Life Cycle Assessment: A Comparison of Ceramic Brick Inventories to Subsidize the Development of Databases in Brazil

Brazilians construction industry is facing a growth panorama. Given this, discussions on environmental suitability of the sector become relevant, since it is recognized as the most important sector for achieving more sustainable patterns of development. The life cycle assessment (LCA) has been considered one of the most appropriate methodologies for the analysis of interactions between products and services of construction industry and the environment and it has been used with numerous goals and different methodological referrals. In Brazil the main limitation related to the use of LCA is the lack of databases for the specific regional reality, which is related with life cycle inventories, part of LCA process. This article aims to compare different LCA studies that addressed the life cycle of ceramic bricks, an intensive used component in Brazilians buildings. The focus defined is the LCI of production phase, identifying possible differences in modeling processes and in inputs and outputs. The results pointed out to homogeneity in process description and to a lack of correspondence of inputs and outputs with functional units adopted.