A Building Life-Cycle Embodied Performance Index—The Relationship between Embodied Energy, Embodied Carbon and Environmental Impact
School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Energies 2020, 13(8), 1905; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13081905
Received: 28 March 2020 / Revised: 9 April 2020 / Accepted: 11 April 2020 / Published: 13 April 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Environmental and Energy Systems)
Knowledge and research tying the environmental impact and embodied energy together is a largely unexplored area in the building industry. The aim of this study is to investigate the practicality of using the ratio between embodied energy and embodied carbon to measure the building’s impact. This study is based on life-cycle assessment and proposes a new measure: life-cycle embodied performance (LCEP), in order to evaluate building performance. In this project, eight buildings located in the same climate zone with similar construction types are studied to test the proposed method. For each case, the embodied energy intensities and embodied carbon coefficients are calculated, and four environmental impact categories are quantified. The following observations can be drawn from the findings: (a) the ozone depletion potential could be used as an indicator to predict the value of LCEP; (b) the use of embodied energy and embodied carbon independently from each other could lead to incomplete assessments; and (c) the exterior wall system is a common significant factor influencing embodied energy and embodied carbon. The results lead to several conclusions: firstly, the proposed LCEP ratio, between embodied energy and embodied carbon, can serve as a genuine indicator of embodied performance. Secondly, environmental impact categories are not dependent on embodied energy, nor embodied carbon. Rather, they are proportional to LCEP. Lastly, among the different building materials studied, metal and concrete express the highest contribution towards embodied energy and embodied carbon.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Hu, M. A Building Life-Cycle Embodied Performance Index—The Relationship between Embodied Energy, Embodied Carbon and Environmental Impact. Energies 2020, 13, 1905. https://doi.org/10.3390/en13081905
AMA Style
Hu M. A Building Life-Cycle Embodied Performance Index—The Relationship between Embodied Energy, Embodied Carbon and Environmental Impact. Energies. 2020; 13(8):1905. https://doi.org/10.3390/en13081905
Chicago/Turabian StyleHu, Ming. 2020. "A Building Life-Cycle Embodied Performance Index—The Relationship between Embodied Energy, Embodied Carbon and Environmental Impact" Energies 13, no. 8: 1905. https://doi.org/10.3390/en13081905
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