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

Abstract

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).

Potentials and Prerequisites on the Way to a Circular Economy: A Value Chain Perspective on Batteries and Buildings

“…At present, only small quantities and volumes of insulation materials are recovered from such activities. However, these are expected to increase in the medium to long term-also based on the EU Renovation Wave Strategy published in 2020 [49][50][51].…”

CO2 mitigation or removal: The optimal uses of biomass in energy system decarbonization

“…The potential integration of biomass and/or CCS in hard-to-abate fossil-intensive industries such as cement, chemicals, and iron and steel is also gaining increasing attention in the scientific literature ( Mandova et al., 2019 ; Tanzer et al., 2020 ). In addition, countries such as the UK, Sweden, and Norway are currently proposing low-carbon roadmaps featuring the deployment of large-scale CCS infrastructure to support the decarbonization of key industrial clusters ( Committee on Climate Change, 2019 ; Global CCS Institute (GCI), 2020 ; Karlsson et al., 2020 ).…”

The North-South Gas Corridor in the Context of Poland’s Gas Transmission System—A Perfect Opportunity to Diversify Gas Resources

“…The energy transition towards lowcarbon energy calls for a changeover period, meaning gradual decarbonization through gasification [1,2] (in the first stage) followed by reducing the use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas) in favor of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar energy, biomass and biogas (in the second stage). At this point, it is worth emphasizing that decarbonization is a broad concept and applies not only to energy [3], but also technology [4][5][6][7][8], economy and politics [9][10][11][12]. It is believed that within the next decade or two the use of natural gas for the production of electrical energy in Poland will increase.…”