aalto1 untyped-item.component.html
Life cycle assessment of constructing a one-storey house: Comparing virgin and cascaded wood for construction
Loading...
URL
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
School of Chemical Engineering |
Master's thesis
Authors
Fernando, Dumindu
Date
Department
Mcode
Degree programme
Language
en
Pages
59
Series
Abstract
The construction sector is one of the leading sectors when it comes to Green House Gas (GHG) emissions, the largest consumer of resources, and one of the largest polluters. Constructing using renewable materials and, adopting circular economy approaches are a few of the key changes we can make, to enable a more sustainable construction sector. Wood, which is a biodegradable and renewable material, has been used in construction throughout our history. However, the reusing or recycling of wood is still a developing area in the modern world, which has potential to ease the environmental burden of construction.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a tool which can be used to evaluate the envi-ronmental impacts of products and processes. In this case, a comparative LCA was conducted to identify the environmental benefits of repurposing demolition wood as a substitute for virgin wood. The Construction system used to model the hypothet-ical one-storey house is the Laminated Log system. A cradle-to-gate LCA was con-ducted to assess environmental impacts. The ReCiPe 2016 impact assessment method was used and, Global Warming Potential (GWP) and, Land Occupation were selected as the impact categories to be evaluated.
Based on the results, there are considerable environmental benefits of using re-purposed demolition wood in construction. For a substitution of 33% of virgin wood with repurposed demolition wood, the GWP of the logs reduced by nearly 9%. At the same time, there was a reduction of nearly 33% of Land occupation for a substitution of 33% of repurposed demolition wood in place of virgin wood.
The largest share of GWP of the Laminated Logs is associated with the sourcing of timber. This includes the forestry phase and processing step until sawn timber is produced. The combination of these steps accounts for approximately 40% of the GWP, in the case of Laminated Logs made from virgin wood. The major contributor for the Land occupation impact is the forestry phase, which accounts to nearly 98% of the total impact.
Additionally, by repurposing demolition wood, the lifetime of harvested wood can be extended. Not only will this reduce the resource consumption, but it will convert wooden buildings into carbon sinks. Widespread adaptation of this concept has the potential to convert the emission intensive construction sector into a carbon sink.