Analysis of lifecycle CO2reduction performance for long-life apartment house

Abstract

Long-life apartment houses are sustainable buildings that use fewer resources and can reduce CO2 emission over the course of their life cycle. However, there have been few quantitative evaluations of the CO2 emission reduction effect when the life of apartment houses is increased. In this study, the CO2 emission reduction rate over the life cycle of long-life apartment houses (Types II and III) was evaluated using high durability and maintenance technologies from general apartment houses (Type I) as reference data. CO2 emissions over the life of the apartment houses were evaluated by dividing the life cycle into construction, operation, maintenance/management, and dismantlement/disposal phase. To achieve this goal, the life of apartment houses was calculated using the life calculation technique, and the CO2 emission amount over a 100-year evaluation period was compared. The life of general apartment houses was set to about 40 years, while that of long-life apartment houses, due to the application of long-life construction technologies, was set to more than 100 years. CO2 emissions of long-life apartment houses over their life cycle tended to decrease compared with that of general apartment houses. In particular, the maximum CO2 emission reduction rates of long-life apartment houses were 36.18% and 33.04%, respectively. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 34: 555–566, 2015