Holistic life-cycle accounting of carbon emissions of prefabricated buildings using LCA and BIM

Prefabricated concrete building (PCB) can save resources, reduce construction, improve quality, and reduce pollution. Understanding PCB environmental benefits versus traditional buildings could reinforce relevant policies and adoption. This study aimed to develop a holistic life-cycle accounting sys...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Energy and buildings 2022-07, Vol.266, p.112136, Article 112136
Main Authors: Li, Xiao-juan, Xie, Wan-jun, Xu, Le, Li, Lu-lu, Jim, C.Y., Wei, Tai-bing
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Building construction
Building energy conservation
Building information modeling (BIM)
Building management systems
Building materials
Buildings
Carbon
Carbon cycle
Carbon emission strategy
Carbon footprint
Cast in place
Concrete
Concrete construction
Construction industry
Construction materials
Emission analysis
Emissions control
Energy conservation
Environmental impact
Footprint analysis
Life cycle analysis (LCA)
Mathematical analysis
PCB
Pollution control
Polychlorinated biphenyls
Prefabricated buildings
Prefabricated concrete building (PCB)
Project engineering
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:Prefabricated concrete building (PCB) can save resources, reduce construction, improve quality, and reduce pollution. Understanding PCB environmental benefits versus traditional buildings could reinforce relevant policies and adoption. This study aimed to develop a holistic life-cycle accounting system based on BIM technology to calculate carbon emissions of PCB accurately and efficiently, and verify the effects of energy saving and emission reduction. Existing international and national databanks allowed the compilation of carbon emission factors. Five representative residential PCB projects were enlisted to calculate carbon footprints in six individual life-cycle construction stages. In most stages, carbon emissions were reduced with an increasing prefabrication rate. In the operation and maintenance stage, carbon emissions accounted for approximately 91% of the total, and the building materials production stage accounted for about 11%. The “negative carbon emission” in the demolition and recycling stage was about −4%. Carbon emissions of the remaining three stages were minimal at about 
ISSN:0378-7788
1872-6178
DOI:10.1016/j.enbuild.2022.112136