AM in construction: taking environmental scalability into consideration

Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) of produced components and buildings growingly accompanies the development of Additive Manufacturing (AM) in construction. Considered a promising array of techniques to reduce the quantity of materials used, AM is however rarely evaluated from the perspective of the environmental impact of the machinery it mobilizes. The present research argues for a systematic evaluation of both the material and the machinery, demonstrating the variability and potential harmfulness of environmental impacts associated not only with the first, but also with the second. Reviewing different AM setups and discussing the amount of critical materials present in them as well as the consequences notably for abiotic depletion, ecotoxicity and human toxicity, the text concludes with a roadmap for sustainable AM in construction.