TY - JOUR
T1 - Database of Embodied Quantity Outputs
T2 - Lowering Material Impacts through Engineering
AU - De Wolf, Catherine
AU - Hoxha, Endrit
AU - Hollberg, Alexander
AU - Fivet, Corentin
AU - Ochsendorf, John
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
PY - 2020/9/1
Y1 - 2020/9/1
N2 - Current studies and performance labels focus mainly on the operational energy demand of buildings due to heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, and hot water, but they rarely account for embodied impacts. Performing a life cycle assessment (LCA) on an entire building structure, let alone a building, requires time and data, both of which are often lacking for practitioners in the construction industry. Limited knowledge on the embodied carbon equivalent of building structures led to the benchmarking effort of the database of embodied quantity outputs (DEQO), developed by the first author over the last 6 years in close collaboration with industry and academia. DEQO collects material quantities for existing buildings in a robust way directly from industry. This paper presents the lessons learned from this database to define the next steps for structural engineers to lower the environmental impacts related to the material quantities in their projects. To create confidence and comparability in the results, recommendations are given such as implementing uncertainty analysis into practice to avoid inaccurate comparisons with a false sense of precision.
AB - Current studies and performance labels focus mainly on the operational energy demand of buildings due to heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, and hot water, but they rarely account for embodied impacts. Performing a life cycle assessment (LCA) on an entire building structure, let alone a building, requires time and data, both of which are often lacking for practitioners in the construction industry. Limited knowledge on the embodied carbon equivalent of building structures led to the benchmarking effort of the database of embodied quantity outputs (DEQO), developed by the first author over the last 6 years in close collaboration with industry and academia. DEQO collects material quantities for existing buildings in a robust way directly from industry. This paper presents the lessons learned from this database to define the next steps for structural engineers to lower the environmental impacts related to the material quantities in their projects. To create confidence and comparability in the results, recommendations are given such as implementing uncertainty analysis into practice to avoid inaccurate comparisons with a false sense of precision.
KW - Benchmarking
KW - Building structures
KW - Database
KW - Embodied carbon
KW - Structural engineering
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85083988551&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1061/(ASCE)AE.1943-5568.0000408
DO - 10.1061/(ASCE)AE.1943-5568.0000408
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85083988551
SN - 1076-0431
VL - 26
JO - Journal of Architectural Engineering
JF - Journal of Architectural Engineering
IS - 3
M1 - 04020011
ER -