A comparative analysis of energy and lifecycle greenshouse gas emissions prefabricated building modules

Abstract

Prefabrication is considered to provide improved environmental performance over traditional building construction. This paper provides evidence of the performance improvements of prefab construction by quantifying the embodied energy of modular prefabricated steel and timber multi-residential buildings. To this end, a benchmarking study is performed to ascertain the improved environmental performance of this method over conventional concrete construction methods. Furthermore, this paper assesses the potential benefits of material reusability in terms of reducing the space required for landfill, as well as the need for additional resources. It was found that a steel-structured prefabricated system resulted in reduced material consumption of up to 78% by mass compared to conventional concrete construction. However, the prefabricated steel building resulted in a significant increase (∼50%) in embodied energy compared to the concrete building. It was shown that there was significant potential for the reuse of materials in the prefabricated steel building, representing up to an 81% saving in embodied energy and 51% materials saving by mass.