Apply the principles of life cycle analysis. The primary resources for that category are CHING (chapters 1.03 and 12.03) and CHOP (Chapter 2.5).

Step 1: Define goal and scope. Step 2: Collect inventory. Step 3: Perform impact assessment. Step 4: Interpret results. Step 5: Report results. The guide stresses that this is an iterative process, not a linear one, so expect to cycle back to earlier steps as the design develops or as data gaps emerge.

Embodied carbon covers emissions from producing, transporting, and installing building materials, plus maintenance and end-of-life (life cycle stages A and C, plus B1 to B5). Operational carbon covers emissions from running the building through heating, cooling, lighting, and plug loads (stage B6). Both are tracked in a whole-building LCA.

A whole-building LCA (WBLCA) is an analysis of the total environmental impacts of a building across its defined life cycle stages. It typically includes structure, enclosure, and foundations at minimum, with MEP systems and interiors included where data is available. WBLCA is the analysis method required for LEED v4 embodied carbon credits and the CaGBC Zero Carbon Building Standard.

The guide presents two options without prescribing one. Option 1 is to ignore potential benefits of carbon sequestration, which is the conservative approach. Option 2 is to include potential sequestration benefits, with additional reporting requirements: report biogenic carbon by life cycle module, report sequestration as a separate negative value rather than offsetting positive emissions, and report the forest certification status of the wood. The guide flags biogenic carbon accounting as a complex and contested issue.

WBLCA is the analysis method underlying both LEED v4 embodied carbon credits and the CaGBC Zero Carbon Building Standard. The guide teaches you how to set up and run a WBLCA. Once you understand the five steps, the system boundary concept, and the role of EPDs, you can apply that knowledge directly to the analysis requirements of either rating system.

Keep exploring

Other ExAC reference books.

The LCA Practice Guide is one of several references on Examitect's ExAC study plan. Continue with the others.

CHING

Building Construction Illustrated. The primary resource for category 13.2, including climate analysis and sustainable materials.

CHOP

Canadian Handbook of Practice. The other primary resource for 13.2, covering the architect's sustainability responsibilities in Canadian practice.

Embodied Carbon Primer

Embodied Carbon, A Primer for Buildings in Canada. The Canadian companion to the LCA Practice Guide, with local materials data and policy context.

Reducing Embodied Carbon

RMI's 2021 report on low-cost embodied carbon reductions. Sits alongside the LCA guide as the third supplementary resource for category 13.2.

NECB

National Energy Code for Buildings. Covers operational energy and the other half of a building's carbon picture.

Supporting references

The extended reading list of supplementary references that show up across Examitect's ExAC study plan.