Mantle was engaged by the Ontario Ministry of Infrastructure to perform research, analysis, and provide insights for consideration on strategies to integrate life cycle assessment (LCA) into future government infrastructure planning and decision-making. This research focused on understanding current best practices on LCA-related data, tools, and processes, and studying how environmental impacts over the life-cycle of an asset could be considered when designing and building provincial infrastructure.
Report 1: LCA on Completed Building Projects
This work was carried out to inform the development of potential baselines and/or benchmarks for future use with LCA for upcoming infrastructure projects, and to identify challenges and potential solutions to support broader LCA implementation in Ontario. This work focused on calculating the embodied carbon in two recently completed LEED-certified government buildings.
Report 2: LCA for Transportation Infrastructure
This work was carried out to help inform the Ontario government about LCA and its potential to inform the analysis of greenhouse gas emissions associated with road and bridge transportation infrastructure project planning and construction.
Report 3: Considerations for Broader LCA Implementation
This report outlines LCA methodology, best practices, the current state of play, and insights on potential policy insertion points that the Ontario government could consider if LCA is planned to be used more broadly to help quantify and drive down embodied carbon of infrastructure construction. Results from previous project outputs are summarized as are insights gained on future policy and technical considerations which could be used to more broadly roll out LCA in Ontario.
For more information on these reports, contact Mantle.