Comparative life cycle assessment of light frame timber and reinforced concrete masonry structural systems for single-family houses in Luxembourg

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

The building sector's significant greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption present added challenges to meeting European climate commitments amidst rapid population growth. In Luxembourg, single-family houses dominate the residential buildings, noticeably contributing to construction waste and CO ₂ emissions. This study compares the environmental impacts of a three-story reinforced concrete masonry single-family house and an identical timber building in Luxembourg, emphasizing greenhouse gas emissions and embodied energy. A cradle-to-grave life cycle assessment was conducted using Building Information Modelling (BIM) models to analyze the global warming potential and primary energy requirements. Environmental product declarations from the producers and the ÖKOBAUDAT German database were used to determine the environmental impacts of the materials. The results show that the timber building outperforms the concrete building with a 43.5% lower global warming potential, while the concrete building demonstrates a 15.6% reduction in primary energy demand. This aligns with the average outcomes of seven similar studies discussed in this paper, at 33.2% and 4.7%, respectively. Moreover, the timber building is 78.6% lighter than the concrete one. When evaluating benefits and loads beyond the system boundary, the timber building provides 3.6 and 4 times greater advantages in terms of global warming potential and primary energy, respectively, compared to the reinforced concrete masonry building. Additionally, the study explores the impact of reusing the floors in the timber building. The cradle-to-grave LCA reveals that reusing the timber slabs improves the building's global warming potential and primary energy by 2.4% and 1.2%, respectively. However, when considering the benefits and loads beyond the system boundary, floor system reuse exhibits a 38.9% surge in global warming advantages while reducing primary energy benefits by 28.1%. The findings advocate for a policy promoting timber construction and reuse in Luxembourg, aiming to achieve the net-zero emission target by 2050.

Highlights

•

The LCA of two functionally identical single-family houses was compared
•

Majority of timber building's environmental impacts come from non-structural parts
•

The timber house has better end-of-life prospects in terms of GWP and PE
•

Reusable floors slightly improve the overall GWP and PE in the timber building
•

Reusable timber floors improve GWP but increase PE considering stage D of lifecycle

Related collections

Most cited references 44

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Is Open Access

Global CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from cement production

Robbie Andrew (2018)

The global production of cement has grown very rapidly in recent years, and after fossil fuels and land-use change, it is the third-largest source of anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide. The required data for estimating emissions from global cement production are poor, and it has been recognised that some global estimates are significantly inflated. Here we assemble a large variety of available datasets and prioritise official data and emission factors, including estimates submitted to the UNFCCC plus new estimates for China and India, to present a new analysis of global process emissions from cement production. We show that global process emissions in 2016 were 1.45±0.20 Gt CO 2 , equivalent to about 4 % of emissions from fossil fuels. Cumulative emissions from 1928 to 2016 were 39.3±2.4 Gt CO 2 , 66 % of which have occurred since 1990. Emissions in 2015 were 30 % lower than those recently reported by the Global Carbon Project. The data associated with this article can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.831455 .