Life Cycle Assessment of Reinforced Concrete Residential Buildings in Nepal: Pathways to Carbon Footprint Reduction through Sustainable Construction

Nepal’s massive post-2015 earthquake reconstruction has sparked a construction boom that carries substantial carbon implications. An LCA was conducted for a representative reinforced concrete dwelling using the ISO 14040/44 and EN 15978 frameworks, with material data from the ICE v3.0 database and Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) grid emission factors. Results indicate a total embodied carbon of about 195,992 kg CO₂-eq for the structure, with cementitious concrete and mortar (cement), bricks, and reinforcing steel accounting for the bulk of emissions (over ∼70% of embodied CO₂). Over the building’s life, operational energy use surpasses embodied energy after roughly 40–50 years. Sensitivity analysis showed that under Nepal’s climate (cool temperate) the break-even occurs around year 42, and material contributions remain dominated by cement, brick, and steel. A Monte Carlo uncertainty analysis yielded moderate confidence bounds on these outcomes. These findings, in the context of Himalaya region urban growth, have broader relevance to similarly urbanizing South Asian contexts.