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Fast-Growing, Bio-Based Construction Materials as Key Drivers to a Net-Zero-Carbon Built Environment

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Green Building".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2025 | Viewed by 25958

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Edwin Zea Escamilla

E-Mail Website1 Website2
Guest Editor

1. Institute for Sustainability and Energy in Construction, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), 5210 Windisch, Switzerland
2. Construction Task Force, International Organization for Bamboo and Rattan INBAR, Beijing, China
Interests: bio-based materials; carbon footprint; dynamic LCA; bamboo; timber; construction
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Francesco Pittau

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Architecture Built Environment and Construction Engineering (ABC), Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy
Interests: sustainable construction; regenerative materials; bio-based; climate-neutral building; carbon footprint assessment; MFA

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are facing an unprecedented challenge as the climate rapidly changes and natural environments deteriorate at alarming rates, while the achievement of a sustainable human society moves further out of our reach. The need for rapid action and regenerative solutions that can deliver results on a short timescale are needed more than ever. One of the major commitments of nations worldwide is to achieve carbon neutrality within their built environments in the coming decades. It is clear how this commitment can only be fulfilled with the implementation of bio-based materials. These unconventional materials not only have the ability to lower the carbon footprint when used in building, but also have the capacity of storing carbon during their service life and removing large amount of CO₂ due to their fast growth. Bio-based construction materials, such as bamboo, hemp, and straw, etc., can provide a wide range of applications, from structural purposes to thermal insulation. Bio-based solutions can be contextualized to respond to specific needs of different geographies, thus providing appropriate responses to the challenges faced in each region. These promising solutions still require further development and understanding of the scope of their benefits along the value chain before being promoted as sustainable development solutions.

The need for solutions to achieve net-zero-carbon built environments is more imperative than ever. We recognize that approaches utilizing fast-growing, bio-based materials can make a significant contribution to achieving this goal. Nevertheless, we see that efforts to promote these materials are spread across very different fields of knowledge. With the present Special Issue, we aim to highlight the potential of fast-growing, bio-based materials in novel applications in the built environment, especially in building. Moreover, we would like to target the main positive aspects of these materials, such as their circularity and contribution to the implementation of new bio-economies.

With this Special Issue, we aim to bring attention to the potential contributions that fast-growing, bio-based material can provide while creating a repository of knowledge that can help decision-makers and pave the way towards a sustainable built environment.

We are pleased to invite you to submit an original contribution to this Special Issue addressing topics in the fields of material science, buildings physics, structural applications, value chain analysis, circular and bio-economies, as well as criticality and land-use competition.

Dr. Edwin Zea Escamilla
Dr. Francesco Pittau
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

construction
regenerative materials
bamboo
hemp
straw
bio-economy
circularity

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Published Papers (9 papers)

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Research

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24 pages, 4051 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Low-Carbon Bio-Concretes with Wood, Bamboo, and Rice Husk Aggregates: Life Cycle Assessment for Sustainable Wall Systems

by Arthur Ferreira de Araujo, Lucas Rosse Caldas, Nicole Pagan Hasparyk and Romildo Dias Toledo Filho

Sustainability 2025, 17(5), 2176; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17052176 - 3 Mar 2025

Viewed by 828

Abstract

This study evaluates the carbon footprint of three bio-concrete families—wood (WBC), bamboo (BBC), and rice husk (RHBC)—and their application in wall components (as blocks and as boards). A cradle-to-grave, carbon-focused Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) was used to compare these bio-concretes to conventional masonry and industrialized light-framing solutions. Each bio-concrete family incorporated biomass volumetric fractions of 40%, 45%, and 50%, using a ternary cementitious matrix of cement, rice husk ash, and fly ash (0.45:0.25:0.30). Sensitivity analyses examined the impacts of transport distances and the parameters affecting biogenic carbon storage, such as carbon retention periods in the built environment. The carbon footprint results demonstrated a significantly low or negative balance of emissions: WBC ranged from −109 to 31 kgCO₂-eq./m³, BBC from −113 to 28 kgCO₂-eq./m³, and RHBC from 57 to 165 kgCO₂-eq./m³. The findings emphasized the importance of ensuring bio-concrete durability to maximize biogenic carbon storage and highlighted the environmental advantages of bio-concrete wall systems compared to conventional solutions. For instance, BBC boards replacing fiber cement boards in light-framing systems achieved a 62 kgCO₂-eq./m² reduction, primarily due to the production (A1–A3) and replacement (B4) stages. This research outlines the emission profiles of innovative materials with the potential to mitigate global warming through circular construction, offering a sustainable portfolio for designers, builders, and AECO professionals seeking non-conventional solutions aligned with circular economy principles. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fast-Growing, Bio-Based Construction Materials as Key Drivers to a Net-Zero-Carbon Built Environment)

