Emerging structural materials lifecycle assessment roadmap

Scalable reduction of embodied emissions in the built environment increasingly depends on the adoption of emerging structural materials—promising a new era for the construction industry. However, the potential environmental advantages of such materials must be thoroughly scrutinized and systematically evaluated. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been employed as a robust tool to quantify the environmental impact of different products. Nonetheless, variability in the different LCA approaches adopted leads to incongruent results, which subsequently limits both the generalizability and the reliability of LCA pertaining to different product systems. To address such discrepancies, this article considers an example of emerging structural materials to: i) objectively and systematically map the relevant research field; ii) comprehensively appraise how environmental assessments are performed; and iii) critically evaluate these assessments. The analyses of the above findings resulted in iv) identifying key ongoing limitations including: non-transparent reporting, misalignment of LCA stages, unjustified weighting of impact results, and multiple other methodological inconsistencies. To address the latter limitations, the article subsequently introduces a roadmap for developing consistent, transparent, and transferable LCA studies through: v) a multiple functional unit approach; as well as vi) a standardized critical review approach; guided by vii) actionable interventions; to propel viii) better utility and interpretability of environmental impact assessments of emerging structural materials. The roadmap directly supports the development of cleaner construction materials and their necessary evaluation employing LCA approaches.