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The demand to reduce the greenhouse gases (GHGs) is a must to address the problem of climate change. This paper aims to help the decision makers locally and internationally to reduce the building's CO 2 emissions in the project design phase. The paper studies the indoor CO 2 emissions of green and conventional building. The assessment of embodied carbon of a green building material has been studied. It was found that the reinforced concrete has the significant negative impact, as it represents 78% of the total embodied carbon emissions. On the other hand, the insulation materials represent (2%) of the total emissions. Heavyweight cast concrete and the autoclaved aerated concrete have been proposed as alternatives, it was found that they achieved 23% & 50% reduction in the total embodied carbon emissions respectively. It is recommended to use autoclaved aerated concrete component as environmental alternative to reinforced concrete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract For the water sector to cope with rising populations and the anticipated impacts of climate change, increasing amounts of construction output are needed to build water-related infrastructure. Amidst emerging operational energy efficiencies and gradual grid decarbonisation, the relative impact and extent of embodied carbon dioxide equivalent (embodied CO 2 e) effected from the construction and maintenance of water sector infrastructure is likely to rise. For practitioners in the water and construction sectors, there is a growing need to be able to understand and account for embodied CO 2 e. However, the contribution of embodied CO 2 e as part of the whole life cycle impacts of water related infrastructure is disputed in the current literature, and with only a handful of studies suggesting it is important its significance is not established. This work aims to explore this issue, and provide clarity. This paper shows the calculations involved to measure the embodied and operational CO 2 e of Old Ford Water Recycling Plant, a small blackwater recycling treatment facility producing 574 m3/day of reclaimed water. For the analyses, embodied carbon dioxide coefficients (ECCs) are used that were provided by the water operator Thames Water Utilities Ltd (TWU), and based on its supply chain, and datasets from Ecoinvent v3.1, a commercially available assessment tool. The final aggregated carbon footprint values calculated are 1.430 kgCO 2 e (TWU in-house analysis) and 1.566 kgCO 2 e (Ecoinvent) per cubic metre of recycled water. The results show that the contribution of embodied CO 2 e is significant, making up 50.7% (TWU) and 77.3% (Ecoinvent) of the total carbon footprint value in each analysis. The research identified that assessments could be improved if there was higher-quality data provided by manufacturers and suppliers on the embodied CO 2 e content of materials, components, and equipment. This paper further illustrates differences between calculations using generic data (Ecoinvent) and supply chain data, and the difficulties involved in producing functionally equivalent life cycle inventories. Graphical abstract Image 10027 Highlights • Contribution of embodied carbon is significant in water recycling plant case. • Embodied carbon deemed important in future project design and operation. • Generic data distorts true extent of accounted embodied impacts. • Robust information from supply chain can improve assessment accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the face of a changing climate, a growing number of construction firms are adopting carbon reduction targets on individual projects and across their portfolios. In the wake of the Paris Agreement, some firms are seeking a means of aligning their targets with sectoral, national and international mitigation commitments. There are numerous ways by which such an alignment can be achieved, each requiring different assumptions. Using data from the UK construction industry, this paper reviews current company commitments and progress in carbon mitigation; analyses the unique challenges in aligning construction targets, and presents a series of possible sectoral decarbonisation trajectories. The results highlight the disparity between current company targets and the range of possible trajectories. It is clear that a cross-industry dialogue is urgently required to establish an appropriate response that delivers both a widely-accepted target trajectory and a plan for its delivery. This paper is intended to stimulate and support this necessary debate by illustrating the impact of different methodological assumptions and highlighting the critical features of an appropriate response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Transform office buildings towards whole-life minimum carbon. • Integrated optimisation of retrofitting plan and operating schedules. • 44%, 74% and 68% decline in whole-life costs, carbon and energy after retrofitting. • 4–51% saving in whole-life carbon emission compared to design optimisation strategy. • 10% saving in whole-life carbon emission compared to operating optimisation strategy. The state-of-the-art retrofitting strategies generally use either passive or active measures to reduce carbon emissions during its operating stage. The coordination among a range of passive and active energy devices is not considered while the concept of whole-life carbon emission minimisation is not introduced. To overcome these three research gaps and to transform existing office buildings toward minimum whole-life carbon emissions, an integrated passive and active retrofitting approach is proposed. Through two inter-related design optimisation and operating optimisation processes, the set of retrofitting options can be identified to achieve overall optimal economic, energy, and environmental performance. The first research gap, lack of simultaneous consideration of various active and passive retrofitting measures, is solved by the whole system simulation of a range of active and passive refurbishment measures. The second research gap, lack of coordination among a range of active energy devices, is solved by iteratively determining the optimal operating schedules of active energy devices with overall retrofitting plan at the design stage. The third research gap, lack of whole-life carbon emission minimisation, is solved by simultaneously minimising both embodied and operating carbon emissions. A real three-floor office building acquiring retrofitting is used to test the effectiveness of this integrated passive and active retrofitting approach. Compared to the building at its current status, there could be 44%, 74% and 68% reduction in lifelong costs, carbon emissions and energy usages if the proposed retrofitting strategy is adopted. Compared to retrofitting the building using the state-of-the-art "design optimisation only" strategy, the proposed retrofitting approach can reduce 5.36%-34.37% whole-life energy consumption and 4.31%-51.10% carbon emissions. Compared to retrofitting the building using the state-of-the-art "operating carbon emission only" strategy, there is 11.92%, 10.55%, and 10.48% reduction in whole-life cost, energy usage and carbon emissions, respectively. Therefore, this paper is innovative in an aspect that minimum whole-life carbon emissions can be reached through integrated design of passive and active retrofitting measures. It can provide building owners, energy engineers and decision-makers with insightful building retrofitting solutions to tackle the energy crisis and climate change problems. This proposed retrofitting approach can also be modified to provide guidance in designing new low-carbon buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has become a major issue in recent years