Case Study on Carbon Footprint Life-Cycle Assessment for Construction Delivery Stage in China

Abstract

The construction industry’s high energy consumption and carbon emissions significantly burden the ecological environment. Thus, it is necessary to study measures and strategies for emissions reduction during construction for an improved, safe and sustainable environment. Using the life-cycle assessment method, this study aims to investigate construction-building outcomes and their carbon footprint during the construction delivery stage. This work used a compiled database of carbon-emission factors per unit for concrete and mortar with different densities and 16 building-project case studies in Fujian Province to verify the empirical findings. The results show that general civil engineering works produce more carbon emissions than decoration engineering. Furthermore, cement’s average proportion of carbon emissions relative to total carbon emissions is the largest at 30.26%. Our findings also show a strong linear relationship between the total carbon emissions, eaves height, project cost, and building area during the building construction. The findings in this paper promote the conversion of buildings from high-energy consumption to multi-carbon reduction. The concept of this research contributes to the existing knowledge by proposing a carbon-footprint calculation method and establishing the trend of carbon emissions in building construction.