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As part of a project investigating in the potential greenhouse gas mitigation effect of the increased use and production of mass timber worldwide, a comparative study was carried out to show the potential benefit of mass timber use in buildings in central Europe. After designing a mass timber building functionally equivalent to an existing conventional building, cradle to grave life cycle assessments (LCA) were calculated. The reference is an eight-story building with mixed use in Vienna, originally built in reinforced concrete. Global Warming Potential (GWP) is defined as the central parameter of interest. Calculated life cycle phases are A1–A3 (resource to production), A4 and A5 (transport to site and construction, respectively), B4 (replacement in the use phase), and C1–C4 (End of Life), as well as D (benefits and loads beyond the building life). It can be shown that the total mass of the timber building is 47% lower than of the concrete building. Considering life cycle phases A1 to A5, the timber building shows 18% less embodied carbon. Taking the whole building life cycle and the operational energy use (B6) into account, differences in GWP are much lower, as the heating system, though equipped with high efficiency and clean Austrian electricity grid mix, has much higher impact than the other phases.
Franz Dolezal; Isabella Dornigg; Markus Wurm; Hildegund Figl. Overview and Main Findings for the Austrian Case Study. Sustainability 2021, 13, 7584 .
AMA StyleFranz Dolezal, Isabella Dornigg, Markus Wurm, Hildegund Figl. Overview and Main Findings for the Austrian Case Study. Sustainability. 2021; 13 (14):7584.
Chicago/Turabian StyleFranz Dolezal; Isabella Dornigg; Markus Wurm; Hildegund Figl. 2021. "Overview and Main Findings for the Austrian Case Study." Sustainability 13, no. 14: 7584.
Waste from building and construction sector makes up for about half of the total waste. In order to reduce waste, future buildings shall be constructed in a way that they leave little to no waste behind at the end of their life time. In this work a new method to characterize buildings with respect to their deconstruction and recycling potential at the end of their life time is described. An index of recovery is deduced, which enables planers to optimize buildings in the design phase. The new assessment method provides a science-based automated system. It is based on an inventory of building components, which are virtually disassembled into "minimal blocks", i.e. the smallest possible entities which cannot be further disassembled by economically reasonable efforts. For all possible minimal blocks the algorithm provides tabularised scores, depending on current waste-treatment practice including the efforts required for separation and processing. Additionally, waste-treatment methods in development, including their technological stage of maturity and economic readiness for market are considered. Each building is decomposed into minimal blocks rated by this scheme. All rates are then weighted by the thickness of the respective minimal block and aggregated to a building indicator taking into account the area of the components. The new method promises to deliver selective results, which can be applied for the optimisation of building components. In a follow-up project the method shall be implemented as criterion "disassembly, separation and recycling" (4.1.4) in the BNB (Bewertungssystem Nachhaltiges Bauen) assessment system for the sustainability of buildings.
H. Figl; C. Thurner; F. Dolezal; P. Schneider-Marin; I. Nemeth. A new Evaluation Method for the End-of-life Phase of Buildings. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 2019, 225, 012024 .
AMA StyleH. Figl, C. Thurner, F. Dolezal, P. Schneider-Marin, I. Nemeth. A new Evaluation Method for the End-of-life Phase of Buildings. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science. 2019; 225 (1):012024.
Chicago/Turabian StyleH. Figl; C. Thurner; F. Dolezal; P. Schneider-Marin; I. Nemeth. 2019. "A new Evaluation Method for the End-of-life Phase of Buildings." IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 225, no. 1: 012024.