*2.1. Building Scale*

Several studies in different countries studied LCA at the building level.

In 2011, Rossi et al. [25] compared the LCA of the same building located in three cities distributed in three different European countries and climates: Brussels (Belgium), Coimbra (Portugal) and Luleå (Sweden). A difference of less than 17.4% was obtained on comparing the operational energy and carbon. Stephan et al. [31] analyzed the life cycle energy use in a passive building in Belgium and, then, carried out a comparison with other building types. The results showed that new techniques of construction had to be applied for improving the house energy efficiency. The passive house embodied energy accounts for 55% of the total energy on the 100-year life cycle. Cabeza et al. [32] gave a review of the life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle energy analysis (LCEA) and life cycle cost analysis (LCCA) in numerous kinds of buildings, located in different countries with varied climates. The results showed that few of the LCA and LCEA studies were carried out in traditional buildings. In their research, Kellenberger and Althaus [33] carried out the LAC of many house components (roof, wall, etc.), with the purpose of evaluating the performance of the materials. The transportation of the building materials and other parameters were also studied. For deepening the knowledge of the environmental characteristics of the building materials and energy, Bribián et al. [34] applied three environmental impact categories for comparing the most used material in the new designs. The results showed that the impact of a material can be significantly reduced by applying the new methods of eco-innovation. Vilches et al. [35] showed that a majority of the LCA was based on energy demand compared at every stage of the life cycle. This research focused on the environmental impact of buildings system retrieval. A strong review on the life cycle energy analyses of buildings from 73 cases, applied in 13 countries and taking into consideration office and residential buildings, was shown by Ramesh et al. [36]. Rashid and Yusoff [37] assessed the phase and material that significantly affected the environment. In the research carried out by Chau and Leung [38], the results showed that the use of different functional units did not allow easy comparison of the studies found in the literature.
