Journal
BUILDINGS
Volume 4, Issue 3, Pages 266-294Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/buildings4030266
Keywords
material efficiency; resource efficiency; energy efficiency; building; construction; land-use; life-cycle; case-study; greenhouse gas; abiotic resource depletion
Funding
- Sustainability and performance assessment and benchmarking of buildings (SuPerBuildings) project (FP7 EU)
- TEKES - the Finnish Funding Agency for technology and Innovation
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Better construction and use of buildings in the European Union would influence 42% of final energy consumption, about 35% of our greenhouse gas emissions and more than 50% of all extracted materials. It could also help to save up to 30% of water consumption. This paper outlines and draws conclusions about different aspects of the material efficiency of buildings and assesses the significance of different building materials on the material efficiency. The research uses an extensive literature study and a case-study in order to assess: should the depletion of materials be ignored in the environmental or sustainability assessment of buildings, are the related effects on land use, energy use and/or harmful emissions significant, should related indicators (such as GHGs) be used to indicate the material efficiency of buildings, and what is the significance of scarce materials, compared to the use of other building materials. This research suggests that the material efficiency should focus on the significant global impacts of material efficiency; not on the individual factors of it. At present global warming and greenhouse gas emissions are among the biggest global problems on which material efficiency has a direct impact on. Therefore, this paper suggests that greenhouse gas emissions could be used as an indicator for material efficiency in building.
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