The Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia (ISCA) has commenced a project to update and refresh its IS Materials Calculator. As part of a continuous improvement process, ISCA’s Materials Working Group (MWG) has identified a number of opportunities to update LCA factors and add new materials. start2see, a specialist consultancy in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), has been awarded the project under a sponsorship arrangement. The first round of high priority changes, are planned to be incorporated into the IS Materials Calculator by February 2016.

start2see has been working with ISCA through the MWG on suggestions for the IS Materials Calculator for over a year,“ said ISCA Technical Director Rick Walters. “Rob Rouwette, founder of start2see and LCA expert, is bringing considerable experience on the environmental performance of materials to us, and we expect this will be of great value to ISCA, our members and the users of the IS Materials Calculator.” Over the last 20 years, Rob has undertaken environmental life cycle assessments for numerous major building and construction materials. Furthermore, start2see has played an active role in establishing AusLCI, an Australian life cycle inventory database, managed by the Australian Life Cycle Assessment Society (ALCAS). “AusLCI is a critical piece of life cycle infrastructure”, said Rob. “It provides us with a transparent database of independently verified environmental information.”

The ISCA Materials Working Group has recognized the need to update and improve the underlying factors of the IS Materials Calculator and AusLCI was logically identified as the first port of call. For users this means that the next version will see a change in some of the GHG emissions factors and EcoPoints to reflect new and updated information.

“An added bonus is that with AusLCI, material suppliers should have a clear pathway to add their materials to this life cycle inventory database,” explained Rick. “This creates opportunities for innovative products, which aligns well with ISCA’s purpose of stimulating sustainability.” 

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