Towards a national life cycle database: an LCA case study from the Czech Republic

Abstract The building sector in the Czech Republic faces several challenges, including limited availability of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) data for building materials and products, insufficient market incentives, little institutional capacity, and some resistance from governmental entities. Therefore, this study also outlines the creation of an internal environmental dataset database designed to conduct Whole Life Carbon (WLC) assessments for 50 case studies. The database primarily sources Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) and generic data from the Ecoinvent database, which are stored within the OneClick LCA software (OCLCA). The Global Warming Potential (GWP) is calculated for the whole life cycle of each building, using the EU Level(s) methodology. As a baseline, the datasets for materials and products with the highest GWP values were used. A sensitivity analysis was performed on the main resulting hotspots to produce results for both the so-called realistic (average GWP values) and optimistic (lowest GWP values) scenarios. The application of this methodology is demonstrated through a detailed example of one of the case studies, within the framework of the INDICATE international project. This work represents a significant step toward defining a Czech national methodology for establishing benchmarks that can be readily used by Czech practitioners and practitioners.