SEQUENCING THE CARBON EMISSION

CYCLE OF GREEN BUILDINGS IN CHINA

BASED ON AN ECOLOGICAL CITY

PERSPECTIVE

Yujie Wang*

School of Turbine Electrical and Intelligent Engineering, Jiangsu Maritime

Vocational and Technical College, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 211100, China

100519@yzpc.edu.cn

Reception: 03/03/2023 Acceptance: 17/04/2023 Publication: 16/05/2023

Suggested citation:

Wang, Y. (2023). Sequencing the carbon emission cycle of green buildings

in China based on an ecological city perspective. 3C TIC. Cuadernos de

desarrollo aplicados a las TIC, 12(2), 117-135. https://doi.org/

10.17993/3ctic.2023.122.117-135

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ABSTRACT

As people's basic material living standards continue to rise, the demand for a better

living environment and a better life is becoming increasingly strong. Since the 18th

and 19th National Congresses of the Party proposed to carry out ecological civilization

construction and build a beautiful China, carrying out ecological city construction has

become one of the effective ways to solve the current urban development problems.

In this paper, we summarise the latest research on green building assessment

systems, life-cycle carbon emissions and life-cycle costs of buildings. We find that

China's green building assessment system still has many shortcomings compared to

the world's advanced green building assessment systems. Based on this, we have

conducted a sequencing analysis of the life cycle carbon emissions of green buildings

in China, so that buildings can meet the green building rating and at the same time

achieve energy and carbon savings. The results of the study show that the building

use phase has the highest carbon emissions in the building life cycle, accounting for

77% of the life cycle carbon emissions.

KEYWORDS

Ecological cities; green buildings; carbon emissions; cycle sequencing; accounting

INDEX

ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS

1. INTRODUCTION

2. LIFE CYCLE CARBON ACCOUNTING MODEL FOR GREEN BUILDINGS

2.1. Greenhouse gas accounting

2.2. Methodology for calculating carbon emissions at various stages of the life

cycle of a green building

2.3. Calculation of carbon emissions at the design decision stage

2.4. Calculation of carbon emissions during the production and transportation

phases of building materials

2.5. Calculation of carbon emissions during the construction phase of building

2.6. Calculation of carbon emissions during the operation and maintenance phase

2.7. Calculation of carbon emissions during the maintenance phase

2.8. Calculation of carbon emissions during the dismantling and disposal phase

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. Carbon emissions during the building phase

3.2. Carbon emissions during the use phase of the building

3.3. Carbon emissions at the end-of-life stage of the building

3.4. Building Life Cycle Carbon Emissions

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4. DISCUSSION

REFERENCES

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1. INTRODUCTION

The city is a living organism, and the construction of an eco-city is aimed at

achieving the harmonious development of man and nature and establishing a virtuous

cycle of urban ecology. It emphasises the harmonious development and overall

ecology of society, economy, culture and nature [1,2]. For a long time, China's urban

construction has mainly been based on the model of rough and loose growth, which

has led to the incompatibility between urban development and ecology and

subsequently to the emergence of many urban problems. Against this background,

urban ecological civilisation has emerged as an urgent solution to urban problems and

a healthy, green living environment for human beings [3-5]. In addition, as the global

climate problem continues to be serious, people are paying more and more attention

to the issue of greenhouse gas emissions [6,7]. As the construction sector accounts

for about one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, reducing greenhouse gas

emissions in the construction sector is a major concern worldwide. Among the

necessary ways to reduce low carbon emissions in the building sector are not only

improving building energy efficiency and reducing building energy consumption, but

also increasing research and investment in clean energy and renewable energy

technologies [8-10].

