The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has released a preliminary report titled “Life Assessment of Buildings”. The report sets a new LCA standard for buildings by establishing the lifetime for a building to be 75 years. MIT found that most of the carbon emissions from buildings are released during the use phase. The report outlines the LCA approach, results thus far, and a work plan for the remaining timeframe of the project . This would be the first report on an evaluation of a LCA on the whole building. The final version of the report, along with corresponding cost analysis, will be released in August 2011. For more information visit web.mit.edu/cshub