A theoretical review of building life cycle stages and their related environmental impacts
- Ngwepe, Lusca, Aigbavboa, Clinton
- Authors: Ngwepe, Lusca , Aigbavboa, Clinton
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/69042 , uj:17810 , Citation: Ngwepe, L. & Aigbavboa, C. 2015. A theoretical review of building life cycle stages and their related environmental impacts.
- Description: Abstract: There six life cycle stages of buildings are: raw material extraction; manufacturing; construction; operation and maintenance; demolition; and disposal, reuse or recycling. The life cycle stages of a building are all intensively involved, in that the use of natural resources, energy and water are consumed in each of them. This paper investigate the environmental impacts across each of these stages. Furthermore, the paper also highlight the role the building sector on the total global environmental impacts in terms of the building sector’s contribution to waste generation, pollution, amongst others. This is done in order to encourage and to inform ways which can be incorporated into the building sector in order to reduce their impact on the environment. The study is conducted with reference to existing theoretical literature, published and unpublished research. The study is mainly a literature review/survey on the life cycle stages of a building. The key findings from the study are that energy is consumed across all the stages of a building. Environmental impact such as greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation and pollution etc. associated with a building are declared to be of a great quantity due to many and relatively long life cycle stages a building have. This study is valuable to the South African built environment, construction industry, infrastructure development and/or sustainable urban development.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Ngwepe, Lusca , Aigbavboa, Clinton
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/69042 , uj:17810 , Citation: Ngwepe, L. & Aigbavboa, C. 2015. A theoretical review of building life cycle stages and their related environmental impacts.
- Description: Abstract: There six life cycle stages of buildings are: raw material extraction; manufacturing; construction; operation and maintenance; demolition; and disposal, reuse or recycling. The life cycle stages of a building are all intensively involved, in that the use of natural resources, energy and water are consumed in each of them. This paper investigate the environmental impacts across each of these stages. Furthermore, the paper also highlight the role the building sector on the total global environmental impacts in terms of the building sector’s contribution to waste generation, pollution, amongst others. This is done in order to encourage and to inform ways which can be incorporated into the building sector in order to reduce their impact on the environment. The study is conducted with reference to existing theoretical literature, published and unpublished research. The study is mainly a literature review/survey on the life cycle stages of a building. The key findings from the study are that energy is consumed across all the stages of a building. Environmental impact such as greenhouse gas emissions, waste generation and pollution etc. associated with a building are declared to be of a great quantity due to many and relatively long life cycle stages a building have. This study is valuable to the South African built environment, construction industry, infrastructure development and/or sustainable urban development.
- Full Text:
Awareness and usage of life cycle assessment methodology in the building sector
- Ngwepe, Lusca, Aigbavboa, Clinton
- Authors: Ngwepe, Lusca , Aigbavboa, Clinton
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Built environment , Building industry , Environmental impacts
- Language: English
- Type: Conference proceedings
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/73259 , uj:18388 , Citation: Ngwepe, L. & Aigbavboa, C. 2015. Awareness and usage of life cycle assessment methodology in the building sector.
- Description: Abstract: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was developed to determine the holistic environmental impact of a product or service or activity or process to inform useful alternatives with fewer environmental impacts. The built environment is one of the largest sectors in any community, and buildings are one of the primary products of the built environment. Since buildings comprise of six life cycle stages; these phases significantly contribute to the environmental impacts of building construction and when in use. The objective of this paper is to determine the level of awareness and usage of LCA in the building sector and how LCA methodology can assist to achieve sustainable building practices in the built environment. The study was conducted with reference to existing theoretical literature, published and unpublished research. The study is mainly a literature review on LCA, its features, applications benefits and barriers regarding the building sector. Literature studied, revealed that LCA is not significantly utilized in the construction industry, particularly in the construction stage because most contracting companies are not aware of it, and where they are aware, there is resist to adopt the methodology. Also, the significant barriers to building experts who are aware of the method are that the method is termed complicated, time-consuming and costly. However, LCA when adopted in the construction environment, will assist to achieve sustainable building practices because its systems perspective avoids problem shifting from one life cycle stage to another. Also, since LCA procedure investigates a broad range of environmental impacts associated with industrial products such as Climate Change, Acidification, Ozone Depletion and Human toxicity. LCA, therefore, informs producer decisions about alternative processes in their attempt to improve industrial environmental performance.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Ngwepe, Lusca , Aigbavboa, Clinton
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Built environment , Building industry , Environmental impacts
- Language: English
- Type: Conference proceedings
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/73259 , uj:18388 , Citation: Ngwepe, L. & Aigbavboa, C. 2015. Awareness and usage of life cycle assessment methodology in the building sector.
