Life cycle assessment applied to the comparative evaluation of single family houses in the French context

A life cycle simulation tool has been developed and linked with thermal simulation. Inventories given in the Oekoinventare database or collected in the European REGENER project are considered to evaluate the environmental impacts of material fabrication and other processes (energy, transport, etc.). An application of this tool is presented here concerning the comparison of three houses: the present construction standard in France (reference), a solar and a wooden frame house. The results of this exercise are presented and its limits are discussed. It seems still difficult to apply life cycle assessment (LCA) to the selection of materials and components. Rather, LCA can be used for the improvement of technical solutions (e.g. increasing the roof insulation in the solar house). (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.