Life-Cycle Carbon Emissions (LCCE) of Buildings: Implications, Calculations, and Reductions

Abstract

The life-cycle assessment method, which originates from general products and services, has gradually come to be applied to investigations of the life-cycle carbon emissions (LCCE) of buildings. A literature review was conducted to clarify LCCE implications, calculations, and reductions in the context of buildings. A total of 826 global building carbon emission calculation cases were obtained from 161 studies based on the framework of the building life-cycle stage division stipulated by ISO 21930 and the basic principles of the emission factor (EF) approach. The carbon emission calculation methods and results are discussed herein, based on the modules of production, construction, use, end-of-life, and supplementary benefits. According to the hotspot distribution of a building’s carbon emissions, carbon reduction strategies are classified into six groups for technical content and benefits analysis, including reducing the activity data pertaining to building materials and energy, reducing the carbon EFs of the building materials and energy, and exploiting the advantages of supplementary benefits. The research gaps and challenges in current building LCCE studies are summarized in terms of research goals and ideas, calculation methods, basic parameters, and carbon reduction strategies; development suggestions are also proposed.

Keywords

• Building carbon emissions
• Embodied carbon emissions
• Operational carbon emissions
• System boundary
• Activity data
• Carbon emission factor