In recent years, theoretical and practical research on ecological cities has gradually

become a new direction for urban construction in the new era. In urban construction,

planners and city builders must adhere to the principle of eco-friendly construction,

strictly adhere to the 'ecological bottom line', form a rational structure of production,

living and ecological space, and improve the efficiency of land use. Supriana et al[12]

argue that a city's knowledge management system is important to encourage people

to create, share and use knowledge. Dai et al.[13] summarised different urban lighting

projects in the context of eco-city construction. They found that there are currently

three main indicators for urban lighting projects, which are energy saving,

environmental protection and intelligence. Then, based on the above research

summary, they provide an outlook on the application of artificial intelligence

technology in urban lighting engineering and put forward ideas related to the

construction of intelligent infrastructure. shu et al [14] analysed the current status of

eco-city development in China, taking the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city as an

example. They analysed the daily lifestyle of the city's residents based on the results

of several interviews and potential field observations, and found that China is

gradually beginning to pay attention to environmental protection and is striving to find

a path that harmonises economic and environmental protection. Drawing on the

experiences of international countries, China has gradually explored an eco-city

development path with Chinese characteristics. xu et al[15] studied the relationship

between urban environmental image and urban eco-efficiency and innovatively used a

national garden city image scheme to examine the improvement of eco-efficiency. The

results showed that this programme significantly improved the eco-efficiency of the

city by expanding the green area of the city, optimising the industrial structure and

bringing in talented residents. This impact was significant for western China, but

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somewhat marginal for developed eastern cities.Azambuja et al [16] found that rapid

population growth and urbanisation caused problems such as environmental pollution

and shortage of natural resources. The existence of these problems has driven a shift

from traditional urbanisation models to eco-smart cities. Based on the UN Sustainable

Development Goals, they proposed a new conceptual framework of smart sustainable

cities and elaborated on smart governance approaches to ultimately achieve

coordinated and sustainable development of economic development, ecological

civilisation construction and environmental protection. li et al[17] pointed out that

building circular economy eco-cities is the most effective way to solve the problem of

sustainable urban development. They assessed the sustainability of these cities using

an energy value approach through a study of daylighting in coastal Central and

Eastern European countries. The study shows that the utilisation rate of non-

renewable resources has a significant impact on the economic development of a city.

As the recycling rate of these non-renewable resources increases, the energy value

sustainability index and the development index first decrease and then increase,

which helps to resolve the contradiction between environmental superiority and

economic backwardness.

The construction industry is a major contributor to China's carbon emissions,

accounting for 30% to 50% of society's total carbon emissions each year. In order to

achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, the construction industry is bound to face a huge

transformation challenge. Green buildings, as a sustainable building type, are an

effective way to achieve carbon neutrality in buildings [18-22].Fan et al [23]

established a multi-objective optimisation scheme for green building modelling. The

multi-objective optimisation of the construction effect of the project was carried out by

combining the resource allocation and weather condition factors such as temperature,

humidity and precipitation of the project site. The results show that this optimisation

approach can reduce the total cost of the project and provide new ideas for the

development of unconstrained optimisation. pu et al [24] applied BIM technology to

the field of green building. bim technology can quantify and manage the life cycle of

green buildings, thus stepping out of the traditional model and making the design and

construction process more accurate. They summarised the current situation and

advantages and disadvantages of using green building and BIM in the actual

construction process, and analysed the prospects for the application of BIM

technology in the construction field. The results show that combining BIM technology

with green building and applying it in the construction field is a green path that can

make the construction process more standardised and increase the life cycle of green

buildings. yu et al [25] applied deep learning neural networks to green building energy

consumption in order to avoid problems such as local pole skewing, slow

convergence and incomplete data collection brought by traditional neural network

models data model. A generative adversarial network-based model for building energy

consumption data generation in green buildings was finally implemented. They found

that the model can learn hidden patterns in the original data and generate some

virtual data. They then validated this model with real building energy consumption

data. Ferrari et al [26] argue that in order to improve the sustainability of buildings, it is

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necessary to rate green buildings. They point out that the Level(s) proposed by the

EU in 2018 have become a common framework for assessing the sustainability

continuation of buildings across Europe, becoming a uniform standard for the

European building industry. The proposed rating system can promote competition

among those in the construction-related industries and enable the construction

industry to flourish. Ykj et al [27] developed a two-stage data mining model based on

