# Proposal for the Evaluation of Eco-Efficient Concrete
## 3 Proposed Assessment Method for the Eco-Efficiency of Concrete
### Eco-Efficiency Assessment Method of Concrete
#### 3.4.1 Environmental Performance (EP)
The human environment can be subdivided into human health and social assets that sustain human society, such as crops and resources. Accordingly, as shown in Table 2, human health, biodiversity, social assets, and primary production were selected in this study as four safeguard subjects. Rather than the Eco-indicator 99 [28] (which reflects the environmental situation of Europe), the Korean lifecycle impact assessment index based on damage-oriented modeling (KOLID) [29] benchmarks the lifecycle impact assessment method based on endpoint modeling (LIME) of Japan [30], which clearly describes the philosophical grounds for the selection of safeguard subjects. Therefore, it is appropriate for the current analysis to use the safeguard subjects of KOLID for the calculation of the environmental costs of concrete. Figure 6: Assessment process for the environmental costs of concrete. 2. Damage indicators  
Table 2 shows damage indicators for each safegu subject, unit of each damage indicator, and scope of assessment necessary for quantification of damage received by the four safeguard subjects according to environmental load. For human health, the degree of damage on human health caused by specific disease or physical factor was quantified as Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY), a value that expresses the degree of damage on human health using the concept of life year. DALY can be used to assess cases of early death from disease or accident and cases of unhealthy life due to disability. For example, one DALY means that life year during which death from disease or accident and unhealthy life occurs is 1 year. As shown by Equation (10), DALY can be expressed as the sum of \"Years of Life Lost (YLL)\" from disease or accident and \"Years Lost due to Disability (YLD).\" YLD can be derived by reflecting importance of disability (D) and social value of age upon death. However, only importance of disability was accounted without consideration on importance of age and time discount originally considered in DALY. DALY was used as an indicator to show combined years lost from death and disability [31; 32]. \[DALY\,=\,YLL\,+\,YLD \tag{10}\]  
Social assets [33] can be classified into \"production capacity of the ecosystem\" that corresponds to the biological world and \"non-biological resources\" related to non-biological elements. In this study, forest resources, marine resources, and agricultural crops correspond to production capacity of the ecosystem, and fossil fuels and mineral resources correspond to non-biological elements. Current value assessment method, which uses actual market price, was applied as an indicator to measure the amount of damage for each item. When assessing biodiversity, general method involves classification of species according to the Endangered Species Act of the United States, the Convention on international angered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES), and Red Data Book (RDB) published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) [34]. The conventional damage oriented methods of impact assessment reflect such reality and conduct assessment based on quantifiable species [35; 36]. In this study, \"Expected Increase in Number of Extinct Species (EINES)\" based on preservation ecology was adopted as damage indicator for ease of interpretation and agreement with data from Red Data Book. EINES, obtained from the increase in number of extinct species caused by environmental load, can be expressed as Equation (11). \[=\]0  
Here, \(R_{s}\) is the extinction risk increase by environmental impact; \(T_{a,s}\) is the extinction hours after caused environmental impact; and \(T_{b,s}\) is the extinction hours ago caused environmental impact. Damage indicators to assess the effects of primary production include gross primary production (GPP), net primary production (NPP), and plant biomass. From the perspective of plant supply to consumers, plant biomass seems to be an optimal indicator given that a certain critical mass of plants must be accumulated and secured.