Embodied Suffering Life Cycle Analysis for Amy Guttman Hall

EMBODIED SUFFERING REPORT

ARCH 7320

AMY GUTTMAN HALL

“Amy Gutmann Hall, named in honor of the Penn’s longest-serving President, will be the future home of Data Science academic and research programs and will centralize resources that will advance the work of scholars across a wide variety of fields making the tools and concepts of data analysis more accessible to the university community.

Aspirations established during the integrated design workshop focus on creating an environment that connects occupants, who work in a digital world, back to the natural environment. The building maximizes daylight and views, integrates ecological environments into interior spaces, and incorporates sensory stimuli that encourage collaborative social behavior and comfort.

To that end, Amy Gutmann Hall will be the first Mass Timber project for Penn, and the first six-story mass timber building in the City of Philadelphia. The system both reduces the building’s carbon footprint by 52% relative to concrete and 41% relative to steel and creates a warm, tactile and welcoming environment.”

AMY GUTTMAN HALL HARDI SHAH

https://kssarchitects.com/design/our-work/amy-gutmann-hall-new-data-science-building

“The six-story facility houses three floors of teaching labs, active learning classrooms, and collaboration spaces, and three floors of research centers organized around appropriately scaled neighborhoods that promote flexibility and connectivity.“

Gross Area (sq. ft.): 116,000 sqft (10,776.75 m2)

Phase: In-Construction

Total Project Cost: $137,500,000

Year Built: 2024

Floors: 6

Architect: Lake I Flato, KSS

AMY GUTTMAN HALL HARDI SHAH

We can see from the initial introduction slides with text extracted from the building’s architect’s website, the environmental effects of the building were a large part of the design process. Reducing the global warming potential of the building was a focus for the design team. However, the social component of the life cycle analysis is something that was not considered to the fullest extent. This is largely due to the limited availabilities of information for the wide array of building materials that are typically incorporated during construction.

+

Structures Foundations

In this report, the Social LCA was conducted for Amy Guttman Hall’s structural scope. We were limited to the structural materials for which we were able to access a database and obtain International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and Global Slavery Index (GSI) scores. Using BHoM as a tool, we calculated the masses of each material used in the structural scope and used it to calculate the GSI and ITUC scores for each material.

SOCIAL LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

https://www.ituc-csi.org/

https://www.ife-ch.org/news/report-on-eritrea-by-the-global-slavery-index/

https://worldsteel.org/steel-topics/life-cycle-thinking/

The Covered Scope:

Foundations:

● Reinforced Concrete

Framing:

● Glulam

● Concrete

● Steel

Columns:

● Steel

● Glulam

Floor Slabs:

● Concrete

● Concrete W/ Clt Topping

STRUCTURAL SOCIAL LCA SCOPE

MASS BREAKDOWN FOR THE BILL OF MATERIALS OF THE STRUCTURAL SCOPE

THE TOTAL MASS FOR EACH MATERIAL HAS A CORRESPONDING ITUC & GSI SCORE

STRUCTURAL SOCIAL LCA RESULTS

Additional raw materials were needed for this exercise to cover the full structures scope:

● Water

● Plastic

● Resin

If the entire building was considered, other raw materials which would be considered are:

● Fiberglass

● Iron ore

● Gypsum

● Aluminum

● Copper

● Iron

● Rock & Blast Furnace Slag for Mineral Batt

● Foam plastics such as polyurethane (PUR), polyisocyanurate (PIR), and polystyrene

● Salt & Ethylene (from oil) for PVC

● Cotton, linen, wool, leather, acetate, hemp, silk, polyester, polypropylene, acrylic, rayon, and nylon - for Fabrics

UNDEFINED MATERIALS

Mineral sands : Mineral sands are part of a class of ore deposits that contain heavy minerals such as ilmenite, zircon, leucoxene, and rutile. Eroded materials from hard rock sources like granite.or basalt accumulates on beaches within river systems and on coastlines. It is these beaches from which these valuable materials are extracted for end use in jewelry; as pigments in paints, plastics, paper, foods; in electronics.

Primary aggregates ：Crushed rock, extracted in hard rock quarries by blasting, crushing; and sand and gravel extracted from pits by excavation and crushing, from lakes, rivers and from coastal beaches or dredged from the sea.

Steel : Steel is a popular construction material, often used alongside concrete to create impressive and long-lasting buildings. Steel is at the core of construction in the housing industry.The main uses of steel in construction are Steel frames,Prefabricated steel, roofing, outbuildings and custom buildings.

