Material requirements and impacts of the building sector in the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways

The significant weight of the building sector in global material demand has been addressed in several publications, but a lack of consideration of the energy-materials nexus was identified. To fill this gap, we developed a stock-flow dynamic model from 1950 to 2100, using scenarios of the Internatio...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of cleaner production 2023-11, Vol.428, p.139117, Article 139117
Main Authors: Le Boulzec, Hugo, Mathy, Sandrine, Verzier, François, Andrieu, Baptiste, Monfort-Climent, Daniel, Vidal, Olivier
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Base materials
Building sector
Environmental Engineering
Environmental Sciences
Green concrete
Recycled concrete aggregates
Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs)
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The significant weight of the building sector in global material demand has been addressed in several publications, but a lack of consideration of the energy-materials nexus was identified. To fill this gap, we developed a stock-flow dynamic model from 1950 to 2100, using scenarios of the International Energy Agency and the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways of the academic literature. We find that (i) the increasing stocks in the less developed countries results in a rise of the inflows; (ii) strong inequalities are observed in the in-use stocks per capita of materials in the SSPs, despite optimistic material intensities projection, (iii) a growing materials demand translates into larger final energy demand of material production, which could question the feasibility of some low-energy demand scenarios, and that (iv) the recycled concrete aggregated display a significant potential to enhance the reduction of accumulated concrete stocks in landfills and green concrete could decrease the energy demand of concrete production. We furthermore highlight the crucial temporal aspect of policies to successfully implement these solutions, as long lifetimes are observed in the building sector. •The prospective regional building stocks of seven scenarios are compared.•The regional stocks and flows of base materials are estimated.•Strong inequalities are observed in the projected in-use stocks per capita of materials.•Green concrete could reduce energy demand for concrete production.
ISSN:0959-6526
1879-1786
DOI:10.1016/j.jclepro.2023.139117