- Description: Abstract: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was developed to determine the holistic environmental impact of a product or service or activity or process to inform useful alternatives with fewer environmental impacts. The built environment is one of the largest sectors in any community, and buildings are one of the primary products of the built environment. Since buildings comprise of six life cycle stages; these phases significantly contribute to the environmental impacts of building construction and when in use. The objective of this paper is to determine the level of awareness and usage of LCA in the building sector and how LCA methodology can assist to achieve sustainable building practices in the built environment. The study was conducted with reference to existing theoretical literature, published and unpublished research. The study is mainly a literature review on LCA, its features, applications benefits and barriers regarding the building sector. Literature studied, revealed that LCA is not significantly utilized in the construction industry, particularly in the construction stage because most contracting companies are not aware of it, and where they are aware, there is resist to adopt the methodology. Also, the significant barriers to building experts who are aware of the method are that the method is termed complicated, time-consuming and costly. However, LCA when adopted in the construction environment, will assist to achieve sustainable building practices because its systems perspective avoids problem shifting from one life cycle stage to another. Also, since LCA procedure investigates a broad range of environmental impacts associated with industrial products such as Climate Change, Acidification, Ozone Depletion and Human toxicity. LCA, therefore, informs producer decisions about alternative processes in their attempt to improve industrial environmental performance.
- Full Text:
The impacts of variation orders on South Africa public sector construction projects
- Ngwepe, Lusca, Aigbavboa, Clinton, Thwala, Wellington Didibhuku
- Authors: Ngwepe, Lusca , Aigbavboa, Clinton , Thwala, Wellington Didibhuku
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Variation order , Prevalence , Public construction projects
- Language: English
- Type: Conference proceedings
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/73610 , uj:18431 , Citation: Ngwepe, L., Aigbavboa, C. & Thwala, W. 2015. The impacts of variation orders on South Africa public sector construction projects.
- Description: Abstract: The complexity, uncertainty, long-duration and the involvement of the sequential tasks and relationships of participants in/of the construction projects render this category of projects prone to variations along their progress. Variations create extra work, time, and money for the construction projects and they vary from one project to another. This paper investigates the impacts of variation orders on public sector projects in South Africa. To achieve the objectives of the study, a critical review of literature was done coupled with questionnaire survey to collect information on possible impacts of variations on the public projects in SA. Through the review of literature 7 major possible impacts of variation orders were identified which provided the basis for the formulation of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to professionals who work for companies that undertake public construction projects in South Africa. Targeted number of respondents was 50; however a total number of 70 questionnaires were sent out to make up for the cases were respondents did not return questionnaires. Overall, 50 questionnaires were returned and after a careful examination of the received questionnaires only 39 were usable. These formed the basis of the analysis for the study, since it accounts for 78% of the initial sample. Findings revealed that variation orders have major impact on i) time overruns, ii) cost overruns, iii) quality standard enhanced, iv) disputes amongst parties to the contract, and v) productivity degradation, iv) complaints of one or more parties to the contract. It was further noted from the results that variation orders rarely affected health and safety aspect of the public construction projects since all the factors relating to health and safety were the lowest ranked; health and safety degradation, additional health and safety officials, additional health and safety equipment. However, this results are in disagreement with the results on the critical determinants of variation orders on SA public sector construction projects because health and safety conditions was ranked the highest reason for variation orders under other related reasons for variation orders. What these findings mean is that safety considerations may be the reason to cause variation orders but variation orders do not affect health and safety on the construction project.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Ngwepe, Lusca , Aigbavboa, Clinton , Thwala, Wellington Didibhuku
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Variation order , Prevalence , Public construction projects
- Language: English
- Type: Conference proceedings
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/73610 , uj:18431 , Citation: Ngwepe, L., Aigbavboa, C. & Thwala, W. 2015. The impacts of variation orders on South Africa public sector construction projects.
- Description: Abstract: The complexity, uncertainty, long-duration and the involvement of the sequential tasks and relationships of participants in/of the construction projects render this category of projects prone to variations along their progress. Variations create extra work, time, and money for the construction projects and they vary from one project to another. This paper investigates the impacts of variation orders on public sector projects in South Africa. To achieve the objectives of the study, a critical review of literature was done coupled with questionnaire survey to collect information on possible impacts of variations on the public projects in SA. Through the review of literature 7 major possible impacts of variation orders were identified which provided the basis for the formulation of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to professionals who work for companies that undertake public construction projects in South Africa. Targeted number of respondents was 50; however a total number of 70 questionnaires were sent out to make up for the cases were respondents did not return questionnaires. Overall, 50 questionnaires were returned and after a careful examination of the received questionnaires only 39 were usable. These formed the basis of the analysis for the study, since it accounts for 78% of the initial sample. Findings revealed that variation orders have major impact on i) time overruns, ii) cost overruns, iii) quality standard enhanced, iv) disputes amongst parties to the contract, and v) productivity degradation, iv) complaints of one or more parties to the contract. It was further noted from the results that variation orders rarely affected health and safety aspect of the public construction projects since all the factors relating to health and safety were the lowest ranked; health and safety degradation, additional health and safety officials, additional health and safety equipment. However, this results are in disagreement with the results on the critical determinants of variation orders on SA public sector construction projects because health and safety conditions was ranked the highest reason for variation orders under other related reasons for variation orders. What these findings mean is that safety considerations may be the reason to cause variation orders but variation orders do not affect health and safety on the construction project.
- Full Text:
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