354 building profiles and a neural network prediction model in Taiwan to analyse the

types, grades, and technologies of these buildings. The results showed that different

green buildings have different construction processes. For example, high-grade

residential communities focus more on the indoor air environment as well as the

surrounding living environment. Chen et al [28] used building-integrated photovoltaic

(BIPV) technology to reduce CO2

emissions from buildings. BIPV low-carbon design

involves five major aspects: energy, materials, environment, management and

innovation, with the first two being the main influencing factors. Accordingly, they

proposed a framework of indicators related to carbon emission control to guide the

low carbon design approach for buildings. Lu et al [29] summarised their research on

carbon emissions in the green building construction industry from three aspects:

policy, technology and management models. They found that current research

hotspots focused on life cycle modelling, energy efficiency and the environment,

which have limitations. They concluded that combining decarbonisation design into

building design is a feasible path, which can be optimally analysed by establishing a

multi-objective decision model for decarbonisation design and renewable energy.

To sum up, in order to better achieve energy saving and emission reduction in the

construction industry, the development of green buildings is comprehensively

promoted. Green building evaluation standards are a tool to measure the energy and

carbon reduction capacity of green buildings, and the higher the green building rating,

the more energy and carbon efficient the building is. However, the actual research

process has found that some buildings are obsessed with the pursuit of green building

rating, making their building carbon emissions increase instead [30-32]. In response to

the problems found, this paper injects the concept of 'eco-city' into the green building

industry. Through the study and understanding of existing eco-cities, the research

focuses on the renewal of land use in eco-cities, emphasising the importance of the

'ecological' concept. The aim is to evaluate the current state of green buildings from

an ecological perspective, without being limited to traditional evaluation methods and

renewal strategies, so that buildings can meet green building ratings while saving

energy and reducing carbon.

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Table 1. Main modes of green ecological agriculture

2. LIFE CYCLE CARBON ACCOUNTING MODEL FOR

GREEN BUILDINGS

2.1. GREENHOUSE GAS ACCOUNTING

The contribution of different greenhouse gases to global warming varies, with

carbon dioxide at 76%, methane at 14.3%, nitrous oxide at 7.9%, and other overall

contributions of less than 2%. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

(IPCC) uses the GWP of carbon dioxide as a benchmark for converting the GWP

caused by other greenhouse gases over a period of time (usually on a 100-year basis)

into carbon dioxide equivalents, using the following formula:

(1)

Among them, is the carbon dioxide equivalent of the

greenhouse gas,

is the emission of the greenhouse gas, and is the GWP value of the i

greenhouse gas.

2.2. METHODOLOGY FOR CALCULATING CARBON

EMISSIONS AT VARIOUS STAGES OF THE LIFE CYCLE

OF A GREEN BUILDING

The formula for calculating carbon emissions at each stage of the full life cycle of a

green building is as follows:

(2)

Where

denotes the carbon emissions at each stage of the full life cycle of a

green building,

denotes data on the level of direct or indirect activity throughout

the life cycle of the building, and denotes the carbon dioxide equivalent generated

per unit of building activity data, also known as the carbon emission factor.

Agricultural model Features

space-time structure

According to the biological, ecological characteristics and a

rationally formed ecosystem of mutually beneficial symbiotic

relationships between organisms

food chain A virtuous cycle agro-ecosystem designed according to the

energy flow and material cycle laws of the agro-ecosystem

Integrated spatiotemporal

food chain

The organic combination of space-time structure type and food

chain type is a mode type with moderate input, high output, less

waste, no pollution and high efficiency

CO2eqi=GMi×GWPi

CO2eqi

GMi

GWPi

C=AD ×EF

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The total carbon emissions for the life cycle of a green building are the sum of the

carbon emissions at each stage and the mathematical expression is calculated as

follows:

(3)

Of these, are carbon emissions from the design decision phase, are carbon

emissions from the production and transportation of building materials, are carbon

emissions from the construction phase, are carbon emissions from the operation

and maintenance phase and are carbon emissions from the demolition and

disposal phase.

