SBE is a Belgian engineering consultancy specialising in the design of infrastructure objects such as locks, bridges and quay walls. Our abstract fits within the predefined themes ‘Lifecycle Assessment and Optimisation of Civil Infrastructure’.
In our paper, we will explain SBE's general approach to LCA/LCC calculations and illustrate it using concrete project examples.
We start with putting the emissions in our projects in perspective to SBE's emissions as a company. Through this quantitative comparison, we want to make engineers and designers aware of the gigantic impact each of us can make by designing smartly.
In the second part, we will discuss some specific project examples. Included: conducting a variant and gravity point analysis for a deep-sea quay wall and a movable steel bridge. For the movable bridge, the relative contribution of embodied carbon and operational carbon is calculated. Moreover, it is described how the carbon emissions were monetised so that they can be put in perspective with the financial investment cost and the maintenance cost. In this way, the client is provided with a complete LCC assessment that makes it possible to choose the most suitable variant based on the combination of both the financial cost and the environmental cost.
In a design the exact materials and associated EPD’s are often not yet known. We therefore also provide our clients insight into the range that can occur in CO2 emissions, by reporting a worst-case and best-case result in addition to a realistic scenario.
We conclude with an collision protection realised in the port of Rotterdam. During the design process, a targeted search was made for the use of suitable reused steel profiles, as a result of which the environmental impact could be reduced by as much as 70% compared to the reference structure with new elements.