Many stadiums will be built in China in the next few decades due to increasing public interest in physical exercise and the incentive policies issued by the government under its National Fitness Program. This paper investigates the energy saving and carbon reduction performance of timber stadiums in China in comparison with stadiums constructed using conventional building materials, based on both life cycle energy assessment (LCEA) and life cycle carbon assessment (LCCA). The authors select five representative cities in five climate zones in China as the simulation environment, simulate energy use in the operation phase of stadiums constructed from reinforced concrete (RC) and timber, and compare the RC and timber stadiums in terms of their life cycle energy consumption and carbon emissions. The LCEA results reveal that the energy saving potential afforded by timber stadiums is 11.05%, 12.14%, 8.15%, 4.61% and 4.62% lower than those of RC buildings in "severely cold," "cold," "hot summer, cold winter," "hot summer, warm winter," and "temperate" regions, respectively. The LCCA results demonstrate that the carbon emissions of timber stadiums are 15.85%, 15.86%, 18.88%, 19.22% and 22.47% lower than those of RC buildings for the regions above, respectively. This demonstrates that in China, timber stadiums have better energy conservation and carbon reduction potential than RC stadiums, based on life cycle assessment. Thus, policy makers are advised to encourage the promotion of timber stadiums in China to achieve the goal of sustainable energy development for public buildings.Sustainability 2020, 12, 1566 2 of 24 carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) [4]. The use of fossil fuels is believed to be the main factor leading to global warming [5,6]. Global warming is widely considered to cause glacier retreat and regional climate changes, species extinction, and further uncertain risks [7,8].Measuring the "greenhouse effect" for mitigation purposes has become a major interest internationally in the last few decades. During the last 50 years, global warming has mainly been caused by excessive GHG emissions due to human activities [9]. International Energy Outlook (2019) reported that the building sector, one of the most important areas of human activities, accounted for 20% of the world's delivered energy consumption in 2018 [10]. This figure will rise to about 22% by 2050 [10]. The Brown to Green Report (2019) showed that carbon emissions directly from the building sector accounted for 9% of G20 energy-related CO 2 emissions in 2019 and that 18% of these emissions arose from electricity use in buildings [11].At the end of 2016, the energy consumption of buildings in China was 26 billion GJ, accounting for 20.6% of the country's total energy consumption. In total, the building industry emitted 1.96 billion tons of CO 2 in this year, accounting for 19.4% of domestic carbon emissions [12]. At the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference [13], the Chinese government set the goal of reducing carbon emissions per unit of GDP by 60%-65% by...

The aim of this research is to investigate the energy sustainability of cross-laminated timber (CLT) and straw residential buildings in the Cold and Severe Cold Regions of China. In the study, three building materials, namely reinforced concrete (RC), CLT, and straw bale, are used separately to design the building envelope in reference residential buildings in different climate zones. The energy consumption during the operation phase of these buildings is then simulated using Integrated Environmental Solutions—Virtual Environment software (IES-VE). The results show that both CLT and straw buildings are more efficient than reinforced concrete with a reduction in energy consumption during the operational phase. Overall, the calculated heating energy-saving ratios for CLT buildings in Hailar, Harbin, Urumchi, Lanzhou, and Beijing are 3.04%, 7.39%, 7.43%, 12.69%, and 13.41%, respectively, when compared with RC. The calculated energy-saving ratios for heating in straw buildings in comparison with RC in these cities are 8.04%, 22.09%, 22.17%, 33.02%, and 34.28%, respectively. The results also reveal that a south orientation of the main building facade results in approximately 5% to 7% energy reduction in comparison with east or west orientations, and as the building height increases, energy consumption decreases gradually. Although RC is the most frequently used building material in Cold and Severe Cold regions in China, as bio-based building materials, there is great potential to promote CLT and straw bale construction in view of the energy sustainability features.