Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

This study critically reviews the existing methods for material flow analysis and embodied energy calculation of a building and addresses the inadequacies and shortcoming in existing methods. Environmental impacts of construction materials are of major concern for a sustainable development. There are various tools and techniques to assess the environmental impacts of the materials used in construction industry such as life cycle analysis, ecological footprint assessment, carbon footprint calculation, embodied energy, etc. of which embodied energy is fundamental calculation for rest of the assessments. Since building is a complex combination of many processed materials, choices of materials, source, means of transport, and construction methods can significantly affect the amount of energy embodied in a building. The current system of embodied energy doesn’t incorporate exhaustively these parameters into account for embodied energy calculation and various methods for calculating embodied energy has varying levels of completeness and accuracy. A system dynamics model can conceptualize the flow of materials right from its extraction to the implementation at building level incorporating all the parameters that influence the embodied energy of the material. Further spatial parameters have been incorporated in the model using GIS. The study concludes that an input-output-based system approach incorporating all parameters was the most appropriate method for calculating the embodied energy of a building in a comprehensive manner. Building designers and clients can use this model more for embodied energy calculation which would also be a decision making tool which can help the choice of materials and system of construction.