Environmental and social life cycle for low-carbon design

Achieving the objective of low-emission buildings by 2030 requires an integrated revision of design criteria, including an assessment of carbon emissions throughout the entire building life cycle. Seismic and territorial constraints strongly influence these assessments and can increase global warming potential by up to 20%. However, an approach focused solely on the environmental dimension of sustainability may provide only a partial interpretation. It may neglect the social impacts related to the health and safety of workers, who are fundamental actors across the entire construction supply chain. From this perspective, this study proposes an integrated methodological approach combining environmental and social life cycle assessments. It is applied to the structural component of a public residential building located in an area of medium seismicity, representative of 60% of the territory of Tuscany (Italy). The analysis relates environmental and social impacts, demonstrating how the accident risk assessment can support the definition of useful metrics for labelling systems, both at the product and building levels.