87
brick must include more descriptive detail of how it is expected to perform over
time. Details such as required useful life span of 50 years and UV light, water, fire,
and impact protection make comparisons between alternatives possible (Simonen
2014). In a building, these performance specifications would apply to each defined
building subsystem such as roofing, glazing, flooring, finishes, mechanical equipment, telecommunication infrastructure, or insulation.
For the same reason that defining the project scope in a WBLCA study is difficult, defining a functional unit for meaningful comparisons between studies is
nearly impossible given all of the possible variations in building construction, performance, and program. Much like the subsystems that make up a building, defining
the functional unit of a building requires both a unit of measurement (i.e., m
2
) in
addition to an expected service life of the building in addition to succinct quantitative and qualitative descriptions of the building’s performance and ultimate purpose.
All products and services, including digitally delivered ephemeral ones, have
physical components that contribute to environmental impacts. The functional unit
of a digital product may be defined like that of a drink delivered through either a
bottle or can since it usually can be defined as a discreet creative work unit like a
static or moving graphic, e-book, movie, song, or video game expressed through a
particular file format like .JPG, .MP4, PDF, or any of hundreds of proprietary formats. The sequence of bits conveying information is typically delivered through
vast intra-/intertelecom networks and mediated for final consumption on an array of
physical electronic devices whose negative environmental impacts may or may not
be included in the same LCA.
5.3.4 What’s In and What’s Out?
The scoping phase starts by defining what a system is and what it does. The complex
and interconnected nature of each thing next requires clear definition of the system
boundary.
A percentage of the energy, raw materials, and factory solid, liquid, and air waste
emissions released in producing each designed object can be assigned to a single,
boot, brick, book, or byte. The associated impacts of each of individual good or
service throughout and after its useful life can also be tallied. These will be extremely
small fractions of the total amounts of the eco-/technosphere matter and energy
exchange, but there is a theoretical exact amount.
But what about the myriad secondary, tertiary, and even more indirect inputs and
outputs without which the final system under consideration cannot exist? Any process or material input or output that does not contribute a significant percentage to
the final assessed environmental impact lies outside the system boundary and is
excluded from the study. That means the impacts associated with the manufacture
of the truck that carries a load of timber off the side of a mountain would lie outside
the system boundary while the emissions from the truck as it makes its trip to the
saw mill fall within it.
5.3 Goal and Scope Definition
brick must include more descriptive detail of how it is expected to perform over
time. Details such as required useful life span of 50 years and UV light, water, fire,
and impact protection make comparisons between alternatives possible (Simonen
2014). In a building, these performance specifications would apply to each defined
building subsystem such as roofing, glazing, flooring, finishes, mechanical equipment, telecommunication infrastructure, or insulation.
For the same reason that defining the project scope in a WBLCA study is difficult, defining a functional unit for meaningful comparisons between studies is
nearly impossible given all of the possible variations in building construction, performance, and program. Much like the subsystems that make up a building, defining
the functional unit of a building requires both a unit of measurement (i.e., m
2
) in
addition to an expected service life of the building in addition to succinct quantitative and qualitative descriptions of the building’s performance and ultimate purpose.
All products and services, including digitally delivered ephemeral ones, have
physical components that contribute to environmental impacts. The functional unit
of a digital product may be defined like that of a drink delivered through either a
bottle or can since it usually can be defined as a discreet creative work unit like a
static or moving graphic, e-book, movie, song, or video game expressed through a
particular file format like .JPG, .MP4, PDF, or any of hundreds of proprietary formats. The sequence of bits conveying information is typically delivered through
vast intra-/intertelecom networks and mediated for final consumption on an array of
physical electronic devices whose negative environmental impacts may or may not
be included in the same LCA.
5.3.4 What’s In and What’s Out?
The scoping phase starts by defining what a system is and what it does. The complex
and interconnected nature of each thing next requires clear definition of the system
boundary.
A percentage of the energy, raw materials, and factory solid, liquid, and air waste
emissions released in producing each designed object can be assigned to a single,
boot, brick, book, or byte. The associated impacts of each of individual good or
service throughout and after its useful life can also be tallied. These will be extremely
small fractions of the total amounts of the eco-/technosphere matter and energy
exchange, but there is a theoretical exact amount.
But what about the myriad secondary, tertiary, and even more indirect inputs and
outputs without which the final system under consideration cannot exist? Any process or material input or output that does not contribute a significant percentage to
the final assessed environmental impact lies outside the system boundary and is
excluded from the study. That means the impacts associated with the manufacture
of the truck that carries a load of timber off the side of a mountain would lie outside
the system boundary while the emissions from the truck as it makes its trip to the
saw mill fall within it.
5.3 Goal and Scope Definition