Database of Embodied Quantity Outputs: Lowering Material Impacts Through Engineering
Publication: Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 26, Issue 3
Abstract
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.
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the engineering companies which provided data to the DEQO database as well as the Structural Engineers 2050 Commitment team, especially Frances Yang, Duncan Cox, Evdokia Angeli, and Amy Hattan. The authors are grateful to Kathrina Simonen and the Carbon Leadership Forum. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 665667 and from the Swiss Government Excellence Scholarship.
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Journal of Architectural Engineering
Volume 26 • Issue 3 • September 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 6, 2019
Accepted: Dec 2, 2019
Published online: Apr 17, 2020
Published in print: Sep 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Sep 17, 2020
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