{"title":"Prioritizing low-carbon materials and reducing material quantities to mitigate embodied GHG emissions in buildings","authors":"Buket Tozan, Endrit Hoxha, Emilie Brisson Stapel, Harpa Birgisdóttir","doi":"10.1016/j.scs.2025.106770","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As regulations for buildings become increasingly stringent, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is emerging as a key method of documenting and reducing embodied greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe). Mitigation strategies often focus on optimizing material quantities or substituting conventional materials with low-carbon alternatives. However, these approaches are typically applied in isolation and to specific building components. This study examines which mitigation strategies should be prioritized to reduce embodied GHGe at the whole-building level while ensuring compliance with regulatory limits for new construction in Denmark. Using data from 172 residential buildings and 1054 Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) across 21 material categories, Monte Carlo Simulations were employed to generate LCAs by combining real buildings' material intensity coefficients (MICs) with EPD data. The results indicate a 66 % probability of compliance with the regulatory limit values for row houses and 64 % for multi-family buildings, but only 15 % for single-family homes. Sensitivity analyses across material categories identified key contributors to both total embodied emissions and variability, such as mineral boards and ready-mixed concrete. This highlights areas where mitigation efforts should be concentrated, either by selecting lower-impact materials or by reducing material quantities. The findings suggest that prioritizing reductions in material quantities may be the most effective approach, though low-carbon materials remain a crucial strategy. These results provide valuable insights for making informed material choices early in the design process and offer strategies for improving life cycle embodied GHGe in line with regulatory compliance for building projects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48659,"journal":{"name":"Sustainable Cities and Society","volume":"131 ","pages":"Article 106770"},"PeriodicalIF":12.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Sustainable Cities and Society","FirstCategoryId":"5","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210670725006444","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CONSTRUCTION & BUILDING TECHNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
As regulations for buildings become increasingly stringent, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is emerging as a key method of documenting and reducing embodied greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe). Mitigation strategies often focus on optimizing material quantities or substituting conventional materials with low-carbon alternatives. However, these approaches are typically applied in isolation and to specific building components. This study examines which mitigation strategies should be prioritized to reduce embodied GHGe at the whole-building level while ensuring compliance with regulatory limits for new construction in Denmark. Using data from 172 residential buildings and 1054 Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) across 21 material categories, Monte Carlo Simulations were employed to generate LCAs by combining real buildings' material intensity coefficients (MICs) with EPD data. The results indicate a 66 % probability of compliance with the regulatory limit values for row houses and 64 % for multi-family buildings, but only 15 % for single-family homes. Sensitivity analyses across material categories identified key contributors to both total embodied emissions and variability, such as mineral boards and ready-mixed concrete. This highlights areas where mitigation efforts should be concentrated, either by selecting lower-impact materials or by reducing material quantities. The findings suggest that prioritizing reductions in material quantities may be the most effective approach, though low-carbon materials remain a crucial strategy. These results provide valuable insights for making informed material choices early in the design process and offer strategies for improving life cycle embodied GHGe in line with regulatory compliance for building projects.
期刊介绍:
Sustainable Cities and Society (SCS) is an international journal that focuses on fundamental and applied research to promote environmentally sustainable and socially resilient cities. The journal welcomes cross-cutting, multi-disciplinary research in various areas, including:
1. Smart cities and resilient environments;
2. Alternative/clean energy sources, energy distribution, distributed energy generation, and energy demand reduction/management;
3. Monitoring and improving air quality in built environment and cities (e.g., healthy built environment and air quality management);
4. Energy efficient, low/zero carbon, and green buildings/communities;
5. Climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban environments;
6. Green infrastructure and BMPs;
7. Environmental Footprint accounting and management;
8. Urban agriculture and forestry;
9. ICT, smart grid and intelligent infrastructure;
10. Urban design/planning, regulations, legislation, certification, economics, and policy;
11. Social aspects, impacts and resiliency of cities;
12. Behavior monitoring, analysis and change within urban communities;
13. Health monitoring and improvement;
14. Nexus issues related to sustainable cities and societies;
15. Smart city governance;
16. Decision Support Systems for trade-off and uncertainty analysis for improved management of cities and society;
17. Big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence applications and case studies;
18. Critical infrastructure protection, including security, privacy, forensics, and reliability issues of cyber-physical systems.
19. Water footprint reduction and urban water distribution, harvesting, treatment, reuse and management;
20. Waste reduction and recycling;
21. Wastewater collection, treatment and recycling;
22. Smart, clean and healthy transportation systems and infrastructure;