The annual carbon emission per unit of floor area, GE is selected as the evaluation

index of life-cycle carbon emission of green buildings, and its expression is as follows.

(4)

Where Y is the full life cycle time of the building and A is the floor area.

2.3. CALCULATION OF CARBON EMISSIONS AT THE

DESIGN DECISION STAGE

In this paper, two main aspects are considered when calculating the carbon

emissions at this stage: on the one hand, the carbon emissions resulting from the

energy consumption of the designers in using the relevant equipment for the design of

the architectural drawings; on the other hand, the carbon emissions resulting from the

project-related activities occurring during the travel of the designers for the

construction project. Therefore, the formula for calculating carbon emissions at the

design decision stage is

(5)

Where is the design equipment's carbon emissions and is the travel carbon

emissions.

(6)

Where is the number of designer categories, is the number of designers in

category , is the average number of computer hours used by designers in category

, and is the carbon emission factor for computer operation.

(7)

Esum =Ed+Ept +Ec+Eom +Eend

Ept

Eom

Eend

sum

Y×A

Ed=Pe+Pb

∑

i=1

DMi×Ti×EF

DMi

EFc

∑

i=1

∑

j=1

Dij′ ×EFi,j

′

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Where n is the number of business trips, is the number of types of transport

taken, is the distance traveled by the business traveler in the mode of

transport, and is the carbon emission factor per unit distance for a single

person in the mode of transport.

2.4. CALCULATION OF CARBON EMISSIONS DURING THE

PRODUCTION AND TRANSPORTATION PHASES OF

BUILDING MATERIALS

The building material production and transport phase can be further divided into

material production and material transport phases. Namely

(8)

Where is the material production carbon emissions and is the material

transport carbon emissions.

(9)

Where is the number of building material types, is the amount of building

materials used in category and is the carbon emission factor for category .

(10)

Where is the number of transport mode categories, is the mass of building

materials of category transported by the th transport mode, is the average

transport distance of building materials of category transported by the transport

mode, is the empty vehicle correction factor, and is the carbon emission

factor per unit mass per unit transport distance of the transport mode.

2.5. CALCULATION OF CARBON EMISSIONS DURING THE

CONSTRUCTION PHASE OF BUILDING

During the construction phase, site formation begins and people, machinery and

materials enter the site one after another. The carbon emissions during this phase

mainly come from the carbon emissions generated during the use of machinery and

equipment on site. Therefore, the formula for calculating carbon emissions during the

construction phase is as follows

(11)

Dij′

EFi,j′

Ept =Pp+Pt

∑

i=1

mi×EFm

EFmi

∑

i=1

∑

j=1

mij ×Dij ×Ky×EFi,

mij

Dij

EFi,j

Ec=Pc+Pr

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Where is the carbon emissions from construction machinery and is the

carbon emissions from construction personnel.

(12)

Where is the number of machinery and equipment categories, is the number

of machinery and equipment shifts in category , and is the carbon emission

factor per unit shift of machinery and equipment in category .

(13)

Where is the number of construction personnel, is the number of man-days

and is the manual carbon emission factor.

2.6. CALCULATION OF CARBON EMISSIONS DURING THE

OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE PHASE

The operation and maintenance phase can be subdivided into an operation phase

and a maintenance phase, so the carbon emissions from the operation and

maintenance phase are made up of these two components, as in the following

equation.

(14)

Where is the operational phase carbon emissions and is the maintenance

phase carbon emissions.

(15)

Where is the number of energy types, is the annual consumption of the

energy type, is the carbon emission factor of the ith energy type, is the

annual consumption of water systems, is the carbon emission factor of water,

is the annual carbon emission of land development and use, is the annual saving of

the ith energy type, is the annual carbon reduction of greening systems, and is

the life of the building.

(16)

Where is the number of land use types, is the area of land type and is the

carbon sequestration factor for land type .