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17 pages, 3998 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Increasing Carbon Sequestration, Land-Use Efficiency, and Building Decarbonization with Short Rotation Eucalyptus

by Kate Chilton, Otavio Campoe, Nicholas Allan and Hal Hinkle

Sustainability 2025, 17(3), 1281; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17031281 - 5 Feb 2025

Viewed by 862

Abstract

Global construction activity remains the least responsive large economic sector to the exigencies of global climate change. The focus has centered on operating emissions of buildings, while upfront embodied emissions in building materials remain unabated. Softwood timber, a commonly used building material, can remove and store atmospheric carbon in buildings for decades. However, the upfront climate benefits of using softwoods in building frames are limited due to the multi-decadal growth and harvest cycles of forest plantations. The objective of this study was to demonstrate that fast-growing Eucalyptus is a superior carbon sequestration feedstock for building materials compared to slow-growing softwoods. We quantified the relative carbon benefits of Eucalyptus to a group of commonly used North American softwoods in an all-carbon-pools, risk-adjusted model that compares the net present value of carbon flows over a 100-year period. Using a novel carbon benefit multiple metric, the analysis shows that short-rotation, high-yield Eucalyptus plantations are 2.7× to 4.6× better at sequestering atmospheric carbon than softwoods, depending on the various risk perception scenarios. The results indicate that building decarbonization can be enhanced by using fast-growing and high-yielding Eucalyptus species plantations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fast-Growing, Bio-Based Construction Materials as Key Drivers to a Net-Zero-Carbon Built Environment)

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18 pages, 2159 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Evaluating Fast-Growing Fibers for Building Decarbonization with Dynamic LCA

by Kate Chilton, Jay Arehart and Hal Hinkle

Sustainability 2025, 17(2), 401; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17020401 - 7 Jan 2025

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 966

Abstract

Standard carbon accounting methods and metrics undermine the potential of fast-growing biogenic materials to decarbonize buildings because they ignore the timing of carbon uptake. The consequence is that analyses can indicate that a building material is carbon-neutral when it is not climate-neutral. Here, we investigated the time-dependent effect of using fast-growing fibers in durable construction materials. This study estimated the material stock and flow and associated cradle-to-gate emissions for four residential framing systems in the US: concrete masonry units, light-frame dimensional timber, and two framing systems that incorporate fast-growing fibers (bamboo and Eucalyptus). The carbon flows for these four framing systems were scaled across four adoption scenarios, Business as Usual, Early-Fast, Late-Slow, and Highly Optimistic, ranging from no adoption to the full adoption of fast-growing materials in new construction within 10 years. Dynamic life cycle assessment modeling was used to project the radiative forcing and global temperature change potential. The results show that the adoption of fast-growing biogenic construction materials can significantly reduce the climate impact of new US residential buildings. However, this study also reveals that highly aggressive, immediate adoption is the only way to achieve net climate cooling from residential framing within this century, highlighting the urgent need to change the methods and metrics decision makers use to evaluate building materials. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fast-Growing, Bio-Based Construction Materials as Key Drivers to a Net-Zero-Carbon Built Environment)

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20 pages, 7741 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Upscaling Natural Materials in Construction: Earthen, Fast-Growing, and Living Materials

by Olga Beatrice Carcassi, Roberta Salierno, Pietro Augusto Falcinelli, Ingrid Maria Paoletti and Lola Ben-Alon

Sustainability 2024, 16(18), 7926; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16187926 - 11 Sep 2024

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2129

Abstract

Despite the numerous advantages of using natural materials, such as fast-growing, living, and earthen materials, their widespread application in the construction industry remains limited. This research presents a perception survey, which investigates stakeholders’ perceptions regarding the market, regulatory barriers, and educational barriers, exploring experiences, motivations, and attitudes toward the adoption of natural materials in construction projects. The results capture variations in current practices and identify patterns for future directions, analyzed in a comparative manner to assess two geographical regions: Europe and North America. The results show that contractor availability, a lack of professional knowledge (mostly in Europe), and cost-to-value perceptions (mostly in the USA) are key barriers to adopting natural materials. The lack of awareness among construction professionals regarding technical aspects highlights the need for targeted training, while the lack of regulatory distinction between living and earth-based materials underscores the need for harmonized policies. By elucidating stakeholders’ perspectives and identifying key challenges, this research aims to inform policymaking, industry practices, and research initiatives aimed at promoting the use of a wider lexicon of construction materials. Ultimately, this study hopes to facilitate the development of strategies to overcome scalability challenges and accelerate the transition toward their implementation in mainstream projects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fast-Growing, Bio-Based Construction Materials as Key Drivers to a Net-Zero-Carbon Built Environment)

