It is widely acknowledged that the construction industry is a majorconsumer of resources and is responsible for emissions that cause substantial environmental impacts. Many of those impacts are directly related to the production of building materials. Consequently, the use of innovative building materials that consider the mitigation of environmental impacts through their production process has become a worldwide trend. In order to evaluate all the environmental impacts related to these materials, it is necessary to assess allthe life cycle stages. In order to do that, we propose the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), an internationally acknowledged method for the environmental evaluation of products, processes and services, which is also standardized for the environmental product declaration of construction products. Cement production is known to emit significant amounts of greenhouse gases. Hence, in this paper, LCA is applied to evaluate the carbon footprint of alternative, laboratory-produced clinker. The results show a 22% reduction in the carbon footprint of alternative clinker when compared to Portland clinker, indicating the stages in the production process that most contribute to these values. Moreover, the results indicatea wide range of applications of LCA in the construction industry.
Life-Cycle Assessment; Carbon Footprint; Alternative clinker; Portland clinker
