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The aim of this paper is to develop a simulation framework to minimise the cost associated with commercial greenhouse yields (production cost). Greenhouse energy demand and yield production models are coupled with a cost model to investigate the interaction between energy consumption costs and yield production benefits. The coupled model is defined as an optimisation problem to determine the optimal values of decision variables (e.g. cover material, heating and cooling technology, inside temperature and relative humidity set points, plant density, etc.), which result in minimum production cost as the objective function. The results show that the integrated energy demand-crop yield production model outperforms the “classical approach” of a separate energy consumption model where yield is not explicitly modelled but only considered by constraints warranting good growing conditions. In the case of a tomato greenhouse in Iran, the financial cost and environmental impact of producing a 1 kg yield based on integrated energy demand-yield production model were 49% and 29% lower than the energy-consumption model alone. Moreover, the impact of fuel prices on the optimisation results is investigated by use of the proposed framework. Considering real fuel prices instead of current subsidised fuel prices in the Iranian case study, 70% of energy consumption and 19% of climate change impacts could be eliminated while increasing the production cost by 17%. Selling the saved fuel at real prices to other customers would provide the government with more than enough money to compensate the farmers for the increased yield cost.

Material production accounts for 23% of all greenhouse gas emissions. More efficient use of materials—through decoupling of services that support human well‐being from material use—is imperative as other emission mitigation options are expensive. An interdisciplinary scientific assessment of material efficiency and its links to service provision, material cycle management, and climate policy is needed to identify effective strategies and help design the policy framework required for their implementation. We present the resource efficiency–climate change (RECC) mitigation framework, a first step toward such a comprehensive assessment. RECC is based on dynamic material flow analysis and links the services provided (individual motorized transport and shelter) to the operation of in‐use stocks of products (passenger vehicles and residential buildings), to their expansion and maintenance, and to their material cycles to model mitigation strategies and analyze trade‐offs for environmental impacts along the products’ life cycle. A key innovation of RECC is the upscaling of product archetypes with different degrees of material and energy efficiency, which are simulated with engineering tools. We utilize RECC with augmented storylines of the shared socioeconomic pathways to describe future service demand and associated material requirements. Ten material efficiency strategies at different stages of the material cycle can be assessed by ramping up their implementation rates to the identified technical potentials. RECC provides scenario results for the life cycle impacts of ambitious service–material decoupling concurrent with energy system decarbonization, giving detailed insights on the RECC mitigation nexus to policy‐makers worldwide.

Over the past 150 years, our ability to produce and transform engineered materials has been responsible for our current high standards of living, especially in developed economies. However, we must carefully think of the effects our addiction to creating and using materials at this fast rate will have on the future generations. The way we currently make and use materials detrimentally affects the planet Earth, creating many severe environmental problems. It affects the next generations by putting in danger the future of the economy, energy, and climate. We are at the point where something must drastically change, and it must change now. We must create more sustainable materials alternatives using natural raw materials and inspiration from nature while making sure not to deplete important resources, i.e. in competition with the food chain supply. We must use less materials, eliminate the use of toxic materials and create a circular materials economy where reuse and recycle are priorities. We must develop sustainable methods for materials recycling and encourage design for disassembly. We must look across the whole materials life cycle from raw resources till end of life and apply thorough life cycle assessments (LCAs) based on reliable and relevant data to quantify sustainability. We need to seriously start thinking of where our future materials will come from and how could we track them, given that we are confronted with resource scarcity and geographical constrains. This is particularly important for the development of new and sustainable energy technologies, key to our transition to net zero. Currently ‘critical materials’ are central components of sustainable energy systems because they are the best performing. A few examples include the permanent magnets based on rare earth metals (Dy, Nd, Pr) used in wind turbines, Li and Co in Li-ion batteries, Pt and Ir in fuel cells and electrolysers, Si in solar cells just to mention a few. These materials are classified as ‘critical’ by the European Union and Department of Energy. Except in sustainable energy, materials are also key components in packaging, construction, and textile industry along with many other industrial sectors. This roadmap authored by prominent researchers working across disciplines in the very important field of sustainable materials is intended to highlight the outstanding issues that must be addressed and provide an insight into the pathways towards solving them adopted by the sustainable materials community. In compiling this roadmap, we hope to aid the development of the wider sustainable materials research community, providing a guide for academia, industry, government, and funding agencies in this critically important and rapidly developing research space which is key to future sustainability., The authors would like to thank The Faraday Institution ReLiB Project Grant Numbers FIRG005 and FIRG006, the UKRI Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Centre for Technology Metals (Met4Tech) Grant No. EP/V011855/1 and the EPSRC Critical Elements and Materials Network (CREAM) EP/R020140/1 for providing financial assistance for this research.

