How can the biodiversity impacts of construction be measured?

How can you measure the impacts of construction on biodiversity loss?

18.3.2025 – As much as a third of biodiversity loss is the result of construction. In our pilot project, we tested biodiversity impact calculations in collaboration with Skanska.

Themes

Sustainability

Construction has a huge impact on the environment – up to 30% of the world’s biodiversity loss is due to construction. Already, carbon footprint calculation is an established practice in construction projects. However, the sustainability of construction cannot be assessed solely on the basis of carbon emissions.

Besides climate change, biodiversity loss is also the result of four other factors: water use, pollution, land use and land use changes as well as invasive species. And so biodiversity impact calculations should be integrated in to sustainable construction design and assessment.

Impacts of construction not limited to building sites

A significant part of the changes affecting biodiversity occur before the site gates even open. Obtaining raw materials from soil and forests, processing materials and transporting building materials all impact ecosystems in different ways.

A significant part of the changes affecting biodiversity occur during acquisition, production, and transportation of raw materials.

Indeed, the impacts on biodiversity must be measured throughout the building’s lifecycle, from raw material procurement all the way to the end of the building’s lifecycle. They can be measured by supplementing LCAs with a nature footprint indicator that assesses the loss of biodiversity in nature and ecosystems. The Potentially Disappeared Fraction of Species (PDF) indicator tells us the fraction of the world’s species at a risk of extinction as a result of a specific operation or environmental change.

Pilot project measuring impacts of biodiversity loss

Together with Skanska, we used the LC-IMPACT method to study the impacts of an apartment building constructing on biodiversity. It was the first time in Finland that the impacts of construction on biodiversity have been calculated.

According to the calculation, the largest single factor in biodiversity loss for this apartment building is climate change (52%), followed by water consumption (45%). In contrast, the impacts of land use and pollution on biodiversity are lower (3%).

Due to the impacts of climate change, the construction of the building under review mainly affects terrestrial ecosystems (2.10 nPDF*y). What is more, through water use, the building also has an effect on the aquatic ecosystem (1.89 nPDF*y). The impacts on marine ecosystems are not as significant (0.03 nPDF*y).

As the building has a concrete frame, concrete and reinforced steel were the materials with the highest impact in most categories. The wood materials used in interior doors, for example, have the biggest impact on land use.

PDF = Potentially Disappeared Fraction of Species

nPDF = The results are presented as nano-PDF units, as PDF typically provides very small values: it describes the impact of one building on global biodiversity loss.

Towards lifecycle sustainability assessment

Construction affects biodiversity throughout its lifecycle: from the selection, procurement and transport of building materials to the construction site phase and demolition.

Our research conducted as part of the NSDC project shows that the impacts of biodiversity can – and should – be taken into account when assessing the sustainability of construction. When the impacts on biodiversity are calculated over the building’s entire lifecycle, we can compare the impacts of different design solutions and, for example, material choices. In sustainable construction, biodiversity is factored already at the design stage.

Let us include biodiversity loss measurement in the sustainable construction toolkit!