End-of-Life Modeling and Data in North American Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment Tools

This document summarizes the Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) research on end-of-life (EOL) modeling for a selection of building materials in whole building life cycle assessment (WBLCA) tools conducted as part of a larger project in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Building Transparency (BT), and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). The overarching goals of the project are to:

• Improve EOL modeling in WBLCA tools by exploring data gaps and current tool capabilities.
• Explore opportunities for developing and testing an open-access EOL database. This can potentially enable WBLCA tools to draw from this database and better harmonize the modeling of EOL impacts.

The recommendations, limitations, and future research ideas are based on: 1) a review of EOL data and modeling functions for three North American WBLCA tools, 2) direct interviews with North American WBLCA tool providers, and 3) a survey and an online workshop with experienced WBLCA tool users.