COMPARATIVE CARBON-FOOTPRINT ANALYSIS OF RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS WITH DIFFERENT STRUCTURAL MATERIALS

An important step towards achieving sustainability goals in the construction sector is taken by developing solutions that adopt ‘greener’ structural materials for buildings. This paper establishes a comparison among four existing residential buildings in Sweden, that utilize different structural solutions, in terms of their global warming potential (GWP). The structural solutions compared are prefabricated reinforced concrete (RC), light timber frame, cross-laminated timber (CLT) panels, and CLT modular construction. For each building, a life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to estimate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions attributable to material production. In general, the results of this study revealed climate benefits associated with timber-based construction, with approximately 50% savings on average in the GHG emissions per unit floor area of the buildings as compared to prefabricated RC construction. Finally, this effort demonstrates the significance of the structural material choice on the overall carbon footprint of a building, especially at the production stage.