MATERIALS OF HIGH CONCERN

https://d1pdf7a38rpjk8.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/Nyheder/2019/1_Sand_and_sustainability_UNEP_2019.pdf https://ezimetal.com.au/blog/articles-about-steel-products-in-newcastle-ezimetal/5-uses-steel-construction/

DILEMMA OF THE GLOBAL SAND AND AGGREGATE RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Even though these materials are the second largest resources extracted and traded by volume after water, they are one of the least regulated in many regions. Increasingly, sand is being produced through environmentally damaging extractive practices in sensitive terrestrial, riverine and ocean ecosystems.

Complex questions on how to deliver on ecosystem and biodiversity conservation goals alongside necessary improvements in transport, infrastructure, housing and living standards are looming.

https://d1pdf7a38rpjk8.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/Nyheder/2019/1_Sand_and_sustainability_UNEP_2019.pdf

WORKERS AT THE MINING SITE

Uncontrolled extraction comes at the expense of other economic sectors, local livelihoods and biodiversity. Direct safety risks for those working in the sector and living in the communities where this takes place include drowning (of workers removing sand from river beds), subsidence and landslides in extraction areas.

Local and indigenous peoples living in communities where sand extraction takes place are rarely heard in the mix of informal and formal governance, illegal and criminal activities; though when riverine or coastal societies are in crisis, they participate in sand extraction processes because it is their only possibility to make a living in the short run (Anongos etal., 2012; Awaaz Foundation, 2017).

https://d1pdf7a38rpjk8.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/user_upload/documents/Nyheder/2019/1_Sand_and_sustainability_UNEP_2019.pdf

OPPORTUNITY FOR STEEL INDUSTRY

42% of crude steel produced is recycled material.Re-melting proportion of steel scrap is constrained by availability. Availability can sometimes be defined as cost effective recovery.

Iron and steel are the world's most recycled materials, and among the easiest materials to reprocess, as they can be separated magnetically from the waste stream.

Steel reuse is any process where end-of-life steel is not re-melted but rather enters a new product use phase.Steel buildings and products are intrinsically demountable.

For the materials that were analyzed in the structural scope for this study, Zinc was initially thought to be of high concern. However, the quantity of zinc was so low that the probability that it was imported from a high risk country was low.

Sand and Aggregate are present in high quantities in this building so if they were sourced from high risk countries, they would be of the greatest concern for this project.

Timber, while it has a very low GSI score, still has a 3.0 for its ITUC because its source is Canada. It would be a concerning country of import with regards to labor exploitation due to the large amount of mass present in this building.

Virgin steel brings out a lot of countries of import with high ITUC

COUNTRIES OF HIGH CONCERN

SUPPLY CHAIN CONCERNS SAND & AGGREGATE

Sand’s ITUC breakdown shows that it was largely sourced from the US and Canada. While Canada has an ITUC of 3.0, the US is 4.0 which depicts high risk for labor exploitation. The GSI for sand is 1.3 which is on the lower end largely due to Canada’s GSI being 0.47.

For Aggregate, the ITUC breakdown reveals that it could be partly sourced from Honduras which is the highest ITUC score in the list. Apart from that the US is a 4.0 and the other four countries are 3.0 or 2.0. The ITUC for aggregate is 4.0 which leads me to believe that it is more probable that it came from the United States coupled with one of the countries with a 3.0 or 5.0 score. The GSI for aggregate is 1.3 which is relatively low. The highest score goes to Honduras again at 3.35 while Mexico, Jamaica, and Canada are all below 3. Because the score is low at 1.3, it leads me to keep the belief that it was largely sourced from America with its score at 1.26.

SUPPLY CHAIN CONCERNS VIRGIN STEEL

Steel is a problematic material in this building. As we can see to the right, the ITUC for Steel shows a large number of source countries with a Freedom of Association score of 4.0. But what is more concerning is the considerable number of countries to the right of that in the chart with a Freedom of Association score of 5.0. Countries such as Thailand, South Korea, India, Pakistan, Guatemala, UAE, Egypt, and more are all possible nations that the steel could have been sourced from with a very high ITUC score. In terms of the GSI, there are some countries that the steel could have been sourced from with very high +5 GSI scores such as Greece, Malaysia, Belarus, Turkey, Thailand, and Pakistan. Steel for this project is a material of concern because the raw material sources are unknown and could partly be from these countries with very high GSI scores.

