TY - JOUR
T1 - Life cycle GHG emissions of residential buildings in humid subtropical and tropical climates
T2 - Systematic review and analysis
AU - Satola, Daniel
AU - Röck, Martin
AU - Houlihan-Wiberg, Aoife
AU - Gustavsen, Arild
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support from the Research Council of Norway and several partners through the Research Centre on Zero Emission Neighbourhoods in Smart Cities (FME ZEN). Martin R?ck acknowledge the support from Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) through a DOC Fellowship (2019/1). Aoife Houlihan Wiberg acknowledges the support from The Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment, Ulster University, UK.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/1
Y1 - 2021/1
N2 - Improving the environmental life cycle performance of buildings by focusing on the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions along the building life cycle is considered a crucial step in achieving global climate targets. This paper provides a systematic review and analysis of 75 residential case studies in humid subtropical and tropical climates. The study investigates GHG emissions across the building life cycle, i.e., it analyses both embodied and operational GHG emissions. Furthermore, the influence of various parameters, such as building location, typology, construction materials and energy performance, as well as methodological aspects are investigated. Through comparative analysis, the study identifies promising design strategies for reducing life cycle-related GHG emissions of buildings operating in subtropical and tropical climate zones. The results show that life cycle GHG emissions in the analysed studies are mostly dominated by operational emissions and are the highest for energy-intensive multi-family buildings. Buildings following low or net-zero energy performance targets show potential reductions of 50-80% for total life cycle GHG emissions, compared to buildings with conventional energy performance. Implementation of on-site photovoltaic (PV) systems provides the highest reduction potential for both operational and total life cycle GHG emissions, with potential reductions of 92% to 100% and 48% to 66%, respectively. Strategies related to increased use of timber and other bio-based materials present the highest potential for reduction of embodied GHG emissions, with reductions of 9% to 73%.
AB - Improving the environmental life cycle performance of buildings by focusing on the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions along the building life cycle is considered a crucial step in achieving global climate targets. This paper provides a systematic review and analysis of 75 residential case studies in humid subtropical and tropical climates. The study investigates GHG emissions across the building life cycle, i.e., it analyses both embodied and operational GHG emissions. Furthermore, the influence of various parameters, such as building location, typology, construction materials and energy performance, as well as methodological aspects are investigated. Through comparative analysis, the study identifies promising design strategies for reducing life cycle-related GHG emissions of buildings operating in subtropical and tropical climate zones. The results show that life cycle GHG emissions in the analysed studies are mostly dominated by operational emissions and are the highest for energy-intensive multi-family buildings. Buildings following low or net-zero energy performance targets show potential reductions of 50-80% for total life cycle GHG emissions, compared to buildings with conventional energy performance. Implementation of on-site photovoltaic (PV) systems provides the highest reduction potential for both operational and total life cycle GHG emissions, with potential reductions of 92% to 100% and 48% to 66%, respectively. Strategies related to increased use of timber and other bio-based materials present the highest potential for reduction of embodied GHG emissions, with reductions of 9% to 73%.
KW - Design strategies
KW - GHG emissions
KW - Humid subtropical climate
KW - Life cycle assessment
KW - Residential buildings
KW - Tropical climate
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85099190923&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/buildings11010006
DO - 10.3390/buildings11010006
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85099190923
SN - 2075-5309
VL - 11
SP - 1
EP - 36
JO - Buildings
JF - Buildings
IS - 1
M1 - 6
ER -
