Environmental assessment of steel warehouse: a case study in Pato Branco, Brazil

This article investigates the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in steel constructions in Brazil, combining a bibliometric analysis and a case study of industrial warehouses. The bibliometric analysis revealed the scarcity of studies using LCA in this context, with a lack of environmental assessments aimed specifically at steel warehouses in Brazil. The case study compared two warehouse projects, assessing the environmental sustainability of Pratt (PTP) and Howe (HTP) truss structures. The LCA was conducted using the functional unit “total steel mass of the shed”, the SimaPro 9.0 software, and data from the international Ecoinvent v3.3 database, applying the ReCiPe 2016 method from a hierarchical perspective. The results showed that the Howe truss project had the lowest environmental impact in all indicators, including the extraction of raw materials, the manufacture of materials and the construction of the shed. This pioneering study addresses a type of construction that is widely used in Brazil and essential for economic development, offering a methodology that can be replicated in other projects and contexts.