The hidden value of stone: Life Cycle Assessment of the construction and refurbishment of a 60-year-old residential stone building

Abstract

In many certification labels, the environmental performance of a building is evaluated in terms of embodied energy and energy consumption. These indicators are calculated through a Life Cycle Assessment of the construction and maintenance/use phase of the building respectively.The objective of this research is to study how stone as a material performs in these two categories. We selected as a case study the 60-year-old UHVLGHQWLDO VWRQH EXLOGLQJ ³5pVLGHQFH-le-3DUF ́ in Paris and performed a LCA based on historic data from its life cycle, both its construction and maintenance. Different what-if scenarios for the refurbishment served to examine what impact various interventions in the cell of the building can have on the embodied energy and the energy consumption. It is observed that although the building is a massive stone structure, the contribution of stone to t he life cycle assessment and the thermal performance is minimal. The study shows that apart from the environmental and economic aspect, there is some hidden value in the use of stone in multi-ownership residential buildings, related to the social dimension.