Life cycle assessment of stone buildings in the Taihang mountains of Hebei province: Evolution towards cleaner production and operation

The building sector has gained significant attention due to its remarkably high energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In China's rural areas, stone is a popular building material, but there are unprecedented demands to improve the life-cycle performance of stone buildings. It is essential to preserve the original architectural...

Life cycle assessment of material footprint in recycling: A case of concrete recycling

Meeting the current demand for concrete requires not only mining tons of gravel and sand, but also burning large amounts of fossil fuel resources in cement kilning. Consequently, concrete recycling is crucial to achieving a material-efficient society, especially with the application of various categories of concrete and the goal of phasing...

Parameter optimization of environmental technologies using a LCA-based analysis scheme: A bioaugmentation case study

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has proven to be a useful tool in assessing environmental technologies in a retrospective manner. To fully uncover the environmental improvement potential while advancing technologies under technical and environmental constraints, this study recommended approaching the LCA proactively to assess the progress of...

Eco-efficiency assessment of technological innovations in high-grade concrete recycling

The increasing volume of Construction and demolition waste (CDW) associated with economic growth is posing challenges to the sustainable management of the built environment. The largest fraction of all the CDW generated in the member states of the European Union (EU) is End-of-life (EOL) concrete. The most widely applied method for EOL concrete...