A Comparative Cradle-to-Gate Life Cycle Assessment of Mid-Rise Office Building Construction Alternatives: Laminated Timber or Reinforced Concrete

Robertson, Adam Blake; Lam, Frank; Cole, Raymond J.

doi:10.3390/buildings2030245

Cited by 188 publications

(116 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Although there have been some simple methods developed for architects to carry out fast LCA, such as that proposed by Hollberg and Ruth [26], building construction is a complicated process and often not all the details in all the locations could be obtained to put into the analysis. For example, some analyses only include the materialisation process [27]. It is therefore essential to define the boundary of the analyses when carrying out LCA or LCEA, Figure 7 depicts the boundary of analyses in this study.…”

Section: The Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) as an Alternative Material for Mid-Rise Residential Buildings in Cold Regions in China—A Life-Cycle Assessment Approach

et al. 2016

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Abstract:Timber building has gained more and more attention worldwide due to it being a generic renewable material and having low environmental impact. It is widely accepted that the use of timber may be able to reduce the embodied energy of a building. However, the development of timber buildings in China is not as rapid as in some other countries. This may be because of the limitations of building regulations and technological development. Several new policies have been or are being implemented in China in order to encourage the use of timber in building construction and this could lead to a revolutionary change in the building industry in China. This paper is the first one to examine the feasibility of using Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) as an alternative solution to concrete by means of a cradle-to-grave life-cycle assessment in China. A seven-storey reference concrete building in Xi'an was selected as a case study in comparison with a redesigned CLT building. Two cities in China, in cold and severe cold regions (Xi'an and Harbin), were selected for this research. The assessment includes three different stages of the life span of a building: materialisation, operation, and end-of-life. The inventory data used in the materialisation stage was mostly local, in order to ensure that the assessment appropriately reflects the situation in China. Energy consumption in the operation stage was obtained from simulation by commercialised software IES TM , and different scenarios for recycling of timber material in the end-of-life are discussed in this paper. The results from this paper show that using CLT to replace conventional carbon intensive material would reduce energy consumption by more than 30% and reduce CO 2 emission by more than 40% in both cities. This paper supports, and has shown the potential of, CLT being used in cold regions with proper detailing to minimise environmental impact.

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Section: The Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) as an Alternative Material for Mid-Rise Residential Buildings in Cold Regions in China—A Life-Cycle Assessment Approach

et al. 2016

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“…Another limitation in the current body of literature is that even of the studies that have included multiple impact categories, only a very few concentrate on the early life cycle or the embodied and construction phase emissions of buildings (Thormark et al 2000, Robertson et al 2012, Dong and Ng 2015. The other studies have focused mainly on comparing the relative importance of the different life cycle phases (Junnila 2004, Junnila and Horvath 2003, Guggemos and Horvath 2005, Junnila et al 2006, Kofoworola and Gheewala 2008, Passer et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pre-use phase LCA of a multi-story residential building: Can greenhouse gas emissions be used as a more general environmental performance indicator?

Heinonen

Säynäjoki

Junnonen

et al. 2016

Building and Environment

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Both the construction and use of buildings cause significant environmental pressures. The greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions imposed by buildings have been studied rather extensively, but less is known about other impacts. Still, climate change is only one harmful impact driven by buildings. Furthermore, no studies exist about how the other impacts are correlated with GHG emissions in the building context, and thus to what extent GHGs could be utilized as a more general environmental performance indicator. This paper fills these gaps by presenting a life cycle assessment of the pre-use phase of a modern concrete-element residential building with a very comprehensive life cycle inventory (LCI). The focus of the study is on the comparison of the accumulation of different environmental impacts relative to GHGs. The accumulation is analyzed from two perspectives common to building LCAs: building systems and different construction materials. The ReCiPe midpoint assessment method is utilized to reach wide impact category coverage. The study shows how GHGs act as a relatively good indicator for eight impact categories, but not for the others. The study also depicts that a very high coverage in the LCI must be reached to capture the majority of the different impacts. Many materials and building systems are considered non-relevant and are often excluded from building LCAs, which are in fact of great importance in many impact categories.

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“…This is considered as a typical concrete mix for multi-storey buildings within Australia (Cement Australia 2015). The fly ash mix can be left variable as it has been found that a simple change by adding 5% more fly ash has minimal effect on embodied energy of the concrete (Robertson, Lam & Cole 2012). The CLT panels are assumed to be supplied from KLH in Austria.…”

Section: Floor Design Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A study undertaken by Robertson et al (2012) has revealed that timber design has over five times more feedstock energy than a concrete design scenario. Feedstock energy is the easily accessible potential energy contained in renewable fuel sources that can be used to form another fuel or energy product.…”

Section: Demolition and End Of Life Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Feedstock energy is the easily accessible potential energy contained in renewable fuel sources that can be used to form another fuel or energy product. The high amount of feedstock energy in both glulam and CLT indicates that the materials can be readily combusted and utilised as energy sources after their useful life (Robertson, Lam & Cole 2012). The use of this recovered bio-energy instead of fossil fuels has the potential to significantly reduce the net emission of CO2 (Gustavsson, Joelsson & Sathre 2010).…”

Section: Demolition and End Of Life Scenariosmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A comparative life cycle assessment approach of two innovative long span timber floors with its reinforced concrete equivalent in an Australian context

Basaglia¹,

Lewis²,

Shrestha³

et al. 2015

Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Performance-Based and Life-Cycle Structural Engineering (PLSE 2015)

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The building sector contributes 24% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. This is expected to rise by 110% by 2050. Consequently, there has been an increased demand for more sustainable building materials which can play a significant role in reducing carbon emissions. Engineered timber wall and floor panels are being seen as a viable alternative for multi-storey buildings for both strength and environmental purposes and are gaining popularity in Europe, North America and New Zealand. A number of previous Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) comparing timber and concrete mid-rise buildings have highlighted the environmental benefits of using timber, particularly during material production and on-site construction stages. Furthermore, the choice of endof-life scenario had a significant effect on the LCA outcome. The objective of this paper is to compare the environmental impacts associated with alternative designs for a long span floor in a multi-storey building in Australia. The comparison, using an LCA approach, is based on a recently built long span Timber Concrete Composite (TCC) floor in a University building in Sydney. Three design options are considered: the original design of TCC, a Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) panel, and a traditional in-situ reinforced concrete (RC) slab. The CLT and RC designs were conceived with reference to the floor plans and structural loads obtained from issued-for-construction drawings. With this evaluation, recommendations for increasing the competitiveness of CLT and TCC within the Australian market are made.

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A Comparative Cradle-to-Gate Life Cycle Assessment of Mid-Rise Office Building Construction Alternatives: Laminated Timber or Reinforced Concrete

Cited by 188 publications

References 22 publications

Assessing Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) as an Alternative Material for Mid-Rise Residential Buildings in Cold Regions in China—A Life-Cycle Assessment Approach

Assessing Cross Laminated Timber (CLT) as an Alternative Material for Mid-Rise Residential Buildings in Cold Regions in China—A Life-Cycle Assessment Approach

Pre-use phase LCA of a multi-story residential building: Can greenhouse gas emissions be used as a more general environmental performance indicator?

A comparative life cycle assessment approach of two innovative long span timber floors with its reinforced concrete equivalent in an Australian context

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