SUPPLY CHAIN CONCERNS VIRGIN STEEL

SUPPLY CHAIN CONCERNS COAL

Coal has an ITUC of 4.0 for this building. The source countries with the highest risk are Indonesia, Columbia, and China at 5.0. The United States is also a source with a score of 4.0 and Russia and Canada are also possible sources with a score of 3.0.

The GSI for coal is 1.3 with the highest risks being from Russia (5.52) and Indonesia (4.73). Columbia (2.72) and China (2.77) are two other countries of concern with a higher GSI score. If the coal used in the production of concrete originated from any of these countries, it would be of high concern.

SUPPLY CHAIN CONCERNS CEMENT

Cement has a wide range of possible source countries similarly to steel. The ITUC of cement at Amy Guttman Hall is 4.0. Source countries of concern with high ITUC scores (5.00) are UAE, Thailand, Turkey, South Korea, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Egypt, Columbia, China, and Brazil. There are 7 other countries on the list with an ITUC score of 3 or more. In general it seems the sourcing for cement, no matter where it comes from apart from a handful of nations is quite concerning.

The GSI score is 1.6 with the highest contributors being Vietnam, Turkey, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Greece, Egypt, and Croatia all with scores 5+. The majority of the other scores are lower in the 1-3 range which brought the overall GSI score down to 1.6. But if any of the cement was sourced from the countries with a higher GSI, it would be a very concerning material for the building.

For the concrete, the two suppliers are Madison Concrete & Action Concrete. Neither of these two manufacturers provide the origins of the raw materials which go into the concrete. For the recycled and virgin steel in all columns, framing, and reinforcement, Central Metals was the supplier for the project. Central Metals does not provide the origin of their steel either. For the timber GluLam framing and the CLT floor panels of the building however, Nordic Structures do specify that the export country for the raw material is Canada. Knowing the suppliers for the materials in a project unfortunately does not completely disclose the origins for raw materials of a known quantity. If the suppliers are able to specify where they curated their raw materials, the social LCA would be able to identify the nations at risk due to the procurement of the material more confidently. Knowing the supplier allows us to make assumptions of where the company may have sourced the raw materials but unless the manufacturers themselves disclose that information, it will remain guesswork that would be conducted through the Responsible Sourcing Tool or Labor Exploitation Risk Tool.

SUPPLIERS

TIMBER

Known Manufacturer: Nordic Structures

Raw material sourcing for timber for this project was conducted 100% in Canada.

The ITUC Score is 3.0 because the entirety of the wood for the project was sourced in Canada which has a ITUC score of 3.0.

The GSI score is 0.47 which also makes sense as Canada has a very low GSI score.

As you can see in the charts to the right, the distribution for the ITUC (Freedom of Association) and GSI (Victims of Modern Slavery) are all under one number and location, Canada.

For other materials for which we do not know the exact origins, this distribution varies greatly based on the likelihood of where each material could have been originated from and the conditions (ITUC & GSI) of those locations.

ITUC measures labor exploitation through collected data from national unions and government policies. They send questionnaires to national unions in 163 countries asking to report violations of workers’ rights then hold regional meetings with the trade experts and disseminate the report respective to the region. The ITUC then contacts various unions directly when it is identified that a violation has occurred. The documentation is summarized, made publicly accessible, then read against a list of 97 indicators of violations of workers’ rights. A country receives a point when the text from that country is read against the indicator list and they correspond to an item on that list. Then the countries are rated in clusters from 1 to 5+ with 1 representing the least indicators triggered and 5+ being the worst.

ITUC’s FUNCTIONAL UNITS AND RATING

Global Slavery Index measures labor exploitation through data collected from the Vulnerability Model and nationally representative surveys. It then uses individual predictions to create country level risk scores to compare against population estimates of modern slavery proportionate to each country’s relative risk. They then estimate the number of victims based on the population data and estimates of added state imposed forced labor to cover all forms of modern slavery. The score for modern slavery is by the risk of X number of victims per 1000 population.

GSI’s FUNCTIONAL UNITS AND RATING

OVERALL STRUCTURAL SCOPE RESULTS

Based on our research in the first half of the semester and with the help of BHoM, we were able to obtain the quality of the structural materials used in the Amy Guttman Hall, and through their quality and the way they were used and constructed, we were able to compare the impact of labor exploitation in this project in a more visual way, allowing us to better understand and appreciate the project.

