Life-cycle GHG emissions of standard houses in Thailand

Abstract

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from building activities are one of the most prominent contributors to the problem of global warming. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a widely used tool to investigate GHG emissions from buildings. However, there appears to be a lack of LCA studies on buildings in tropical climates, and especially in Thailand. This study aims to improve the understanding of GHG emissions from standard Thai residential buildings. LCA was conducted on five typical house designs in Thailand in order to determine potential mitigation strategies for future design of these houses. The amount of GHG emissions over the entire life-cycle of these detached houses was estimated, and the results were analysed with different viewpoints. The results indicate that emissions from the operational energies of detached houses in Thailand have the highest share of GHG emissions. Significant emissions also came from construction materials. Improvements to the building envelope and air-conditioner usage have high GHG mitigation potential in the operational stage of the buildings, while replacing cementitious and metallic materials with low-emissions alternatives can considerably reduce embodied emissions. Policy relevance The built environment has been a major source of GHG, but it also has high climate change-mitigation potential. This study explores mitigation strategies on the material and component levels of the most common building type in Thailand: detached houses. The results indicate the major sources of GHG emissions in the case study buildings, their correlation with building scale and other key design decisions. Potential mitigation solutions in different phases of the building life-cycle are identified.