Material Use

Specifying efficient use of materials and considering their impact from manufacture to disposal.

International Life Cycle Assessment Tools

There are several international life cycle assessment tools available. Ecospecifier (Australia) and Greenspec (UK) are easy to use tools and provide helpful information for building designers and builders. However, international tools should be used with care as their findings may not relate directly to New Zealand domestic building conditions.

LCA tools are more comprehensive than the life cycle costs that are referred to in the NZ Building Code.

Ecospecifier

Ecospecifier is an Australian guide to selection of environmentally friendly products and building systems. It provides information (supplied by manufacturers without independent verification) on over 3000 environmentally preferable products, in a clear and easy to query database.

Although the service is subscription-based, about 10 % of its database is available for free, and it provides free guidance on prioritising the various environmental issues you’ll face when examining a product – for example, greenhouse impacts, human health impacts, pollution impacts, resource use impacts etc.

Though the site is Australian, many products are available in New Zealand.

GreenSpec

Greenspec is a British site that has assessments based on Building Research Establishment methodologies, which have a sound reputation. All information on the site is provided for free.

It provides:

  • information about environmentally preferable building materials
  • dedicated specifications for some products.
  • background information on the key issues for each product category.

Though it is UK based, much of the environmental information is relevant for New Zealand.

Gabi and SimaPro

Two of the most widely used databases for building material examination are the Gabi tool and SimaPro. Both of these databases are compliant with ISO 14040 requirements, are regarded as having high quality information, and offer a range of modelling procedures.

However, they are costly to buy and maintain, take effort to learn, and are aimed more at researchers than builders and building designers. Also, their databases contain European or US data, so results must be interpreted carefully for the New Zealand situation.