Climate Mitigation in the Swedish Single-Family Homes Industry and Potentials for LCA as Decision Support

Abstract

Decision support tools for incentivizing environmentally sound decisions in building design, such as LCA (life cycle assessment), have been highlighted as an essential feature for enhancing the realization of more sustainable buildings. Nevertheless, the use of LCA to support decisions in building design is still limited in practice. A better understanding of the social dynamics and detailed contexts of the decisions leading up to a final building design is therefore critical for better integration of LCA-based information in the decision-making processes. This paper reports a qualitative, semi-structured interview study of single-family home producers in Sweden and their decision-making in relation to climate mitigation, with a particular focus on embodied carbon mitigation. By studying a specific branch of the building and construction sector, a more in-depth record can be obtained of the particularities of implementation contexts and decision-making situations in which LCA may, or may not, have a role in driving climate mitigation. Four primary decision contexts in which LCA may have an influential role to drive embodied carbon reduction include: (1) the development of building systems, (2) development and offering of house models, (3) the selection of construction products for the building system as well as for the offer of add-on products to customers, and (4) the dialogues in the individual house-buyer projects. Decision-making that affects sustainable outcomes in this part of the sector is very much dependent on a supporting regulatory context. Over the years, using building LCA in early design stages, for optimization towards low-impact final buildings, has been a repeatedly promoted recommendation both in academia and practice. This study, however, reveals that such a conclusion is too simplistic. The different overarching decision contexts identified for this particular branch display the variety of needs for life cycle-based information.

Keywords

• housing industry
• life cycle assessment (LCA)
• decision-making
• embodied carbon
• interview study
• buildings