Abstract
Global construction industry has a huge influence on world primary energy consumption, spending, and greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions. To better understand these factors for mass timber construction, this work quantified the life cycle environmental and economic performances of a high-rise mass timber building in U.S. Pacific Northwest region through the use of life-cycle assessment (LCA) and life-cycle cost analysis (LCCA). Using the TRACI impact category method, the cradle-to-grave LCA results showed better environmental performances for the mass timber building relative to conventional concrete building, with 3153 kg CO2-eq per m2 floor area compared to 3203 CO2-eq per m2 floor area, respectively. Over 90% of GHGs emissions occur at the operational stage with a 60-year study period. The end-of-life recycling of mass timber could provide carbon offset of 364 kg CO2-eq per m2 floor that lowers the GHG emissions of the mass timber building to a total 12% lower GHGs emissions than concrete building. The LCCA results showed that mass timber building had total life cycle cost of $3976 per m2 floor area that was 9.6% higher than concrete building, driven mainly by upfront construction costs related to the mass timber material. Uncertainty analysis of mass timber product pricing provided a pathway for builders to make mass timber buildings cost competitive. The integration of LCA and LCCA on mass timber building study can contribute more information to the decision makers such as building developers and policymakers.
Highlights
Accepted: 5 July 2021The buildings and buildings construction sectors together account for over one-third of global primary energy consumption and almost 40% of total CO2 emissions, direct and indirect
There are several worldwide life-cycle assessment (LCA) studies on mass timber buildings [24,25,26,27], and all the results showed mass timber buildings have lower embodied carbon and other environmental impacts than alternative conventional buildings
Operation was the largest contributor to all environmental impacts except for ozone depletion (ODP), where the ODP mainly stemmed from the insulation material polystyrene at the M & R stage
Summary
The buildings and buildings construction sectors together account for over one-third of global primary energy consumption and almost 40% of total CO2 emissions, direct and indirect. Increasing energy demand from buildings and buildings construction is partially driven by surge in global buildings floor area and population [1]. Natural climate solutions have been proposed as one way to mitigate these impacts along with a drive for environmental and economic sustainability [2,3]. The nature of the building construction requires multi-criteria decision-making support and optimization of many aspects including environmental and economic costs [4]. New construction using wood from sustainably-harvest forest is a natural climate solution by both reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and by storing carbon while providing economic incentives for keeping forests as forest and even afforestation [2,3]. Mass timber construction (MTC), an emerging technology has become an available option to concrete and steel construction which are the primary construction materials for mid- to high-rise nonresidential buildings globally [5,6]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
