Energy Reports (Nov 2022)
Science mapping analysis of embodied energy in the construction industry
Abstract
The construction industry is a key player in total energy consumption. The design and construction of buildings shall be executed to minimize their negative environmental impacts. Many research studies have focused on reducing operational energy in the past decades. As a result, the proportion of embodied energy in the life cycle energy use of buildings has increased. This research adopts a holistic review method to provide a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the literature related to embodied energy in the construction industry. A bibliometric analysis is applied to obtain 269 papers from the Web of Science database during 1996–2020. A scientometric analysis is adopted for 175 publications to identify the publication year and geographical distribution, journals, scholars, citations, and keywords of publications. Results showed that the publications originated from 47 countries, and they were published in 73 journals. The United States, China, and England dominate the research publications. This indicates a strong research collaboration between developing and developed countries. The embodied energy is the top keyword in the frequency of occurrence and relationships with other keywords. The primary research areas for this topic are sustainable construction materials, information technology, sensitivity analysis of environmental impact, building type and composition, life cycle energy use of buildings, estimation methods, and life cycle analysis. An in-depth qualitative discussion is conducted to discuss research topics, identify research gaps, and propose future research directions.
