Life-cycle CO2 Emissions and Their Driving Factors in Construction Sector in China

Abstract

As the construction sector is a major energy consumer and thus a significant contributor of CO 2 emissions in China, it is important to consider carbon reduction in this industry. This study analyzed six life-cycle stages and calculated the life-cycle CO 2 emissions of the construction sector in 30 Chinese provincial jurisdictions to understand the disparity among them. Results show that building materials production was the key stage for carbon reduction in the construction sector, followed by the building operation stage. External variables, e.g., economic growth, industrial structure, urbanization, price fluctuation, and marketization, were significantly correlated with the emission intensity of the construction sector. Specifically, economic growth exhibited an inverted U-shaped relation with CO 2 emissions per capita and per area during the period examined. Secondary industry and land urbanization were negatively correlated with CO 2 emission intensity indicators from the construction sector, whereas tertiary industry and urbanization were positively correlated. Price indices and marketization had negative effects on CO 2 emission intensity. The policy implications of our findings are that cleaner technologies should be encouraged for cement providers, and green purchasing rules for the construction sector should also be established. Pricing tools (e.g., resource taxes) could help to adjust the demand for raw materials and energy.

Tracking the spatio-temporal distribution and regional differences of carbon footprint in grid scale of China's construction industry

“…This is because the CI is a typical demand-oriented industry. And existing relevant study demonstrated the production phase of building materials was the period with the largest energy (Bin and Park, 2012), then followed by building operation phase (Cui et al, 2019). The CEs of materials and energy consumption during the production, manufacturing and transportation of construction materials, as well as the CEs generated by maintaining the energy consumption (electricity, water, heating, etc.…”

“…(Pandey et al, 2011;. As the biggest carbon emitters, China's total carbon emissions (CEs) account for over 25% the total in the world (Zabalza et al, 2009;Cui et al, 2019). In 2020, China has stated that China will strive to reach the goal of carbon peak in 2030, carbon neutrality by 2060 with more effective measures (Mi et al, 2017;.…”