Assessment of Embodied Energy and Environmental Impact of Sustainable Building Materials and Technologies for Residential Sector

Abstract

The energy demand of developing countries increases every year. Large amounts of energy are consumed during the production and transportation of construction materials. Conservation of energy became important in the perspective of limiting carbon emissions into the environment and for decreasing the cost of materials. This article is concentrated on some issues affecting the embodied energy of construction materials mainly in the residential sector. Energy consumption in three various wall structures has been made. The comparison demonstrated that the embodied energy of traditional wall structures is 3-times higher than the energy efficient building materials. CO2 emissions produced by conventional materials and green building materials are 54.96 Kg CO2/m2 and 35.33 Kg CO2/m2, respectively. Finally, the results revealed substantial difference in embodied energy and carbon footprints of materials for which its production involves a high amount of energy consumption.