ABSTRACT
A concept has grown up that, by identifying the whole life cost, rational feedback can inform the choices made at the early design stages. But is this really the case? How does this help, and what does it help to achieve? Any reference to whole life issues may be swamped by much more demanding pressures from a host of other issues. It is therefore not surprising that not much concerted attention is paid to considering either the process or the results of any whole life analysis, and that it has little or no impact on real-world issues in the real world.
