LCA of Primary Embodied Energy and Carbon emissions of a Commercial High Performance Building Structure and Envelope

Abstract

The Building’s material embodied energy plays major role in Carbon Emissions at its production stage. Assessment of Carbon emissions at initial stages for a high performance commercial building is overlooked and the building life cycle has not found an eminent place in the country mandatory norms. An early LCA can be instrumental in taking key decisions in design and material choice to lower building Carbon emissions. This paper aims at comprehensively evaluating and analyzing a fully glazed Certified high performance Office building in Gurgaon, Haryana. Process based Life Cycle Assessment of Building Envelope and Structure for Embodied energy and Carbon emissions is done by applying recently published Indian Database. The Building is modelled using Autodesk Revit Architecture for Bill of quantities extraction. Thereafter, LCA is done in tabular format as per Global standards for two cases, Base case with conventional material and As-built case with used material. Major reductions in emissions are due to Building Envelope material and not Structure. Concrete and Steel are major contributors. Fly Ash block and Gypsum plaster play major role in carbon emission reduction whereas double glazing, Aluminum and ACP contribute towards increasing emissions. Analysis done at early stages can be beneficial in exploring more design optimized techniques that are less Carbon intensive.