Life cycle assessment of an eco-neighborhood: influence of a sustainable urban mobility and photovoltaic panels

During this decade, the human exploitation on the environment
is being to completely change the nature of the ecosystem.
According to the experts, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) is the most
appropriate method to quantify the different environmental
impacts of human activities.The main purpose of this research is
to quantify, at the neighborhood scale, twelve environmental
impacts. Moreover, this research proposes to study two
sustainable strategies to reduce these impacts on the environment:
a sustainable urban mobility and the addition of photovoltaic
panels on the buildings’ roofs. We will thus seek to quantify the
impact of mobility management and local energy production on
the environmental balance sheet of a sustainable
neighborhood.For that, we used the combination of three
simulation tools — ALCYONE, COMFIE-PLEIADES and
novaEQUER for studying the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of a
case study. An eco-neighborhood, located in Belgium, has been
selected as the modeling site. The results show that a sustainable
mobility management in cities allows reducing from 4% to 50%
of each of the twelve environmental impacts calculated for a
neighborhood over its entire life cycle. The photovoltaic panels
can mitigate up to 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, but this
scenario generates an increase up to 18% for the damage to
biodiversity and 21% for waste production.