Sustainability of modular lightweight steel building from design to deconstruction

The increasing concerns over population growth, depletion of natural resources and global warming as well as catastrophic natural events is leading the international scientific community to envisage sustainability as a crucial goal. The built environment plays a key role on the triple bottom line of the sustainable development -- Planet, People, Profit -- because of several environmental, social and economic impacts produced by the construction sector. The acknowledged need to promote a sustainable building market is an international high-priority issue as underlined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Indeed one of its strategic objectives highlights to make cities and human settlement inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. In line with the 2020 Europe Strategy and the European 2050 Roadmap, energy efficiency and CO2 savings towards a low-carbon economy are regarded as ambitious objectives to be achieved for both new and existing buildings. Thus, controlling and reducing the environmental impacts of new constructions is fundamental.

In line with this, the “Energy efficient LIghtweight Sustainable SAfe steel construction” (ELISSA) research project financed under the European FP7 aimed to develop a modular Cold-formed steel system that is energy efficient and robust. This paper presents the life cycle analysis of the building developed as case demonstrator. It analyses the environmental impacts during both the construction and the deconstruction phase. This works provides a benchmark of the current possibilities offered by lightweight steel structures in the framework of sustainable constructions.