A Longitudinal Study on the Carbon Emissions of a New Residential Development

Jukka Heinonen,Seppo Junnila,Antti Säynäjoki

doi:10.3390/su3081170

Abstract

Buildings account for nearly 50% of all greenhouse gases globally. While this has been widely recognized, the GHG mitigation strategies have traditionally concentrated on reducing the use phase emissions, as over 90% of the emissions are generated during the use phase according to several studies. However, two current developments increase the importance of the construction phase emissions and the embodied emissions of the building materials. Firstly, the improvements in the energy efficiency of buildings directly increase the relative share of the construction phase emissions. Secondly, the notification of the temporal allocation of the emissions increases the importance of the carbon spike from construction. While these perspectives have been noted, few studies exist that combine the two perspectives of the construction and the use phase. In this paper, we analyze the implications of low-carbon residential construction on the life cycle emissions of a residential area with a case study. Furthermore, we demonstrate that when the temporal allocation of the emissions is taken into account, the construction phase emissions can hinder or even reverse the carbon mitigation effect of low-carbon buildings for decades.

Highlights

As all the buildings of the residential area were included in the assessment, we noticed that as much as 36,000 tons of the building construction emissions are related to the service buildings and storehouses
Whereas the overall share of the construction phase emissions is around 10% of the building’s life cycle emissions according to several studies, in this paper we have demonstrated that the carbon spike from construction can be so high that the overall emissions of a residential area can be dominated by the construction phase for decades
This study brought into further discussion the true importance of the construction phase emissions, as well as the efficiency of new residential construction as a means to achieve the national and global climate change mitigation targets

Summary

Introduction

According to the IPCC 2007 Synthesis Report, eleven of the twelve years before 2007 (1995-2006) ranked among the twelve warmest years in the instrumental record of global surface temperature (since 1850). 2.0–2.4°C, a level to which in prevailing belief it is possible to adapt to, the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions would need to be reduced by 50 to 85% by 2050, as the decay of the GHGs emitted to the atmosphere is slow [1]. Cities are estimated to produce up to 80% of all GHGs on a global scale [2]. Buildings are estimated to offer the greatest economic climate change mitigation potential [1,3]. The development towards low-carbon living, will be one of the key aspects in fighting climate change

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