Widening understanding of low embodied impact buildings: Results and recommendations from 80 multi-national quantitative and qualitative case studies

Moncaster, Alice; Rasmussen, Freja Nygaard; Malmqvist, Tove; Wiberg, Aoife Anne Marie Houlihan; Birgisdóttir, Harpa

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.06.233

Cited by 66 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Where available, the literature review was concentrated to LCA studies in a Northern European setting as to account for equivalent design and construction techniques, along with requirements stemming from climatic conditions. While LCA studies of buildings are prevalent, studies that describe and separate material inputs, material transports, and construction processes are more limited, particularly regarding non-residential buildings and refurbishments (see, e.g., reviews in Reference [55][56][57]). As LCA studies are limited for refurbishments, no detailed breakdown for refurbishments has been developed here.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Roadmap for Decarbonization of the Building and Construction Industry—A Supply Chain Analysis Including Primary Production of Steel and Cement

et al. 2020

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Sweden has committed to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net-zero by 2045. Around 20% of Sweden’s annual CO2 emissions arise from manufacturing, transporting, and processing of construction materials for construction and refurbishment of buildings and infrastructure. In this study, material and energy flows for building and transport infrastructure construction is outlined, together with a roadmap detailing how the flows change depending on different technical and strategical choices. By matching short-term and long-term goals with specific technology solutions, these pathways make it possible to identify key decision points and potential synergies, competing goals, and lock-in effects. The results show that it is possible to reduce CO2 emissions associated with construction of buildings and transport infrastructure by 50% to 2030 applying already available measures, and reach close to zero emissions by 2045, while indicating that strategic choices with respect to process technologies and energy carriers may have different implications on energy use and CO2 emissions over time. The results also illustrate the importance of intensifying efforts to identify and manage both soft and hard barriers and the importance of simultaneously acting now by implementing available measures (e.g., material efficiency and material/fuel substitution measures), while actively planning for long-term measures (low-CO2 steel or cement).

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additional upwards adjustments are based on literature detailing refurbishments which report the main embodied emissions resulting from insulation, windows and metals for new ventilation, and heating systems [55,151,152].…”

Section: Estimate and Validation Of Current Emissions From Building Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Roadmap for Decarbonization of the Building and Construction Industry—A Supply Chain Analysis Including Primary Production of Steel and Cement

et al. 2020

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“…Strategies for mitigating embodied building emissions currently focus on the reduction of building construction and demolition waste, i.e. extending the existing building life and reuse of existing structures 16 , on the enhancement of the material efficiency, i.e. using less of the same material while providing the same service 17 , or material substitution, i.e.…”

Section: Existing Climate-neutral Strategies In the Built Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Material diets for Climate-Neutral Buildings

Carcassi¹,

Habert²,

Malighetti³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The climate crisis is urging us to act fast. Buildings are a key leverage point to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but the embodied emissions related with their construction remain often the hidden challenge of any ambitious policy. Since a complete material substitution is not possible, we explore in this paper a material greenhouse gas (GHG) compensation where fast growing bio-based insulation materials are used to compensate building elements which necessarily release GHG. Different material diets as well as different building typologies are modelled to assess the consequences in term of bio-based insulation requirement to reach climate-neutrality. Our results show that it is possible to build climate-neutral buildings with sufficient energy performance to fulfil current standards and with building components thickness within the range of current construction practices. This paper evidences that it is technically feasible and that climate-neutrality in construction sector without a radical technology breakthrough.

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“…Due to the significance of this sector in mitigating global climate change, considerable efforts have been undertaken across many countries to reduce energy consumption in residential buildings by legislating various regulations and building codes. These regulations are mainly in place to minimize the environmental impacts associated with energy use from heating, cooling, and lighting [4]. However, recent studies have shown the reduction of building operational energy use can lead to an increase in total building life cycle energy use due to increasing the embodied energy from the building components [5][6][7][8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The increasing amount of research has however caused an issue of variations in results presented by LCEA studies, in which apparently similar case studies exhibited different results. To date, a plethora of studies have been conducted exploring reasons for variations in the results of LCEA studies [4,[10][11][12][13]. For instance, Dixit et al [10] identified key parameters which can lead to varying results in embodied energy analysis, namely system boundary definitions, the methods used for measurement of embodied energy, geography, the type of energy (i.e., primary or secondary energy), age and source of data, data completeness, manufacturing technology, feedstock energy considerations, and temporal representativeness.The majority of the conducted studies only looked at parameters with potential influence on calculating embodied energy, whereas variations can also be induced from the measurement of building operational energy.…”

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confidence: 99%

Application of Life Cycle Energy Assessment in Residential Buildings: A Critical Review of Recent Trends

et al. 2020

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Residential buildings are responsible for a considerable portion of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Correspondingly, many attempts have been made across the world to minimize energy consumption in this sector via regulations and building codes. The focus of these regulations has mainly been on reducing operational energy use, whereas the impacts of buildings’ embodied energy are frequently excluded. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in analyzing the energy performance of buildings via a life cycle energy assessment (LCEA) approach. The increasing amount of research has however caused the issue of a variation in results presented by LCEA studies, in which apparently similar case studies exhibited different results. This paper aims to identify the main sources of variation in LCEA studies by critically analyzing 26 studies representing 86 cases in 12 countries. The findings indicate that the current trend of LCEA application in residential buildings suffers from significant inaccuracy accruing from incomplete definitions of the system boundary, in tandem with the lack of consensus on measurements of operational and embodied energies. The findings call for a comprehensive framework through which system boundary definition for calculations of embodied and operational energies can be standardized.

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Widening understanding of low embodied impact buildings: Results and recommendations from 80 multi-national quantitative and qualitative case studies

Abstract: Widening understanding of low embodied impact buildings: results and recommendations from 80 multinational quantitative and qualitative case studies. Journal of Cleaner Production, 235 pp. 378-393. For guidance on citations see FAQs.

Cited by 66 publications

References 70 publications

Roadmap for Decarbonization of the Building and Construction Industry—A Supply Chain Analysis Including Primary Production of Steel and Cement

Roadmap for Decarbonization of the Building and Construction Industry—A Supply Chain Analysis Including Primary Production of Steel and Cement

Material diets for Climate-Neutral Buildings

Application of Life Cycle Energy Assessment in Residential Buildings: A Critical Review of Recent Trends

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