Whole life appraisal of building components for zero carbon buildings

There is significant industry and academic attention being paid to the design and operation of zero carbon (ZC) buildings. The UK Government has set targets for domestic buildings to be ZC by 2016, and for non-domestic buildings to be ZC by 2019. For buildings to be truly ZC requires the consideration of energy and carbon emissions of manufacturing, transporting, constructing, using, maintaining and disposing of building materials and components. Information on the environmental impact of these lifecycle stages is increasingly sought after in voluntary and other environmental appraisal systems. In order to assess the lifecycle of a material or component an assessment of its service life and maintenance requirements is required; commonly termed the estimated service life. Time, cost and quality indicators remain paramount in the construction industry; thus the financial cost of initial and on-going costs is needed to complete most specification requirements. This paper presents a methodology for service life, financial and environmental appraisal of building components and materials, and discusses a case study of the method applied to timber windows.