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26 pages, 9753 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Industry Experts’ Perspectives on the Difficulties and Opportunities of the Integration of Bio-Based Insulation Materials in the European Construction Sector

by Salima Zerari, Rossella Franchino and Nicola Pisacane

Sustainability 2024, 16(17), 7314; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16177314 - 26 Aug 2024

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2613

Abstract

This paper explores the current status of bio-based insulation materials (BbIMs) integration in Europe, through structured online questionnaires. with industry experts. The findings show that the main common difficulties are obtaining European Conformity (CE) marking, high costs, a skills gap, a lack of trained builders, and slow acceptance from industry decision-makers. On the other hand, the main common opportunities are the gradual improvement with certain supportive policies and incentives, the growing environmental awareness, thermal, acoustic, and environmental performance, long-term cost savings and value, and increasing educational initiatives, advertising, and awareness campaigns. The finding also emphasizes the critical role that users and buyers play in the adoption of these materials as a potential driver and barrier. The professionals suggest strengthening environmentally friendly standards, integrating natural materials into construction databases, leading by example, withdrawing subsidies for hazardous waste disposal, providing continuing education, workshops, collaboration among stakeholders, and referencing exemplary projects in France. Further insights on bio-based building materials integration in building information modeling (BIM) practices indicate that the rate of their integration is very low. This research contributes to the scientific literature on BbIMs, by highlighting the barriers to the widespread use of these materials in practice and promoting the drivers of their widespread use. Future research should address more insights from other uncovered countries and the countries with limited insight (The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Portugal) in the current study as well as End-users’ perceptions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fast-Growing, Bio-Based Construction Materials as Key Drivers to a Net-Zero-Carbon Built Environment)

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19 pages, 6094 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Experimental Study on the Dowel-Bearing Strength of Bambusa blumeana Bamboo Used for Sustainable Housing Construction

by Cres Dan O. Bangoy, Jr., Jedelle Y. Falcon, Hannah Amyrose F. Lorenzo, Steven Royce A. Zeng, Lessandro Estelito O. Garciano and Carlo Joseph D. Cacanando

Sustainability 2024, 16(13), 5530; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16135530 - 28 Jun 2024

Viewed by 2691

Abstract

This study addresses the critical issue of dowel-bearing strength in Bambusa blumeana, a key sustainable construction material crucial for climate change mitigation. Given the lack of bamboo connection standards, this research focuses on determining the dowel-bearing strength of Bambusa blumeana, emphasizing factors such as dowel diameter, node placements, and the physical properties of bamboo. A predictive equation is derived, enhancing the practicality of bamboo in structural design. The results underscore a notable correlation between dowel diameter and characteristic strength, with implications for engineering practices. Node placements significantly affect dowel-bearing capacity, while bamboo’s physical attributes, including thickness, culm diameter, and moisture content, exhibit modest correlations with strength. The derived equation aims to assist in structural design, mitigating splitting and bearing failures in bamboo structures. This research establishes a foundation for optimizing the use of Bambusa blumeana in sustainable construction, advancing the understanding of its dowel-bearing strength for improved sustainability and resilience in the construction industry. Future research suggestions include exploring bamboo–mortar composites, additional node placements, and employing more comprehensive empirical equations and curve-fitting techniques. The study advocates for further investigations with more diverse and larger bamboo samples to bolster robustness. Additionally, delving into bamboo ductility may offer valuable insights. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fast-Growing, Bio-Based Construction Materials as Key Drivers to a Net-Zero-Carbon Built Environment)

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21 pages, 3385 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Establishing the Characteristic Compressive Strength Parallel to Fiber of Four Local Philippine Bamboo Species

by Christine A. T. Panti, Christy S. Cañete, Althea R. Navarra, Kerby D. Rubinas, Lessandro E. O. Garciano and Luis F. López

