TY - JOUR
T1 - A Life cycle assessment of a “minus carbon” refugee house
T2 - Global warming potential and Sensitivity analysis
AU - Dabaieh, Marwa
AU - Emami, Nargessadat
AU - Taneli Heinonen, Jukka
AU - Marteinsson, Björn
PY - 2020/4/27
Y1 - 2020/4/27
N2 - Over the last eight years, the Middle East has experienced a series of high profile conflicts which have resulted in over 5.6 million Syrians forced to migrate to neighbouring countries within the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region or to Europe. That have exerted huge pressure on hosting countries trying to accommodate refugees in decent shelters and in quick manner. Temporary shelters normally carry a high environmental burden due to their short lifespan, and the majority are fabricated from industrialised materials. This study assesses the carbon impact for a minus carbon experimental refugee house in Sweden using life cycle assessment (LCA) as tool. SimaPro and GaBi software were used for the calculations and the ReCiPe Midpoint method for impact assessment. The results show that using local plant-based materials such as straw, reeds and wood, together with clay dug from close to the construction site, can drastically reduce the carbon footprint of temporary shelters and even attain a negative carbon impact of 226.2 KgCO2/kg. Based on the results of the uncertainty importance analysis, the overall global warming potential impact without and with sequestration potential are mostly sensitive to the variability of the GWP impact of wood fibre insulation.
AB - Over the last eight years, the Middle East has experienced a series of high profile conflicts which have resulted in over 5.6 million Syrians forced to migrate to neighbouring countries within the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region or to Europe. That have exerted huge pressure on hosting countries trying to accommodate refugees in decent shelters and in quick manner. Temporary shelters normally carry a high environmental burden due to their short lifespan, and the majority are fabricated from industrialised materials. This study assesses the carbon impact for a minus carbon experimental refugee house in Sweden using life cycle assessment (LCA) as tool. SimaPro and GaBi software were used for the calculations and the ReCiPe Midpoint method for impact assessment. The results show that using local plant-based materials such as straw, reeds and wood, together with clay dug from close to the construction site, can drastically reduce the carbon footprint of temporary shelters and even attain a negative carbon impact of 226.2 KgCO2/kg. Based on the results of the uncertainty importance analysis, the overall global warming potential impact without and with sequestration potential are mostly sensitive to the variability of the GWP impact of wood fibre insulation.
U2 - 10.1108/ARCH-11-2019-0258
DO - 10.1108/ARCH-11-2019-0258
M3 - Journal article
SN - 2631-6862
VL - 14
SP - 559
EP - 579
JO - Archnet-IJAR : International Journal of Architectural Research
JF - Archnet-IJAR : International Journal of Architectural Research
IS - 3
ER -