Carbon Footprint of Dwelling Construction in Romania and Spain. A Comparative Analysis with the OERCO2 Tool

Abstract

CO2 emissions due to the construction sector represent 40% of the total, either directly by the use of the building or indirectly by the emissions incorporated in construction materials and products. It is important to achieve a change in this sector to introduce these concepts in a simple way. There are various tools for evaluating emissions in construction projects. In the present work, the OERCO2 tool is used. This work studies housing projects in two European countries belonging to significantly different regions, Spain (Andalusia) and Romania (Bucharest and Transylvania). Although concrete or masonry structures are mainly used in Romania, due to an increased demand for residential buildings in recent years, a new niche has appeared in the construction sector: metallic and mixed (metal–concrete) structures for multi-storied buildings. For these reasons, a comparison between concrete and metallic buildings can be made in order to highlight their environmental impact. Twenty-four projects are selected from Romanian projects with metallic structures, and Spanish projects with concrete structures. They are also differentiated according to the type of foundation used. As expected, buildings with a metallic structure have more economic and environmental impact than reinforced concrete. The materials with greater impact are metal, concrete, cement, and ceramic products. The potential of the tool for the evaluation of various construction solutions, materials, and project phases is demonstrated.

Life Cycle Assessment of Industrial Building Construction and Recovery Potential. Case Studies in Seville

“…The next families in terms of weight are aggregates and stones, used in the preparation of mortars and for the improvement of soil, and metals and alloys consumed in the structure, roof and installations. The most important families are similar to the ones employed in dwelling construction in Spain [67], except for the use of bricks and ceramic materials which are typical of the residential sector. Table 6 shows the results obtained from the environmental evaluation of the case studies.…”

Decarbonization and Circular Economy in the Sustainable Development and Renovation of Buildings and Neighbourhoods

“…Apart from the contribution of certain phases of the life cycle, it is important to consider the environmental impact of the whole life cycle of a building. This is the focus of the article written by Patricia González-Vallejo, Radu Muntean, Jaime Solís-Guzmán and Madelyn Marrero [21]. The authors compare the environmental impact of housing projects in Spain and Romania using the OERCO2 tool considering the difference in the constructive solutions for structures in both countries.…”

A comparative study on the ecological footprint of living consumption in northwest ethnic regions: 1980–2018

“…At present, ecological footprint is widely used in finance (Lu and Ge, 2018;Ahmed et al, 2021), tourism (Zhen et al, 2020;Khan and Hou, 2021), agriculture (Udemba, 2020;Wang and Lin 2021), energy (Tan and He, 2016;Zhang et al, 2020), education (Hu et al, 2017;Helmers et al, 2021), architecture (Li et al, 2015;González-vallejo, Muntean, Solís-Guzmán and Marrero, 2020) and other fields, aiming to reveal the relationship between ecological footprint and sustainable economic development, and then provide theoretical basis and decision-making support for promoting global sustainable development and reducing ecological pressure. Relevant ecological footprint case studies were also gradually unfolded, including different spatial scales, different time spans, improvement of accounting methods, and driving model application and correction.…”