One of the ongoing challenges in the quest to make the built environment more sustainable is to identify and mitigate environmental impacts in all phases of buildings, from design phase, to construction, to Building Use/Maintenance and finally end of life phases. In this study a comparison of life cycle environmental burdens of constructing Composite Metal Deck and Hollow Core floor systems for commercial buildings by using a Hybrid Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach is carried out. The study covers material extraction (cradle-to-gate) and construction (gate-to-gate) phases and includes a detailed assessment of both direct and supply chain impacts.
A comprehensive set of results is obtained from the study. These results are presented in several categories for comparative assessment - energy use, Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2), Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), PM10 and VOC emissions. Other categories include solid waste and liquid emissions. The overall conclusion from this study can be summarized as follows:(1)Total environmental burdens from Composite Metal Deck floor are higher than Hollow Core floor for all emissions considered. The environmental burdens from Composite Metal Deck floor range from 8% higher for SO2 to 32% higher for HC; (2) Hollow Core floor impacts in the Construction phase are higher compared to Composite Metal Deck floor; (3) Composite Metal Deck floor impacts are higher than Hollow Core floor in the Material extraction and Production phase.