Embodied Carbon Reduction Strategies for Buildings

Global warming has become a major environmental issue faced by the international community. Greenhouse gases (GHG) have been suspected to be the source of global warming and carbon emission has identified as the main contributor for global warming. CO₂ could be released due to activities carried out by human such as burning fossil fuels, electricity consumption and transportation. Hence, the carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases produced directly or indirectly as a result of an activity. Up to 40% of all energy have been consumed by the building sector and it has contributed up to 30% of global annual GHG emissions. Therefore operational and embodied carbon were identified as two main general groups of carbon emissions related to buildings. Numerous researchers have paid their attention on operational carbon reduction and there are limited study on embodied carbon reduction. Therefore the researcher aims to identify embodied carbon reduction strategies for buildings. After a comprehensive literature review, selection of low carbon materials at the design stage of the building, reuse and recycling of carbon intensive materials, material minimization, optimum building design, local sourcing of materials, transportation minimization, efficient construction processes, policies and regulations by government, adaptive reuse of buildings and carbon labelling schemes were identified as the global embodied carbon reduction strategies for buildings.