Proposing of new building scheme and composite towards global warming mitigation for Malaysia

Abstract

The building sector has been regarded as a potential sector where there is large capacity to reduce the climate change effect. This study has proposed solutions to mitigate environmental impacts and achieve low CO2 emission from residential sector. Therefore, full life cycle assessment (LCA) has been run to assess the CO2 emission and its effect on the atmosphere and climate change. Based on the result, timber scheme is the best choice due to releasing less CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. However, house builders in Malaysia have almost completely neglected timber as a building material, with timber use as building components reduced to 5%. In this study, LCA Software was used to assess CO2 emissions from different wall construction. The alternative building scheme has been made by reinforce steel stud, wooden beam and timber wall (S8) to improve the scheme deficiency while releasing less CO2 emissions compared to other schemes. Therefore, S8 has a decreased CO2 effect by 85% less than precast concrete frame and 90% less than brick over their lifetime. (S8) increased the load bearing compared to conventional timber beam. Thus, new scheme S8 could be replaced by current scheme and promote more adjustable scheme for Malaysian housing.