owing to the emission of greenhouse gases. Mitigation measures are required to overcome the challenges pertained to greenhouse gases emissions. This research paper attributes to the utilization of catalyzed waste vegetable oil as a binder for the production of roofing tiles to replace the conventional construction materials such as clay and cement. A novel methodology of utilizing catalyzed waste oil incorporated with sand and filler was adopted and the innovative product produced is entitled as catalyzed Vege-Roofing tiles that discovered to be economical and environmentally friendly in contrast to the traditional binders. It is believed that an extended heat curing of vegetable oil resulted in a complex oxy-polymerization reaction converting it into a rigid binder. Triplicate prototypes samples were manufactured to optimize the final conditions for the fabrication of catalyzed Vege-Roofing tiles. Optimized conditions were then implemented to produce standard catalyzed Vege-Roofing tiles and these fabricated tiles have shown flexural stress of up to 12 MPa for 18 h of curing. Moreover, these novel tiles were tested for permeability and water absorption according to the ASTM standards and have shown impermeability and remarkably low water absorption. Progressively, the embodied energy and embodied carbon requirements for these tiles found to be 0.64 MJ/kg and 0.327 kg CO 2 per equivalent respectively which is quite less in comparison to the traditional binders. Conclusively, environmentally friendly and economic production of tiles, conservation of existing resources and overcoming the issue of waste management are the remarkable outcomes of this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper systematically presents a survey of the empirical literature studying the embodied CO 2 emissions in China’s foreign trade (ECCT). Based on the bibliometric method and the online version of Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), this study summarizes the latest publications regarding ECCT in peer-reviewed journals in terms of quantities, most productive countries, institutions, authors, citations, and disciplines. By using synthetic analysis of keyword frequency, this study reveals the most popular methodologies applied in measuring ECCT, discusses the variation of numerical results in the literature, and reasons and countermeasures for the results uncertainties. Continuous investigation of the literature releases the methodology employed for measuring ECCT becoming more reasonable and the results more critical. However, the numerical results of ECCT are of great discrepancies within given year by different considerations on methodology specification, accounting principles, and data sources and processing. For instance, the estimates of CO 2 embodied in China’s exports changed from 478 Mt to over 3000 Mt and those of in China’s imports ranged from 140 Mt to over 1700 Mt in 2007. Therefore, overcoming data inherent limitations and reducing discrepancies among available databases should be urgently considered. The results imply that the prospective research tendencies on ECCT are to (1) improve China’s regional input-output data and energy intensity data to more precise estimates under global perspective; (2) estimate China’s carbon emission at firm level by different firm ownerships in production and consumption worldwide; (3) assess China’s carbon emission from processing or non-processing trade by compiling more detailed multi-regional input-output table; (4) evaluate city level carbon mitigation capacity in China under global MRIO model; (5) explore new carbon management experience in China’s carbon trading market and new trade expansion policy of ‘ one belt and one road’ in her new growth era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regenerative design holds great promise for a new era of sustainable and positive impact architecture, sparking considerable interest among architects, building professionals and their clients. However, the translational arm of regenerative design in practice is in a relatively primitive state. Although a number of theoretical definitions and studies have been initiated, the early returns point to several inherent application problems. In this regard, the professional and scientific potential of regenerative architecture can only be fully realized by the identification of the key barriers to projects design, construction and operation. In this paper, we compare two state of the art buildings to address the critical steps in the transition from the negative impact reduction architecture to the positive impact regenerative architecture, utilizing life cycle analysis. The case studies analysis and comparison can serve as an inspiring eye opener and provide a vision for architects and building professionals in the fields of high performance buildings and regenerative architecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing economic activities and rapid demographic changes in a number of African countries may have consequential effects on environmental quality. In this paper, a multi-region input–output modeling framework is used to show that except Egypt, Nigeria, Tunisia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and the Rest of North Africa, all other African countries/regions are net-importers of embodied emissions. With respect to the emission-intensive and trade exposed sectors, however, only Egypt, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe are rather net-exporters of embodied emissions. Secondly, panel regression techniques that allow cross-section dependence are used to investigate the determinants of CO 2 emissions in Africa. The estimated elasticities for per capita income and energy intensity are positive, statistically significant and robust for both low- and middle-income African countries. The most active segment of the labor force (percentage of the population between age 14 and 64) and industrialization exert significant positive effects on CO 2 emissions in middle income countries while the impact of urbanization, population and trade openness appears generally insignificant across income groups. The differential impacts of both economic and demographic variables on CO 2 emissions may have implications for the design and implementation of development and climate protection policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Finland is a forested country with a large export oriented forest industry. In addition to domestic forest extraction, roundwood is imported, thus displacing the environmental impacts of harvests. In this paper, we analyse the international carbon flows of forest industries in Finland from a consumption-based perspective. Quantitative analyses are available on trade embedded emissions of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion, and here we address in a similar way the impact of trade on the carbon budget of the forest products sector in Finland. Carbon flows through the forest industry system increased substantially between 1991 and 2005. We show that the annual carbon balance related to forests and forest industry system in Finland functioned as a sink in 1991, whereas in 2005 the system was a sink on a national level, but not on a global level. Through calculating the carbon content in traded forest industry products and emissions embodied in forest industry activities, we further show that the direct impacts of the forest industry in Finland are only a minor fraction of the total CO2 emissions related to Finnish production. Nearly all of the emissions were caused due to production of exports. Yet, direct carbon dioxide emissions of the industrial production are reported to Finland in the production based inventories. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]