∑

i=1

TBi×EFe,

TBi

EFe,i

∑

i=1

Ti×EFr,

EFr,i

Eom =Po+Pm

∑

i=1

Ei×EFe,i+W×EFw+Pl−

∑

i=1

Ri×EFe,i−GS

)

×Y

EFe,i

EFw

∑

i=1

Si×EFl,

Ge,i

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(17)

Where is the different planting methods in the greening system, is the 40-

year carbon sequestration per unit area for the ith planting method, is the green

area for the th planting method, is the green space ratio and is the total building

site area.

2.7. CALCULATION OF CARBON EMISSIONS DURING THE

MAINTENANCE PHASE

Carbon emissions from the maintenance phase include carbon emissions from the

production of building materials and the energy consumption of machinery and

equipment used for transport and maintenance, resulting from the aging of building

materials or components.

(18)

(19)

(20)

Where is the type of maintenance material, is the mass of maintenance

material of category , is the carbon emission factor of maintenance material of

category .

is the transportation carbon emission of maintenance material of

category , is the maintenance factor of maintenance material of category i. is

the number of maintenance equipment shifts of category , is the carbon

emission factor per unit shift of category maintenance equipment, is the

transport quality of the th transport mode of the maintenance material of category .

is the transport distance of the th transport mode of the maintenance material of

category , is the empty vehicle correction factor, is the carbon emission

factor of the transport mode, is the service life of the building design, and is the

service life of the building material.

2.8. CALCULATION OF CARBON EMISSIONS DURING THE

DISMANTLING AND DISPOSAL PHASE

(21)

Where is construction demolition carbon emissions, is construction waste

transportation carbon emissions, is construction waste disposal (including landfill

∑n

i=1

e,i

×A

e,i

−600 ×R×A

Ge,i

Ae,i

∑

i=1

(ms,i×EFm,i+Pt,i)×ki+

∑

k=1

TBk×EFe,

t,i=

∑

j=1

mij ×Dij ×Ky×EFt,

−

ms,i

EFm,i

TBk

EFe,k

mi,j

Di,j

EFt,i

Eend =Qc+Qt+Qh+Qm

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and incineration) carbon emissions and

is construction waste recycling carbon

emissions.

This section establishes a life cycle carbon accounting model for green buildings

based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) approach. The purpose and scope of

accounting for green building life-cycle carbon emissions, system boundaries, and

functional units are firstly determined. This is followed by an analysis of the sources of

green building carbon emissions in five stages of the building life cycle: design

decision, production and transportation of building materials, construction, operation

and maintenance, and demolition and disposal, and the establishment of a carbon

emission calculation method for each stage. A theoretical model is established for the

subsequent discussion.

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This paper analyses a typical case of a residential community in a city in China,

which covers an area of 28,000 square metres, with a building area of 76,500 square

metres and a green space ratio of 48%. There are eight high-rise residential buildings

in it.

In this paper, we analyse one of the green buildings in the context of an eco-city,

and analyse its carbon emission cycle sequencing. The residential building is 18

storeys above ground, with a building height of 55.35m; reinforced concrete shear wall

structure, seismic intensity 8 degrees; there are 4 units, each with one staircase and

two households. Each unit has a floor area of 101.4 square metres, with a total of 144

residences and a total floor area of 16,432 square metres. The building has a total

floor area of 5,658 square metres and 2,320 square metres of green space (densely

planted bushes). The carbon emissions of the building were calculated for the entire

life cycle of the building by separating the building phase, the building use phase and

the end-of-life phase of the building. The highest carbon emissions were analysed to

provide theoretical guidance for energy saving and emission reduction in green

buildings.

3.1. CARBON EMISSIONS DURING THE BUILDING PHASE

The residential building was completed as a rough building, so the main statistics

are for the materials used in the civil construction and installation of the building. The

carbon emissions per unit area produced at each stage of the building, including the

extraction of raw materials, production of building materials, on-site processing of

components, construction and installation, land use and the buildingisation stage,

were also counted. The statistical results are shown in Table 1 below.

