Our collaborative abstract for the Ecocity World Summit 2023 conference is titled "A review of life cycle
assessment (LCA) studies on green roofs and walls".
Green infrastructure (GI) is often presented as a promising measure to help reduce climate change pressures in dense urban areas. This benefit, combined with the fact that GI involves increased biodiversity leads to it being seen as a sustainable measure. However, few studies quantify GI’s water and energy impacts, thereby obscuring how environmentally friendly such infrastructure can be. To elucidate the known results so far regarding the environmental impacts related to energy and water use, such as climate change or freshwater scarcity, a systematic review was performed.
Scopus was used to gather studies for an in-depth analysis of life cycle assessment (LCA) studies with a focus on green roofs and walls and energy and water use related impacts. Project details were analyzed when available, specifically for the precise types of green infrastructure applied, the local climate circumstances, the applied construction materials and plant species, the building type and specifics, and the intended climate change adaptation benefits. The characteristics of the LCA studies analyzed include the type of software and databases used, the system boundaries and functional unit applied, the cut-off criteria, water and energy related environmental impact categories, main conclusions, and research gaps.
The analysis of the results can be used as concrete recommendation for designing and constructing a long-term monitoring setup of green roofs and green walls at the University Twente, the Netherlands, as part of the Living Innovation Lab (LILa), with respect to the question of what is the most environmentally friendly way to design green roofs and green walls.
This abstract is submitted by University Twente researchers Karina Vink, Joao Santos, Markus Berger, Peter Chemweno, and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam researcher Nicolien van der Grijp.
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