Development of a carbon emission based rating model for buildings

Abstract

Strategies, plans, and techniques that a building follows from cradle to grave to reduce carbon emission and their evaluation processes are highly recommended by green building concepts. The existing methods do not compressively cover all the parameters and their interconnections. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the effectiveness of parameters that dominate the carbon emission of the building sector and to develop a priority weight-based rating model to evaluate the carbon emission of buildings. The rating model was developed using Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP) which is ideal for multi-criteria decision-making. The entire life cycle of a building was divided into five stages; material production, material transportation, construction, operation, and demolition, and each stage was divided into several sub-parameters. The relative significance of each parameter and each stage was compared and developed priority weight-based equations. The analysis of carbon emissions reveals the following distribution: Material Production (MP) contributed approximately 27%, Material Transportation (MT) accounted for 3%, the Construction Stage (CS) represented 10%, the Operation Stage (OS) dominated with 55%, while the Demolition Stage (DS) contributed 5%. The developed rating model was applied to ten building structures including small-scale, medium scale and large-scale buildings. The developed rating model would be provided a numerical framework-based solution for the owners and construction parties to identify low carbon emissions techniques.