According to the definition of greenhouse gases, greenhouse gases from the

combustion of fossil fuels and land use during the on-site processing of components,

construction and installation sub-stage of the physical phase are classified as direct

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emissions. The greenhouse gas emissions from the use of electricity in the on-site

processing of components, construction and installation sub-stage and the

greenhouse gas emissions from the extraction of raw materials and the production of

building materials are classified as indirect emissions. Based on the calculations, it

can be concluded that the sub-stage with the highest proportion of carbon emissions

in the physical phase of the building is the land use, followed by the production of

building materials and the extraction of raw materials, which account for 94% of the

physical phase, while the construction phase only accounts for 6% of the total carbon

emissions. Direct carbon emissions in the physical phase account for about 41%;

indirect carbon emissions account for about 59%.

Table 2. Carbon emission statistics per unit area for each sub-stage in the physical phase of

the building

3.2. CARBON EMISSIONS DURING THE USE PHASE OF

THE BUILDING

Carbon emissions from the day-to-day operation of buildings include greenhouse

gas emissions directly or indirectly from the (1) use phase of buildings due to the

consumption of energy such as fossil fuels, electricity and heat, (2) the use and

discharge of water resources, and (3) the leakage of refrigerants. In residential

buildings energy consumption specifically includes elements such as heating, air

conditioning, lighting, lifts, other appliances, natural gas for cooking and domestic hot

water.

The residential building is heated in winter by a natural gas wall-hung stove as the

heat source and radiant floor heating as the end; in summer the cooling is by split type

air conditioning. The thermal efficiency of the natural gas fireplace is 91% and the

electrical power of the circulating water pump is 130 W. The split air conditioner is

energy efficiency class 2 with an energy efficiency ratio of 3.4. The heating period is

from November 15 to March 15 and the air conditioning period is from June 15 to

August 31. The electricity consumption of lighting equipment accounts for a significant

(kgCO2e/m2)

Stage Total calculation

Raw material extraction 185 5.08 5 195

Building material production 253 633 1.03 254

On-site machining of structural components 8.34 263 176 8.78

Construction and installation 42.9 1.36 904 45.2

Land use 317 0 0 317

Building materialisation phase 806 7.33 7.11 820

N2O

CH4

CO2

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proportion of the life-cycle energy use of a home, and the energy consumption of

lighting equipment is closely related to the choice of lighting and usage habits. The

power consumption of lighting equipment can be calculated as the product of building

lighting power density and lighting time. According to the Building Lighting Design

Standard GB 50034-2004, the annual lighting energy consumption of the residential

building can be calculated as the remaining carbon emissions of each building's daily

use as shown in Table 2.

Table 2 shows that air conditioning and heating are the largest contributors to

carbon emissions, with a combined total of 42%; refrigerants, although smaller in

mass, account for 25% of carbon emissions during the building use phase due to their

large GWP values; and water supply and drainage also contribute 5% of carbon

emissions and cannot be ignored. According to the definition of greenhouse gases,

carbon emissions from the combustion of natural gas and refrigerant leakage during

the daily use phase of the building are direct emissions, while carbon emissions from

electricity and water supply and drainage are indirect emissions. According to the

calculations, direct emissions are 30% higher than indirect emissions.

Table 3. Greenhouse gas emissions during the use phase of residential buildings

3.3. CARBON EMISSIONS AT THE END-OF-LIFE STAGE OF

THE BUILDING

According to the national standard, the carbon emissions of building demolition,

recycling/reuse of building materials/equipment and waste disposal can be calculated

separately. The total carbon emissions from the demolition of the building are 40.7

(kgCO2e/m2)

Projects HFC Total

Heating 599 262 1.03 0 600

Refrigeration 377 0.0988 1.69 0 379

Elevator 110 0.0289 493 0 111

Lighting 271 71 1.21 0 273

Other household

appliances 157 0.0411 701 0 158

Domestic gas 126 0.0627 0.0974 0 126

Drainage 85.6 0.00794 135 0 85.7

Refrigerant 0 0 0 587 587

Total 1730 573 5.35 587 2320

CO2

CH4

N2O

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, the total carbon emissions from the recycling/reuse phase are 41.3

, and the total carbon emissions from the waste disposal phase are 8.32

. Therefore, it can be found that the carbon emissions from the end-of-

life phase of the building mainly come from the demolition and recycling/reuse phases

of the building.

