Estimating the material intensity of wooden residential houses in Finland

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openAccess

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Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2023-11

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Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

11

Series

Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Volume 198

Abstract

Improving resource efficiency in the building sector is a significant challenge, largely due to a lack of knowledge about material usage in buildings. Material intensity (MI) quantifies materials used in buildings, normalized by floor area or volume. MIs serve as indices for material stock and flow models and as an inventory approach for assessing the environmental impact of the built environment. Therefore, this study aimed to determine MIs of Finnish wooden residential houses built between 1940 and 2010 due to the dominance of them in residential building stock and their demolition rates. Factors influencing MI and cross-country comparisons were also explored because they had not been explored enough in the literature. Results showed construction method, time cohort, floor area, design choices and footprint shape impacted MI. Accounting for variability of MI was recommended, particularly when using it for material stock and flow analysis. Data and method disparities restrict cross-country comparison of MI.

Description

This work was supported by the Forest Value ERA.net project “InFutUReWood”, which was financially supported by the Finnish Ministry of the Environment and others [grant number VN/4236/2018]; and the Kone Foundation for Technology Promotion [grant number 202104430]. As a part of the collaborative effort of InFutUReWood and the Horizon 2020 project CIRCuIT (Grant Agreement 821 201) to map the materials embedded in the Finnish residential building stock, CIRCuIT donated the drawings of the building used in this study. Also, special thanks to Maral Alae and Majid Raza for their support during data collection.

Keywords

Material intensity, Inventory data, Residential building, building material, Finland

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Citation

Nasiri , B , Kaasalainen , T & Hughes , M 2023 , ' Estimating the material intensity of wooden residential houses in Finland ' , Resources, Conservation and Recycling , vol. 198 , 107142 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2023.107142