Hello,
I am working in France where we analysis the Life Cycle Impacts of materials using the European standards notably ISO 21930 / EN 15804 & NF P01-010. The software commonly used to do this analysis is called ELODIE developed by the CSTB in France.
Is a Life cycle Impact analysis done by this standard and with this software accepted by USGBC? If not how can we go about officially asking it be added to the approved list of tools?
Thanks,
Ian
Nadav Malin
CEOBuildingGreen, Inc.
LEEDuser Moderator
844 thumbs up
July 15, 2014 - 7:32 pm
Hi Ian,What I've been able to find out is that ELODIE is, essentially, an acceptable tool for this credit, except that it doesn't include the required impact category of Eutrophication (nutrient loading of surface waters). So the safest thing to do is to get it officially approved. It's already on a list of tools to be considered, but there's no saying how long that process might take. Getting it formally approved within a reasonable time will likely require that you submit a LEED Interpretation request.
Julien Richard
Artelia8 thumbs up
April 27, 2016 - 5:24 am
Hi Ian, Nadav,
Have you been able to get an answer for this question ? I do not see any LEED Interpretation for this credit.
The problem is more about the data available in France rather than the tool. In France, manufacturers are required to obtain an EPD according to NF EN 15804+A1:2014 for construction products since 1 July 2014, where the Eutrophication impact of the product is required. However, at the moment, most of the product declarations has been made according to the French NF P01-010 standard (compliant with ISO 14025, ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards) that did not require manufacturers to inform the indicator “Eutrophication”.
I believe that in the next few years we will be able to do a LCA with sufficient information to include Eutrophication impacts, but at the moment, it is not possible. I suggest that we could use another impact indicator instead, such as waste production or freshwater consumption for example.
Panu Pasanen
CEOBionova / One Click LCA
25 thumbs up
June 10, 2016 - 7:08 am
As a LCA software developer, I'm not ashamed to suggest looking for a software that actually complies with all of the credit requirements, and that has a materials database that complies with the credit requirements.
elsa neves
October 19, 2016 - 7:15 am
Hi Ian,
Have you use ELODIE with eveBIM? I am studying the integration of LCA with BIM and I have some doubts about the ELODIE software.
Thanks,
Elsa
Julien Richard
Artelia8 thumbs up
October 19, 2016 - 9:43 am
Hi Elsa,
We did last year but had some issues. One major was that there was discrepencies between the units of some of the BIM elements and the functional units of the EPD. For instance it imported the value of the length of an element but the impact of that element must be calculated based on the surface...so we had to spend too much time checking if the data imported was in the correct units.
However maybe the software has improved since last year.