Life Cycle Carbon Emission Assessment of Building Refurbishment: A Case Study of Zero-Carbon Pavilion in Shanghai Yangpu Riverside

Abstract

Life cycle building carbon assessment can promote the development of carbon emission reduction. The main difficulties in the process of assessment are the boundary selection and inventory collection, especially when carbon emission assessment is needed in the early stage of design and construction, or when the calculation relates to disposal and refurbishment. It is significant to make full and rational use of design documents, standard documents, and related software. This paper focuses on the life cycle carbon emission assessment of building refurbishment. It explores the carbon emission assessment methodologies and procedures in every phase of the building life cycle, taking a zero-carbon pavilion refurbishment project as a case study. This case study is located in the Shanghai Yangpu Riverside Park, refurbished from an existing hydrologic monitoring building. The carbon emission reduction potential of renovation and the solar photovoltaic system applied in the building are analyzed. The data was collected referring to architectural design documents and related standards. The energy consumption during the operational phase is simulated using DesignBuilder. The life-cycle carbon emission per floor area of the existing building renovation scenario is 2.39 t, and the new building scenario is 2.69 t, which are both at a low level among other cases. The refurbished existing building saves nearly one-third of the carbon dioxide emissions during the construction phase compared to new construction. The application of a photovoltaic system also saves one-third of energy consumption and carbon emissions during the operational phase.