The LC-Build team organised an LCA workshop for the involved and interested partners of the platform on Tuesday March 5th, 2013 at the offices of Buildwise in Brussels. In this workshop, the basics of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and its relevance to the construction sector were presented.

After a general introduction by the platform coordinator on the use of LCA within the Brussels Retrofit XL platform, Ms Laetitia Delem (SCO) kicked of with a basic introduction to LCA, focusing on the general concept of LCA, the specificities in a construction context, the use of Belgian scenario’s and a discussion on methods and environmental indicators. Mr Johan Van Dessel continued with the presentation of building element case studies performed by Buildwise.

After the coffee break, Mr Pierre D’Ans (4MAT) presented an LCA case study on energy recovery that had been performed by 4MAT. He continued with some practical aspects and issues concerning the LCA work that will be conducted within the framework of the platform. Ms Aliénor Richard (4MAT) concluded the workshop with an introduction to social LCA.

LC-Build will collaborate with 5 partners projects on the following topics in order to execute LCA exercises and benchmarking:

• Lightweight components
• External thermal insulation composite systems
• Industrialized envelope systems
• Wind energy solutions
• Energy storage

In addition, LC-Build defines a harmonised approach for LC-studies being conducted within the platform.