Spatiotemporal tracking of building materials and their related environmental impacts

Hoxha, Endrit; Francart, Nicolas; Tozan, Buket; Stapel, Emilie Brisson; Gummidi, Srinivasa Raghavendra Bhuvan; Birgisdottir, Harpa

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168853

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Various approaches to MFA used in LCA exist where Publications 3 and 4 use the bottom-up modelling (Göswein et al, 2019) of existing case studies combined with the area forecast of Hoxha et al (2024). The latter forecasts the area of single-family houses, multifamily houses and offices based on historical time series developments mimicking a frozen-policy scenario between 2022-2050.…”

Section: Materials Flow Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Enviromental Assessment of Increased Use of Wood in the Building Sector: Towards more Effective Life Cycle Assessment to Support Environmental Impact Mitigating Implementation of Biobased Materials

Hansen

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Climate change is evident due to the CO2 concentration reaching 419 parts per million (PPM), exceeding the 350 PPM upper boundary of the last 11000 years. It triggers increased severe weather events, causing adverse social harm, particularly for vulnerable communities. Consequently, the UN member states set out the Paris Agreement to limit temperature rise to 1.5 °C or below 2 °C. The building sector is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 37% while causing 35% waste generation and 50% resource extraction in the EU. Therefore, the building sector is imperative in combatting climate and environmental impacts.In recent years, enhanced energy efficiency has improved operational climate impacts. However, the embodied impacts of materials have not seen similar progress during this time. To address this challenge, wood's ability to temporarily store biogenic carbon emerged as a potential solution for delaying buildings' embodied carbon emissions.Life cycle assessment (LCA) is commonly used to analyse the environmental impact of buildings from cradle to grave. However, assessing the climate benefits and pitfalls of using more wood is complex due to biogenic carbon, forest modelling, land use, as well as LCA's degree of detailing, system interactions, and impact categories, and building design aspects. Consequently, this dissertation aims to enhance understanding of assessing increased timber use in construction by applying different LCA approaches and specific wood-related aspects for distinct decision contexts.Because consequential LCA (CLCA) is not widely used on buildings, a systematic literature review examined its state-of-the-art. In the review, I also inspected the recommendations in the ILCD Handbook on attributional LCA (ALCA) and CLCA. To assess LCA in the early building design, I used a simplified design tool to model ten detailed wooden dwellings in a Danish context and compared their climate impact deviations. It used the -1/+1 biogenic carbon approach, entailing production stage uptake and end-of-life release. A CLCA evaluated the change from conventional to timber construction on the macro scale towards 2050. It incorporated a bottom-up material flow analysis (MFA), forest modelling of trees' regrowth, dynamic discounting of GHG emissions, and indirect land use change (iLUC), using an inputoutput model as the LCA database. Also, I analysed needed land and carbon storage for implementing fast-growing biobased materials in wood buildings towards 2050. The analysis evaluated straw, hemp, and grass materials to substitute insulation and non-loadbearing wood products.Researchers have extensively debated the application of ALCA and CLCA without reaching a clear consensus. This study addressed inconsistencies between Chapters 5

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Section: Materials Flow Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%