A life cycle approach to Green Public Procurement of building materials and elements: A case study on windows

Published Date
May 2011, Vol.36(5):2473–2482, doi:10.1016/j.energy.2011.01.039

Author 

Mario Tarantini ^,

Arianna Dominici Loprieno 

Pier Luigi Porta 

ENEA–Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Via Martiri di Monte Sole 4, 40129 Bologna, Italy

Received 19 January 2010. Revised 20 January 2011. Accepted 23 January 2011. Available online 2 March 2011.

Abstract

Green Public Procurement (GPP) is a significant policy tool for reducing the environmental impacts of services and products throughout their whole life cycle. Scientific and easily verifiable environmental criteria, based on a life cycle approach, should be developed and used within procurement procedures. In this paper, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is applied to wood windows showing how it can support the criteria definition. After a foreword on GPP development in Italy, the evaluation features of the environmental performances of building materials and components are outlined. The LCA case study is then presented, describing the use of the analysis results to define the environmental criteria. LCA allowed to identify the main impacts and the critical processes of the window life cycle, giving a scientific framework to discuss GPP criteria with manufacturers associations and stakeholders. Nevertheless, it couldn’t help neither in identifying detailed criteria for GPP nor to define numerical thresholds to be used as reference in procurement procedures. The appropriate strategies should be selected taking into account the technical status of the market, the standard development and the voluntary industry commitments, involving manufacturers associations. Finally, some elements to develop a structured approach for GPP of construction materials are presented.

Highlights

► Major environmental impact of buildings is the operational energy to compensate for the heat losses. ► LCA can be used to support the selection of environmental criteria for GPP. ► LCA results should be integrated with market and voluntary industry commitments, ► The environmental impact of production processes cannot be neglected. ► To select the GPP criteria the involvement of industry associations is essential.

Keywords

Sustainable buildings

Green buildings

Construction materials

Windows

Green Public Procurement

LCA

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Nomenclature

Al

aluminum

BAT

Best available techniques

CFC-11

chlorofluorocarbon-11

CH₄

methane

CML

Centrum voor Milieukunde Leiden

CO₂

carbon dioxide

ENEA

Italian National Agency for new technologies, energy and sustainable economic development

EU

European Union

g

solar factor

GDP

Gross domestic product

GPP

Green public procurement

IPPC

Intergovernmental panel on climate change

LCA

Life cycle assessment

NAP

National action plan

NO_x

nitrogen oxides

LEED

Leadership in energy and environmental design

ITACA

Istituto per l’Innovazione e Trasparenza degli Appalti e la Compatibilità Ambientale

PO₄³⁻

phosphate ion

PVC

Polyvinyl chloride

SO_x

sulfur oxides

SO₂

sulfur dioxide

U_w

thermal transmittance of the window

VOCs

Volatile organic compounds

WMO

World Meteorological Organization

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