Greenhouse gas emissions in building construction : a case study of One Peking in Hong Kong

Abstract

The construction of buildings has a very important impact on the environment, and the process of manufacturing and transporting of building materials, and installing and constructing of buildings consumes great energy and emits large quantity of greenhouse gas (GHG). The present paper defines four sources of GHG emissions in building construction, which are: manufacture and transportation of building materials; energy consumption of construction equipment; energy consumption for processing resources; and disposal of construction waste, and then establishes the calculation method of GHG emissions. This paper presents a case study of GHG emissions in building construction in Hong Kong. The results show that 82–87% of the total GHG emissions are from the embodied GHG emissions of building materials, 6–8% are from the transportation of building materials, and 6–9% are due to the energy consumption of construction equipment. The results also indicate that embodied GHG emissions of concrete and reinforced steel account for 94–95% of those of all building materials, and thus the use of recycled building materials, especially reinforced steel, would decrease the GHG emissions by a considerable amount.