3.4. BUILDING LIFE CYCLE CARBON EMISSIONS

The carbon emissions of the residential building in each sub-stage of its life cycle

are shown in Table 3. The life-cycle carbon emission of the building is about 4000

, and its carbon footprint is 80

. From Table 3, it can be

seen that the highest carbon emission in the whole life-cycle of the residential building

is the daily operation stage of the building, which reaches 2320, accounting for

58.03% of the whole life-cycle carbon emission. This is followed by the land use,

building repair, building materials production and building renovation phases, which

generate 7.93%, 6.60%, 6.35% and 6.30% of the carbon emissions of the whole life

cycle, respectively.

Table 3. Carbon emissions of residential building life cycle sub-stages ( )

The proportion of carbon emissions from each sub-stage of the building's life cycle

is shown in Figure 1. It can be seen from the figure that the proportion of carbon

emissions from the daily operation of the residential building is the largest, reaching

kgCO2e/m2

Stage HFC Total

Raw Material Mining 185 5.08 5 0 195

Building materials production 253 633 1.03 0 254

On-site processing of structural parts 8.34 263 176 0 8.78

Construction and Installation 42.9 1.36 904 0 45.2

Land Use 317 0 0 0 317

Daily operation of the building 1730 573 5.35 587 2320

Building Maintenance 48.9 733 711 0 50.3

Building Restoration 257 3.85 3.73 0 264

Building Updates 196 2.93 2.84 0 201

Building renovation 244 3.66 3.56 0 252

Demolition of buildings 38.7 1.22 814 0 40.7

Recycling/reuse 36.2 941 4.15 0 41.3

Waste disposal 8.3 0.00772 0.0207 0 8.32

Full Lifecycle 3360 21.2 28.3 587 4000

N2O

CO2

CH4

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58%, while the whole building use phase accounts for 77% of the life-cycle carbon

emissions, reaching 3087 . Carbon emissions from the physical phase of

the building account for 20.5% of the life-cycle carbon emissions, at 820

. The carbon emissions from the end-of-life phase of the building account

for 2.2% of the life-cycle carbon emissions, at 91 .

Figure 1. Carbon emissions in the three main stages of the life cycle of a residential building

In summary, the carbon emissions of this residential building were calculated for

the three phases of building construction, building use and building end of life, and the

highest carbon emissions were found in the building use phase, accounting for 77% of

the life cycle carbon emissions. Therefore, in order to reduce carbon emissions, we

can start from the use phase of the building.

4. DISCUSSION

In this paper, a typical case study of a mobile high-rise building in a residential

community in a Chinese city is analyzed in the context of eco-city. The carbon

emissions of the building are calculated in the building construction phase, the

building use phase and the building end-of-life phase, and thus the carbon emissions

of the building throughout its life cycle are calculated. The highest carbon emissions

were analyzed to provide theoretical guidance for energy saving and emission

reduction of green buildings. The results of the study are as follows.

1. In the building materialization stage, the sub-stage with the highest proportion

of carbon emissions in the building materialization stage is land use, followed

kgCO2e/m2

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by building materials production and raw materials extraction, which account

for 94% of the materialization stage, while the total carbon emissions in the

construction stage account for only 6%.

In the building use phase, the most carbon emissions are generated by air

conditioning and heating energy, the sum of which reaches 42%; although the

refrigerant mass is small, the proportion of carbon emissions generated by it

accounts for 25% in the building use phase due to its large GWP value.

In the end-of-life stage of the building, the total carbon emission from the

demolition of the building is 40.7 , the total carbon emission from

the recycling/reuse stage is 41.3

, and the total carbon emission

from the waste disposal stage is 8.32

. Therefore, the carbon

emissions in the end-of-life stage of the building mainly come from the

demolition and recycling/reuse stages of the building. In addition, the carbon

emissions from the building use phase are the highest in the building life cycle,

accounting for 77% of the life cycle carbon emissions.

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