Challenges in life cycle assessment implementation for construction environmental product declaration development: A mixed approach and global perspective

Environmental product declaration (EPD) is a valuable data source for building sustainability assessment. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a critical element of EPD development, and it strongly impacts the reliability of the overall EPD environmental data. The increasing number of published EPDs necessitates a thorough examination of the challenges associated with LCA for EPD development to improve the quality assurance of EPDs. This study applied a mixed research approach, including a systematic literature review, focus group discussion and questionnaire survey to evaluate the challenges in LCA implementation for EPD development. The questionnaire administered to experts from 43 countries globally was analysed using qualitative and quantitative analytical techniques. The analysis showed that 73 % of the respondents are highly concerned about the data quality of LCA in EPD development. The study further revealed twenty-seven (27) significant challenges classified using exploratory factor analysis into seven groups ([1] Data Paucity, [2] Resource-intensive, [3] Data and Research, [4] Knowledge, [5] Methodological Limitations and People, [6] Technology, and [7] Data Integrity). The highly ranked challenges based on mean ranking include “Problems with data availability and quality for LCA”, “Lack of transparency in some of the existing LCA database and tools”, “Lack of country-specific inventory for LCA”, “The complexity and lack of knowledge about the uncertainty of data used in LCA” and “Lack of in-depth understanding and awareness of LCA”. The study also proposed strategies to resolve the challenges and holds vital implications for stakeholders within EPD development. In conclusion, it is observed that LCA for EPD development still faces significant challenges that require a tailored approach to improve the quality of LCA in EPD development.