Economy as a sustainable requirement in industrial construction projects

Resumen

The economic requirement as a sustainable factor in industrial building projects must be considered throughout its entire life cycle. Life Cycle Costing ‘LCC’ is a technique which allows a comparative cost assessment to be made for various investment alternatives [Sarja A, 2002], over a specific period of time, taking into account all relevant economic factors. This technique is focused on initial capital costs and future (estimated) costs. Initial costs include all investment costs directly related to a building project, such as the planning, design, construction, installation and financing costs. Future costs mainly comprise operating, maintenance, rehabilitation and demolition costs. For LCC to become widely accepted, concerns about uncertainties in forecasting must be overcome. Some actual trends (Eurolifeform project [Eurolifeform, 2004], for example) aims to develop a design methodology and supporting data, using a probabilistic approach for taking into account uncertainties. In the construction stage, total costs of the building construction can be calculated as the sum of the previously brocken-down and analysed elements which go into constructing an industrial building. The costs of each of the building elements can be carried through reference prices from competent and reliable organisms, such as the database of prices to the Colegio Oficial de Aparejadores y Arquitectos Técnicos de Guadalajara (Official Asociation of Quantity Surveyars and Technical Architects of Guadalajara). Once the economic cost of the building in its planning stage has been obtained, a quantification can be made of its degree of sustainability, which can be used as a significant factor in selecting which kind of industrial building model is chosen.