Sustainability 2024, 16(9), 3845; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16093845 - 3 May 2024

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3138

Abstract

Bamboo is considered a sustainable construction material due to its ability to grow quickly and its mechanical properties that are comparable to timber. Contributing to the current effort to establish structural bamboo standards in the National Structural Code of the Philippines (NSCP), this study establishes the characteristic compressive strength of four bamboo species: Bambusa vulgaris (36 samples), Dendrocalamus asper (36 samples), Bambusa blumeana (94 samples), and Guadua angustifolia Kunth (30 samples). The samples were subjected to compressive loading following ISO 22157-1 (2017). The characteristic compressive strength values obtained, according to ISO 12122-1 (2014), were 40.35 MPa for B. vulgaris, 40.21 MPa for D. asper, 46.63 MPa for B. blumeana, and 36.99 MPa for G. angustifolia Kunth. Simple linear analysis, one-way ANOVA, and Welch’s t-test were used to analyze the correlation models and establish a comparative analysis of the effects of nodes and geometric and physical properties on the compressive strength of bamboo samples. In comparisons of the characteristic compressive strengths obtained from this study to the strengths of unseasoned structural timber of Philippine woods, all bamboo species showed higher strength values than did other woods, and bamboos thus have great potential as an alternative construction material to timber. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fast-Growing, Bio-Based Construction Materials as Key Drivers to a Net-Zero-Carbon Built Environment)

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25 pages, 4159 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Bridging Housing and Climate Needs: Bamboo Construction in the Philippines

by Timo Bundi, Luis Felipe Lopez, Guillaume Habert and Edwin Zea Escamilla

Sustainability 2024, 16(2), 498; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16020498 - 5 Jan 2024

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 8397

Abstract

The Philippines faces a significant shortage of affordable housing, and with the growing urgency brought by climate change, there is a pressing need for more sustainable and affordable building solutions. One promising option is cement bamboo frame buildings, which blend traditional bamboo building methods with modern materials. This approach is already being implemented in social housing projects in the Philippines. Dynamic lifecycle assessment (DLCA) calculations show that these bamboo buildings can effectively reduce overall CO₂ emissions. Before a building’s end of life, biogenic effects offset approximately 43% of its total production emissions, while the temporary carbon storage afforded by these biogenic materials further reduces total emissions by 14%. In comparison to concrete brick buildings, bamboo constructions reduce emissions by 70%. Transforming an unmanaged bamboo plantation into a managed plantation can potentially triple the capacity for long-term CO₂ storage in biogenic materials and further reduce net emissions by replacing concrete with bamboo as the main construction material. Thus, bamboo construction offers a potent, economically viable carbon offsetting strategy for social housing projects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fast-Growing, Bio-Based Construction Materials as Key Drivers to a Net-Zero-Carbon Built Environment)

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26 pages, 5521 KiB

Open AccessReview

From Problems to Possibilities: Overcoming Commercialization Challenges to Scale Timber Bamboo in Buildings

by Kate Chilton, Marzieh Kadivar and Hal Hinkle

Sustainability 2025, 17(4), 1575; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17041575 - 14 Feb 2025

Viewed by 1807

Abstract

The substitution of fast-growing biogenic materials for high-carbon footprint extractive materials is increasingly discussed as a climate change mitigation tool. This review is based on a comprehensive literature search conducted in Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases for publications, focusing on keywords such as “bamboo” and “sustainable construction”. Through this literature and bibliometric analysis, we identify the relative interest in timber bamboo as a sustainable building material and review the carbon-capturing and structural properties that underly bamboo’s growing research interest. However, this has yet to translate into any material degree of adoption in mainstream construction. Given the near absence of subsidies, regulatory mandates, and “green premiums”, timber bamboo must become fully cost-competitive with existing materials to achieve adoption and provide its carbon-mitigation promise. In addition to academic sources, the review draws on the professional expertise of the authors, who have extensive experience in the bamboo industry. Using this expertise, the main problems preventing timber bamboo’s cost competitiveness are analyzed with possible solutions proposed. The combination of rigorous research and industry insights ensures practical applicability. Finally, the beneficial climate prospects of adopting timber bamboo buildings in substitution for 25% of new cement buildings is projected at over 10 billion tons of reduced carbon emissions from 2035 to 2050 and nearly 45 billion tons of reduced carbon emissions from 2035 to 2100. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Fast-Growing, Bio-Based Construction Materials as Key Drivers to a Net-Zero-Carbon Built Environment)

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