Whole Life Carbon Assessment of a Typical UK Residential Building Using Different Embodied Carbon Data Sources

Keyhani, Maryam; Abbaspour, Atefeh; Bahadori-Jahromi, Ali; Mylona, Anastasia; Janbey, Alan; Godfrey, Paulina; Zhang, Hexin

Abstract

The climate crisis in many sectors is driving rapid and substantial changes. Considering the fact that the building sector accounts for 39% of energy related carbon emissions, it is important to take swift actions to reduce these emissions. This study will identify the accuracy and availability of the embodied carbon databases. In this regard, the effect of using different embodied carbon databases on the total emissions during product and end-of-life stages will be compared. The results showed that using the UK Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy database (BEIS) overestimates the embodied carbon emissions. Additionally, using the Environmental product declarations database (EPDs), compared to the Inventory of Carbon and Energy database (ICE), can reduce embodied carbon for some materials up to 100%. The end-of-life calculation showed a huge difference between the two databases. In addition, Whole Life Carbon Assessment (WLC) has been carried out. The findings revealed that 67% of emissions come from operational carbon and embodied carbon is responsible for 33% of emissions. Using LED lights and installing PV panels can reduce the total CO2 emissions by 24.82 tonCO2. In addition, using recycled metal, less carbon intensive concrete, and recyclable aluminium can reduce the total CO2 emissions by 18.57, 2.07, and 2.3 tonCO2e, respectively.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 3, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Mar 14, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023
• Deposit Date: Mar 20, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 20, 2023
• Journal: Sustainability
• Publisher: MDPI
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 6
• Article Number: 5115
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/su15065115
• Keywords: climate change, whole life carbon, embodied carbon, operational carbon, reduction strategy, data accuracy