From our statistics in class, Aggregate had the highest percentage at 30.75%, followed by Timber and Sand at 28.47% and 17.94%. The remaining materials related to structural construction are cement, coal, recycled and new steel and zinc.

In general, the distribution of these materials is comparable to what we routinely predict for a public building, then we have to pay more attention to its own construction, which is accurately assessed by ITUC and GSI scores.

OVERALL STRUCTURAL RESULTS - ITUC

The ITUC Global Rights Index depicts the world’s worst countries for workers by rating 139 countries on a scale from 1-5 based on the degree of respect for workers’ rights. Workers’ rights are absent in countries with the rating 5 and violations occur on an irregular basis in countries with the rating 1.

When focusing on Freedom of Association, most of the materials have ITUC scores of 3 and 4, Among them, the highest percentage of Aggregate and Sand are 4, and including Steel, Coal, Cement 4, however, in Timber, the vast majority is only 3, which shows that there is probably less labor exploitation where the timber for this project was sourced.

At the global country level, the U.S. ITUC data is relatively less favorable, which may be due to two reasons: one is that labor exploitation and inequity in the U.S. itself is really serious and needs to be improved; the other may be that there is an exhaustive survey and statistical system and instruments in the U.S., which can more completely identify labor exploitation problems and thus reflect them in the ITUC scores.

OVERALL STRUCTURAL RESULTS - GSI

The Global Slavery Index (GSI) measures the extent of modern slavery country by country, and the steps governments are taking to respond to this issue, to objectively measure progress toward ending modern slavery.

The U.S. risk for modern slavery is at a relatively good level globally at around 1.3. In some high risk countries the index reaches 10+.

When focusing on the GSI scores of theAmy Guttman Hall, it can be seen that the vast majority of structural materials have a modern slavery index of less than 2. Aggregate, Coal, and Sand are around 1.3, and Timber is around 0-0.5 depending on the distribution of mass.This represents that those materials are likely sourced largely from countries with a relatively low risk for modern slavery. Zinc (1.9 the highest GSI for the building) has a problematic source but the mass in the building is so low that it is unlikely that it was sourced from a country with a high risk. Cement and steel are present in higher quantities but they have medium GSI scores of 1.6 & 1.7.

REPRESENTATIVE SCOPE RESULTS - AGGREGATE

REPRESENTATIVE SCOPE RESULTS - SAND

REPRESENTATIVE SCOPE RESULTS - TIMBER

LABOR EXPLOITATION RISK IN THE AEC INDUSTRY

In the same way that LEED is slowly making a shift in the amount of sustainable building materials available in the market and pushing for more consideration for sustainable buildings, the Labor Exploitation Risk methodology could do the same.

EPDs are being generated for a variety of materials to disclose properties such as acidification, eutrophication, and global warming potential which all help the AEC industry choose materials with fewer environmental impacts.

LABOR EXPLOITATION RISK IN THE AEC INDUSTRY

In the same way, this labor exploitation risk methodology could result in the production of a similar ‘declaration’ or report for every product which would disclose the ITUC and GSI for all materials used to create the product. This would allow designers to avoid choosing materials with high risk of both global modern slavery and disregard of worker’s rights.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trafficking-forced-labor-slavery-hugely-profitable-u-n-warns/ https://www.orissapost.com/fight-against-child-labour/ https://www.international-construction.com/news/is-construction-taking-slave-labour-seriously-/8016412.article https://crisis24.garda.com/insights-intelligence/insights/articles/addressing-human-trafficking-risk-in-supply-chains

LABOR EXPLOITATION RISK IN THE AEC INDUSTRY

Hopefully with a database of disclosed information per the Labor Exploitation Risk methodology allowing designers to stop sourcing products with raw materials from high risk countries, there would be an increased pressure on those nations to lower their ITUC and GSI scores to retain business.

https://www.chinadailyhk.com/articles/154/101/42/1505795826943.html https://freedomfund.org/congo-forced-labor-mining-2/ https://co4kids.org/blog/know-signs-child-labor-trafficking-and-child-sex-trafficking https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/17/world/gallery/global-slavery-index/index.html

LABOR EXPLOITATION RISK IN THE AEC INDUSTRY

There needs to be a development in global policy and regulation demanding that all transactions within these raw material procurement and product manufacturing sites be transparent and available to the public. Only with complete knowledge of what is happening today will people in the AEC industry who are not always witness to the processes be able to demand that materials be procured and manufactured in a humane way.