Residential Building Lifespan and Community Turnover

Ianchenko, Alex; Simonen, Kathrina; Barnes, Clayton

doi:10.1061/(asce)ae.1943-5568.0000401

Cited by 14 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Given the long lifetime of housing in the US (most recently estimated as 130 years on average; Ianchenko et al 2020), and the slowdown in stock turnover observed in some areas, due in part to local regulations (Reyna & Chester 2015), there may be an energy-efficiency-based rationale for increasing the rate at which new housing replaces old housing. The potential benefits of increased stock turnover for reducing total (embodied and energy-related) residential GHG emissions are, however, unclear.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Material flows and GHG emissions from housing stock evolution in US counties, 2020–60

Berrill

Hertwich

2021

Buildings and Cities

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The evolution of housing stocks determines demand for construction materials and energy, and associated emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs). The contribution of construction to building life-cycle emissions is growing as buildings become more energy efficient and the energy supply decarbonizes. A housing stock model is developed for counties in the United States using dynamic vacancy rates which endogenously influence stock out-and inflows. Stocks of three house types and 10 construction cohorts are projected for all contiguous US counties for the period 2020-60. Inflows and outflows of construction materials are then estimated along with GHG emissions associated with material production and construction activities in scenarios defined by stock turnover rates, population share by house type, and floor area characteristics of new houses. The results provide new insights into the drivers of construction-related emissions at local and national levels, and identify opportunities for their reduction. Demolition material flows grow in relation to construction material flows over the analysis period. Increasing the stock turnover rate increases future floor area per person, material requirements, and emissions from construction. Scenarios with reduced floor area and more multifamily homes in new construction have lower floor area growth, material requirements, and emissions from construction.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Material flows and GHG emissions from housing stock evolution in US counties, 2020–60

Berrill

Hertwich

2021

Buildings and Cities

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“…As the average U.S. residential building lifespan ranges from 61 to 130 years in the literature, , we adopted the average lifetime of 100 years in the base-case scenario. Weibull distribution with a shape parameter of 2.63 as suggested by Ianchenko et al was adopted in the base-case scenario. The uncertainty of ±40% of the average lifetime of residential buildings was assessed by keeping the same shape parameter and changing the scale parameter accordingly.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are large uncertainties in the estimates of material use and associated environmental impact due to inconsistent material intensity (per unit material use) coefficients and wide ranges of lifetime. − Material intensity has been estimated by calculating the ratio of economy-wide material consumption to gross domestic product, by referring to construction documents and on-site investigation, or by intensive literature review. , The literature does not explicitly distinguish between material content (material actually embedded in products) and total material requirement (including all upstream demand), which might lead to underestimation of the total material demand and associated environmental impact. In the case of copper intensity (CI), total copper requirement (TCR) is the total demand of copper, including all of the upstream copper requirement for refined copper or copper semis materials; copper content (CC) is the copper embedded in products, which is useful in terms of calculating the current copper in-use stock and EoL scrap generation potential.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…63 Most new copper scraps collected from the manufacturing process are directly remelted. 64 As for lifetime uncertainty, the literature estimates of the average U.S. residential building lifespan ranges from 61 57 to 130 58 years, and lifetime distributions are described by Weibull, Lognormal, or γ distributions. 57,58 These losses and the uncertainty from the not fully understood lifetime distributions have not yet been well considered in copper recycling studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…64 As for lifetime uncertainty, the literature estimates of the average U.S. residential building lifespan ranges from 61 57 to 130 58 years, and lifetime distributions are described by Weibull, Lognormal, or γ distributions. 57,58 These losses and the uncertainty from the not fully understood lifetime distributions have not yet been well considered in copper recycling studies. We hereby present a comprehensive framework to capture the flow of copper in the construction, maintenance, and endof-life of residential buildings and to assess options to reduce primary copper use considering copper intensity and product lifetime uncertainty.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Improved Copper Circularity as a Result of Increased Material Efficiency in the U.S. Housing Stock

Wang

Berrill

Zimmerman

et al. 2022

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Material efficiency (ME) can support rapid climate change mitigation and circular economy. Here, we comprehensively assess the circularity of ME strategies for copper use in the U.S. housing services (including residential buildings and major household appliances) by integrating use-phase material and energy demand. Although the ME strategies of more intensive floor space use and extended lifetime of appliances and buildings reduce the primary copper demand, employing these strategies increases the commonly neglected use-phase share of total copper requirements during the century from 23–28 to 22–42%. Use-phase copper requirements for home improvements have remained larger than the demand gap (copper demand minus scrap availability) for much of the century, limiting copper circularity in the U.S. housing services. Further, use-phase energy consumption can negate the benefits of ME strategies. For instance, the lifetime extension of lower-efficiency refrigerators increases the copper use and net environmental impact by increased electricity use despite reductions from less production. This suggests a need for more attention to the use phase when assessing circularity, especially for products that are material and energy intensive during use. To avoid burden shifting, policymakers should consider the entire life cycle of products supporting services when pursuing circular economy goals.

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The application of life cycle assessment in buildings: challenges, and directions for future research

Fnais

Rezgui

Petri

et al. 2022

Int J Life Cycle Assess

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Purpose This paper reviews the state-of-the art research in life cycle assessment (LCA) applied to buildings. It focuses on current research trends, and elaborates on gaps and directions for future research. Methods A systematic literature review was conducted to identify current research and applications of LCA in buildings. The proposed review methodology includes (i) identifying recent authoritative research publications using established search engines, (ii) screening and retaining relevant publications, and (iii) extracting relevant LCA applications for buildings and analyzing their underpinning research. Subsequently, several research gaps and limitations were identified, which have informed our proposed future research directions. Results and discussions This paper argues that humans can attenuate and positively control the impact of their buildings on the environment, and as such mitigate the effects of climate change. This can be achieved by a new generation of LCA methods and tools that are model based and continuously learn from real-time data, while informing effective operation and management strategies of buildings and districts. Therefore, the consideration of the time dimension in product system modeling is becoming essential to understand the resulting pollutant emissions and resource consumption. This time dimension is currently missing in life cycle inventory databases. A further combination of life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) models using time-dependent characterization factors can lead to more comprehensive and reliable LCA results. Conclusions and recommendations This paper promotes the concept of semantic-based dynamic (real-time) LCA, which addresses temporal and spatial variations in the local built and environmental ecosystem, and thus more effectively promotes a “cradle-to-grave-to-reincarnation” environmental sustainability capability. Furthermore, it is critical to leverage digital building resources (e.g., connected objects, semantic models, and artificial intelligence) to deliver accurate and reliable environmental assessments.

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Residential Building Lifespan and Community Turnover

Cited by 14 publications

References 23 publications

Material flows and GHG emissions from housing stock evolution in US counties, 2020–60

Material flows and GHG emissions from housing stock evolution in US counties, 2020–60

Improved Copper Circularity as a Result of Increased Material Efficiency in the U.S. Housing Stock

The application of life cycle assessment in buildings: challenges, and directions for future research

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