Using Life Cycle Resources to Look at a Product’s History from

Cradle-to-Cradle

Deborah Dunning, President

International Design Center for the Environment

How do product standards and metrics help You?

They provide you with a means of comparing the

environmental attributes of both like and unlike products,

potentially reducing the

footprint of a campus building

Create a third-party certified source for communicating the economic and environmental benefits of products to your team members and budget professionals

How will life-cycle resources help you manage buildings effectively?

What Suite of Tools Might You Use?

• Economic Benefits Standards of Green Buildings and Products developed by Market Transformation to Sustainability (MTS)

• LEED Green Building Standards of the US Green Building Council

• BEES ®, a full-scale Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

• eLCie (tm) a streamlined Life-Cycle Assessment (sLCA) tool developed by the International Design Center for the Environment

TM

Economic Benefits Standard

Capturing Increasing Profits

Economic Benefits Standard

§ 7.2 Sustainable buildings increase productivity by 5%.

This increase in productivity is at least equal to a building’s capitalAnd operations and maintenance costs over a building’s life averaged at 30 years.

Source: U. S. Green Building Council, 1996

Sustainable Buildings Reduce Human Health Costs

• On average, annualized costs for personnel are $200/sf compared with $20/sf for bricks-mortar, $2/sf for energy

• $14/sf savings for a typical 100,000 sf LEED certified green building, totaling $1.4 million in savings/year

Source: Indoor Quality Update, October 1996

Economic Benefits Standard

§ 7.1  Sustainable buildings reduce operating costs by 50% and

are more profitable and cheaper than conventional ones.

Value Added from 100,000 ft² US Green Building Council LEED™ Certified Building:

• $80,000/yr in energy costs through the use of 10 different efficiencies

• $93,000 through waste reduction, keeping 186 tons out of the landfill

• $44,000/yr from avoided wastewater treatment from conserved water

• $53,368/yr through the use of energy efficient appliances and lighting

• $1.4m/yr from $14/ft² savings from 6% productivity gain (USGBC TManual)

Projected Economic Stimulus by 70% Commercial Green Building Market Penetration

Energy Savings:                                 $36 billion/yr

Construction Waste Reduction:       $6.7 billion/yr  

Water Pollution Savings from Water Conservation: $20 billion/yr

Energy Savings from appliances & Lighting:  $24 billion/yr

Increased Occupant Productivity: $632 billion/yr

Increased Retail Sales:                          $800 billion/yr

Total                                   $1.5 trillion/yr value added

Economic Benefits Standard Ballot Completed

§1.9 Positive Correlation of Sustainable Performance

and Superior Economic Performance

Economic Benefits Standard §1.9 Sustainable products, buildings, & vehicles are more profitable than conventional ones by creating more value through:         Margin improvement        Risk reduction        Growth enhancement        Capital efficiency

§5.2 Increased profitability for products due to:

• Reduced liability• Fewer regulatory constraints• Faster product time to market• Improved corporate good will, brand, competitive advantage• Documented public demand due to global health and

environmental benefits • Reduced costs for raw materials and manufacturing

BEES ® Life CycleAssessment System

• Developed by the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), U. S. Dept of Commerce

• Provides performance score for a product’s economic performance and environmental performance, both in the aggregate and

environmental impact by environmental impact

BEES ® Life Cycle Assessment System

• Includes all of the 12 environmental impacts

identified by the EPA Science Advisory Board

• Global warming, acid rain, smog, eutrophication, fossil fuel depletion, indoor air quality, habitat

alteration, water use, human health, ozone depletion, criteria air pollutants, eco-toxicity

What is the difference between BEES ® and eLCie (tm)?

“Full LCAs are expensive, complicated and their results are difficult to communicate. eLCie (tm) is designed to address these issues by streamlining the LCA approach to establish simpler-to-measure and simpler-to-communicate environmental “key attributes” for product categories… This streamlined LCA approach adds value to traditional LCA tools by consolidating their results and simplifying their interpretation” – Barbara Lippiatt, BEES

eLCie (tm) Building a Sustainable World

• A streamlined life-cycle assessment (sLCA) system

• A science-based yet user-friendly web-tool for comparing a product’s environmental impacts

• A simple-to-measure and simple-to communicate means of looking at a product from cradle-to-cradle

eLCie™ Using eLCie (tm) during the programming phase

Contact | Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | Search | Site IndexCopyright (c) 2003 IDCE. All Rights Reserved.

--------- 0.0400 --------- 0.0300--------- 0.0200 --------- 0.0100---------- N/A

LINOLEUM0.0454

BROADLOOM0.0353

CARPET TILE0.0253

MARBLE0.0063

TERRAZZO0.0037

>> PRODUCT TYPE SUMMARIES

>> LEVEL UP

Floorings Plastic Bamboo Terrazzo Brick Granite Marble Wood Cork Linoleum Rubber Broadloom Carpet Tile

Global warming

Fossil fuel depletion

Waterdepletion

Ecological toxicity

Human health

Smog Criteria air pollutants

AGGREGATE80% TOTAL

Key Indicator Values

Impact Categories

Home | About eLCie™ | About IDCE | LINKS

N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

eLCie™ Using eLCie (tm) during the design development phase

Contact | Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | Search | Site IndexCopyright (c) 2003 IDCE. All Rights Reserved.

--------- 0.0400 --------- 0.0300--------- 0.0200 --------- 0.0100---------- N/A

>> LEVEL UP

Floorings Plastic Bamboo Terrazzo Brick Granite Marble Wood Cork Linoleum Rubber Broadloom Carpet Tile

Global warming

Fossil fuel depletion

Waterdepletion

Ecological toxicity

Human health

Smog Criteria air pollutants

AGGREGATE80% TOTAL

J&J LifeSpan0.0286

0.0051

0.0038

0.0197

N/A N/A N/A N/A

LINOLEUM0.0454

BROADLOOM0.0353

CARPET TILE0.0253

MARBLE0.0063

TERRAZZO0.0037

Forbo NoVOC0.0230

N/AN/AN/A

0.0246

N/AN/A N/A

>> COMPARE BRAND PRODUCTS

Home | About eLCie™ | About IDCE | LINKS

Compare two brand products within different product types e.g. carpet vs linoleum product

eLCie ™ Simplifies Sustainable Product Selection

-- Reduces time spent on researching and verifying product attributes by purchasers

– Identifies “key attributes” which justify choice of one product over another easily and quickly

– Uses language which is easily understood by designers and other volume purchasers

Can eLCie™ Be Used With Other Tools?

eLCie™ results can be used as:

• The basis for product specification or selection

• A performance level in other 3rd party standards

Why is this important?

“The future belongs to those

who give the next generation

Reason to hope.”-de Chardon