Life Cycle Costing for sustainable development in buildings

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2002

Authors

A. P. Silva (Author) Other; M. Ricardo (Author) Other; J. S. Costa (Author) Other; António Augusto Fernandes (Author) FEUP; A. Ferreira (Author) Other; P. Bamforth (Author) Other

Conference proceedings International

Title: XXX IAHS Congress on Housing, Housing Construction: an Interdisciplinary Task

Pages: 1215-1222

XXX IAHS Congress on Housing, Housing Construction: an Interdisciplinary Task

Coimbra (Portugal), 9 a 13 de Setembro de 2002

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 0 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology > Civil engineering

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-000-S4A

Abstract (EN): The construction industry is a major consumer of natural resources. The inability to predict performance reliably can result in waste, through over-design, or costly premature deterioration. Life Cycle Costing, LCC, enables the whole life cost and performance of buildings and structures to be optimised with concern to environmental sustainability. It is important to note that buildings are infrastructures that are constructed to last for a considerable amount of time. Thus a sustainable view that buildings be developed assessing not only the initial capital costs, but also future costs, should be encouraged. It is generally accepted that to evaluate the costs of buildings on the basis of their initial value is unsatisfactory and quite erroneous. The use of life cycle costing will grant considerable benefits to the clients as well to the industry itself. Nevertheless, the application of life cycle techniques as an aid to decision-making in the building industry is not yet widely spread and some barriers still remain to such practical implementation. In the present paper the preliminary results of an EU funded research project, Eurolifeform, are presented. This paper will focus primarily on the financial model behind LCC calculations, but will also address risk and societal issues. One crucial issue to the implementation of LCC is the use of "Present Value" to derive comparative costs. So, key issues related with Present Value, as discount rate, present and future costs, constant or nominal prices will be addressed. In particular, the role of taxes and different service levels in the financial model will be discussed; different scenarios related with the time path of real discount rate will be investigated through sensitivity analysis. Finally a simple risk analysis will be conducted by Monte Carlo simulation using pc software.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 8