Environmental load

Increasing insulation thickness may reduce the energy consumption and environmental load in building operation phase, but may also increase those in insulation production phase. Therefore, the life cycle energy consumption and environmental load of insulation design for a typical residential building were analyzed in this paper. Cases in four typical cities -Harbin, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou- in four different climate zones in China were compared.

Life cycle green cost assessment (LCGCA) method, which can evaluate building environmental load and economic performance throughout its life cycle comprehensively, is propounded in this paper in order to guide green building design. In LCGCA, environmental load (EL) cost is proposed based on concept of environmental tax and counted into general building initial cost and operating cost, and then green payback time (GPT) could be worked out. With this method, an office building in Beijing is studied.

Design of cooling and heating sources of HVAC system is one of the main parts of green buildingdesign, as well as one of key measures to improve building energy efficiency and reduce environmentalimpact. In this paper, a LCA model for building cooling and heating source system is put forward and anintegrated index is given to describe the total environmental impact including energy consumption,resources consumption and pollutant emission through building life, in order to guide the design ofbuilding energy system.