Is it feasible to address indoor climate issues in LCA?

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is frequently used as a tool for environmental assessment of buildings and building products. Generally, the main focus of LCA is the impact on the regional and global external environment. However, there are important environmental problems related to buildings that arise locally in connection with the indoor environment, such as effects on human health. The approaches of LCA, measurements of emissions from building materials, and indoor climate assessment were studied to see how they relate to each other from a methodological point of view, using volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions as an example. The possibility of including indoor climate issues as an impact category in LCA of building products was investigated. Only very limited aspects of the indoor climate could be addressed in LCA; thus, indoor climate issues are preferably dealt with separately.