Environmental module

Last modified by Peter Karlsson on 2021/04/01 10:49

Module workflow

The environmental module in IMPACT Project Manager is a tool where you can analyze the environmental impact of a project with LCA (Life Cycle Assessment).

An EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) consists of 3 modules: A, B and C. The calculation covers steps A1-A3. This is the information that is known about the project in PM.

IMPACT Environmental Settings

In the Project Properties there are settings to either use a local Resource file (as in the example below) or to use the resources directly from the API (then Local Resource File should be set to No).

Figure 1: Settings for local resource file from Project Properties

One Click LCA settings

Username and password are inserted for the One Click LCA account.

Figure 2: The login procedure with the login from Bionova

Define materials

The LCA calculation is performed in One Click LCA, developed by Bionova. Therefore, all building parts in the model have to be defined by resources from the environmental data base in One Click LCA. This is performed in 3 steps:

Concrete composition
Factory consumption
Other materials

Clicking the Button Define materials lets you define the above resources.

Figure 3: The Define materials button from IMPACT Environmental module

Concrete composition

To calculate the impact from the concrete, the concrete composition needs to be defined.

Figure 4: Setting up the Concrete composition

Domain - List of domains, used to filter the resources

Sub type - List of sub types, used to to filter the resources

Resource - List of.resources

Percentage (0-100%) - Share of the resource in the concrete composition

Distance (km) - Distance to the factory

Update - Save the data in data base

Add - Add new resource

The sum of all resources in a concrete composition should be 100%.

Figure 5: Setting up the Concrete composition by Adding the different parts

The Delete Button is for removing a row and the Update button is to change the data in one row.

The Copy Existing... button it's very useful as it let you copy settings from another project.

Figure 6: How to copy from another project

Factory consumption

To calculate the impact from the factory consumption, information about the energy use and the amount of waste produced during the production of the building elements is needed.

Select period - LIst of factory period

New - Name, time period and number of tonnes produced during this time period (M)

Edit - Edit the factory period selected

Resource - List of.resources

Amount - Amount of energy or waste during the time period (A)

Unit - The unit changes based on the selected resource. Energy (kWh), waste (kg)

Update - Save the data in data base

Add - Add new resource

The information about the weight of the building elements used in the project is known from the model (m). The amount of energy or waste that was used for the building elements in the project (a) is calculated as a=A*(m/M).

Factory consumption is added to the calculation for the building parts marked as produced in a factory.

Figure 7: Creating a new period to use as base

Figure 8: Defining the time span and the Tonnes produced

Figure 9: Defining the energy and waste for the period

Other materials

The same procedure as in the tab Concrete composition is performed in the tab Other materials to define the composition of the material in the material categories reinforcement, insulation and cim.

Domain - List of domains, used to filter the resources

Sub type - List of sub types, used to to filter the resources

Resource - List of.resources

Percentage (0-100%) - Share of the resource in the concrete composition

Distance (km) - Distance to the factory

Update - Save the data in data base

Add - Add new resource

The sum of all resources in a material composition should be 100%.

Figure 10: Defining the components

Calculate

After the calculation is performed, the result as CO2 emissions is presented in the module.

Either the whole building can be calculated or a selection of elements.

If no elements are selected only the button for calculating the whole building is visual.

Figure 11: Calculate for the whole building

After the calculation is performed the result will be displayed

Figure 12: Displaying the result from the calculation in IMPACT

It is possible to continue to the One Click LCA web service for further investigation of the result. On their web service, it is also possible to insert more data and calculate for other modules in A-C.