Taking overheating and indoor air quality into account in the life-cycle assessment of buildings

Context and challenges

We spend about 80% of our time inside buildings, which therefore constitute our main living environment and must meet a fundamental requirement: ensuring the comfort and health of their occupants. However, in a context of global warming, this challenge is becoming increasingly critical. The increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves, as well as the deterioration of indoor air quality, have direct health consequences. In Europe, the overheating of buildings is responsible for thousands of deaths, particularly affecting the elderly, young children and people suffering from cardiovascular conditions.

Faced with these challenges, the adaptation of buildings currently relies on eco-design tools such as life-cycle assessment (LCA), which makes it possible to evaluate a building’s environmental impacts over its entire life cycle. However, these tools integrate neither the overheating of buildings nor indoor air quality. Thus, while environmental impacts are relatively well quantified, the health impacts on occupants remain largely ignored.

Objectives and methods

It is precisely in this context that Ahlam’s thesis work is set. The objective of her research is to develop calculation modules and characterisation factors that can be used from the design phase onwards, then to integrate them directly into LCA. This approach aims to enable designers to take health effects into account upstream of projects, in order to deliver buildings that are at once sustainable, comfortable and adapted to future climate conditions.