Timber buildings can reduce embodied carbon, but fire-safety requirements alter their materials, systems and environmental impacts. Conventional building life cycle assessment (LCA) rarely identifies fire safety as the function driving these burdens and normally assumes an incident-free service life. This dissertation assesses both impacts introduced before a fire and consequences when fire disrupts the building life cycle. Its central contribution, Fire Safety Life Cycle Assessment (FS-LCA), links fire-safety requirements, building elements, functions and impacts, enabling attribution within multifunctional assemblies and comparison of compliant strategies. The findings show that environmental product data for active systems and means of egress are uneven and often difficult to use; fire-regulated structural elements are major hotspots and fire performance is mainly embedded as a secondary function; and severe fire impacts are driven by damage, replacement and reconstruction. By connecting compliance-related burdens with scenario-based fire consequences, the thesis supports more complete assessment and informed design of fire-safe, low-carbon buildings.

For a copy of the thesis, please email inst.build.phd@build.aau.dk