Carbon emission-based life cycle assessment of rural residential buildings constructed with engineering bamboo: A case study in China

Abstract

Engineering bamboo owning to modern industrial technology is a renewable material that holds immense potential in driving the development of building structural systems with a low carbon footprint. This study presents a life cycle assessment of a rural residential building constructed with engineering bamboo (i.e., glued laminated bamboo) from the perspective of carbon emissions. To highlight the carbon sequestration of bio-based construction material, a reinforced concrete building employed from the literature was used as a contrast scheme. The system boundary encompasses the production, transportation, construction, operation, and disposal phases, with a functional unit defined as “one square meter”. The material inventory and elements in each phase of the life cycle were collated from SimaPro and available literature or specifications. To gauge the uncertainty of carbon emissions, the Monte Carlo method was used for inventory analysis. Results of the assessment highlight that the life cycle carbon emission of the engineering bamboo-based rural residential building is 104.037 kgCO2eq/m2. The operation phase is identified as the most significant contributor to carbon emissions, followed by the production phase. The transportation, construction, and disposal phases have a relatively minor impact on emissions. The notable characteristic of engineering bamboo is its ability to sequester carbon, resulting in lower carbon emissions during the production phase. Based on the Monte Carlo simulation, the mean life cycle carbon emission for the typical rural residential buildings constructed with engineering bamboo is estimated to be 1035 kgCO2eq/m2.