Comparative life cycle assessment of cross laminated timber building and concrete building with special focus on biogenic carbon

• Published in: Energy and buildings 2022-01, Vol.254, p.111604, Article 111604
• Main Authors: Andersen, Julie Hansted, Rasmussen, Nana Lin, Ryberg, Morten Walbech
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Apartment buildings; Biogenic carbon; Building materials; Buildings; Carbon; Climate change; Concrete; Concrete construction; Construction; Construction materials; Cross laminated timber; Cross laminating; Deforestation; End of life; Energy; Energy consumption; Environmental impact; Forest transformation; Global warming; Life cycle analysis; Life Cycle Assessment; Life cycles; Timber; Timber (structural); Wood laminates
• ISSN: 0378-7788; 1872-6178
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2021.111604

•Evaluate environmental consequences of selecting a concrete or CLT building using LCA.•Investigate how modelling of biogenic carbon affect results for global warming impact.•Evaluate how use of timber in buildings may contribute to global deforestation.•Material related land use impacts are dwarfed by impacts from operational energy use.•More work needed to resolve challenges on inclusion and accounting of biogenic carbon. This study conducted a consequential Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) on two similar mid-rise apartment buildings applying either concrete or cross laminated timber (CLT) as the main structural material. The study further investigated inclusion of biogenic carbon and how this affects environmental impacts related to Global warming. Thus, two assessment scenarios were applied: A Base scenario, without accounting for biogenic carbon and a Biogenic carbon scenario that include a GWPbio factor to account for the use of biogenic carbon. The CLT building had the lowest impact score in 11 of 18 impact categories including Global warming. Operational energy use was the main contributor to the total impact with some variation across impact scores, but closely followed by impacts embodied in materials (incl. End-of-Life). An evaluation of the potential forest transformations required for fulfilling future projections for new building construction in 2060 showed that about 3% of current global forest area would be needed. This share was essentially independent of the selected building material as the main driver for forest transformation was found to be energy use during building operation. Thus, focus should primarily be on reducing deforestation related to energy generation rather than deforestation from production of building materials.