Towards Zero Carbon Buildings

Towards Zero Carbon Buildings: Reducing the embodied carbon footprint of a construction

Grover, Rahul (TU Delft Architecture and the Built Environment; TU Delft Climate Design and Sustainability)

van den Dobbelsteen, Andy (mentor)
Konstantinou, Thaleia (graduation committee)
Geldermans, Bob (graduation committee)

Delft University of Technology

Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Building Technology

2020-07-01

The building industry accounts for almost 40% of the total carbon emissions that are directly responsible for climate change. The buildings are now deploying energy-efficient solutions to lower carbon emissions from the operational phase. This adversely affects the share of embodied carbon emissions of building materials. The graduation thesis aims to study and compare the life cycle impact of different materials in building applications. The life cycle assessment method was adapted using certain assumptions to account for circular design approaches. End-of-life scenarios for all the materials were formed and compared using the assessment method. The analysis of materials in different building applications presented a significant difference between bio-based materials and other conventional materials such as steel, aluminium, and concrete. A reduction of almost 120% in the total carbon emissions of the studied building was estimated when bio-based materials were used over the existing materials. The proposed materials, along with energy recovery potential at their end-of-life, even showed the potential to achieve a carbon negative structural system. The proposed scenario of using bio-based material solutions in a building with a longer life span displayed better potential than a circular building construction. The role of biomass in mitigating climate change was thus highlighted.

zero carbon
embodied carbon
carbon footprint
LCA
carbon sequestration
concrete carbonation
biogenic carbon
circularity
Cradle-to-cradle

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:98e2c46c-7321-4eab-9f88-c3d10912003a

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Student theses

master thesis

© 2020 Rahul Grover