Effective mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the buildings sector requires a full understanding of the factors influencing emissions over the life-cycle of buildings, particularly in places where large additions to the building stock are expected. Currently, little is known about what affects the GHG emissions of buildings located in warmer climates, a typical situation for many emerging economies. This paper presents a study of emissions from Brazilian office buildings using building archetypes. A sensitivity analysis explores possible parameter ranges, various contributions to life-cycle impacts and their key drivers. For each of the 1000 building variations in the sample, the emissions were calculated using a life-cycle assessment. Multivariate regression analysis enabled the study of the results’ sensitivity to 10 parameters, influencing building operation, design and others. The emissions ranged from 20 to 106 kg CO2-eq/m2 gross floor area and year. Electricity mix, climate and cooling efficiency were the most impactful parameters, but building component service time was also significant. Policy relevance Emerging economies are expected to rapidly increase their building stock and energy use, particularly for cooling in the coming decades. The findings show the key factors influencing the GHG emissions of office buildings in warm climates, typical for many emerging economies, such as Brazil. For effective mitigation, priority should be placed on reducing the carbon intensity of electricity and encouraging highly efficient heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems. Policymakers may want to offer incentives for office buildings with a combination of natural ventilation and mechanical cooling, because they were less emission-intensive in every investigated city. The benefits are the biggest for buildings in which a high proportion of windows can be opened for natural ventilation.

Material flow analysis (MFA) studies the stocks and flows of goods and substances in systems. The methods and algorithms of MFA have improved over the last few years, but a flexible platform that integrates recent modeling advances such as simultaneous consideration of the product, component, material and chemical element levels, lifetime models, and uncertainty treatment is not available. There is also no versatile data format for exchanging data between projects. This lack of research infrastructure is detrimental to scientific progress. To fill that gap, we propose a novel industrial ecology community model for MFA. The Open Dynamic Material Systems Model (ODYM) is an open source framework for material systems modeling programmed in Python. The description of systems, processes, stocks, flows, and parameters is object‐based, which facilitates the development of modular software and testing routines for individual model blocks. ODYM MFA models can handle any depth of flow and stock specification: products, components, sub‐components, materials, alloys, waste, and chemical elements can be traced simultaneously. ODYM features a new data structure for material flow analysis; all input and output data are stored in a standardized file format and can thus be exchanged across projects. It also comes with an extended library for dynamic stock modeling. We present the features, design principles, software, and data structure of ODYM, describe its main methods and functions, and give an outlook on current and future applications.

In recent literature, the concept of criticality aspires to provide a multifaceted risk assessment of resource supply shortage. However, most existing methodologies for the criticality assessment of raw materials are restricted to a fixed temporal and spatial reference system. They provide a snapshot in time of the equilibrium between supply and demand/economic importance and do not account for temporal changes of their indicators. The static character of criticality assessments limits the use of criticality methodologies to short‐term policy making of raw materials. In the current paper, we argue for an enhancement of the criticality framework to account for three key dynamic characteristics, namely changes of social, technical, and economic features; consideration of the spatial dimension in site‐specific assessments; and impact of changing governance frameworks. We illustrate how these issues were addressed in studies outside of the field of criticality and identify the dynamic parameters that influence resource supply and demand based on a review of studies that belong to the general field of resource supply and demand. The parameters are grouped in seven categories: extraction, social, economic, technical, policy, market dynamics, and environmental. We explore how these parameters were considered in the reviewed studies and propose ways and specific examples of addressing the dynamic effects in the criticality indicators. Furthermore, we discuss the current work on future scenarios to provide reference points for indicator benchmarks. The insights and guidelines derived from the review and our recommendations for future research set the foundations for an enhanced dynamic and site‐specific criticality assessment framework.

Material production now accounts for 23% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Resource efficiency and circular economy policies promise emission reductions through reducing material use, but their potential contribution to climate change mitigation has not yet been quantified. Here we present a high-resolution approach for tracking material flows and energy use of products throughout their life cycles, focusing on passenger vehicles and residential buildings. We estimate future changes in material flows and operational energy use due to increased yields, light-weight designs, material substitution, increased service efficiency, extended service life, and increased reuse and recycling. Together, these material efficiency strategies can reduce cumulative global GHG emissions until 2060 by 16-39 Gt CO2e (passenger vehicles) and 28-72 Gt CO2e (residential buildings), depending on climate policy assumptions. The use of wood and more intensive use are promising strategies in residential buildings. Ride sharing and car sharing are best for residential buildings.

This chapter explores how the interdisciplinary field of industrial ecology, a blend of environmental science, social science, engineering, and management, can help deliver sustainable development goals (SDGs). As a systems science, industrial ecology provides a source of knowledge that can guide sustainable manufacturing, waste and pollution reduction, and offer a framework for extending the life of physical goods in a circular economy. The chapter focuses on four industrial ecology approaches: material stock and flow analysis, life-cycle assessment, input-output analysis, and industrial symbiosis, offering descriptions and case examples that relate to specific SDGs and targets. Although these approaches are relevant to a broad range of SDG targets, the authors focus on those pertaining to responsible and efficient use of water and energy (SDG6 and target 7.3), economic growth (SDG8), reducing inequalities (SDG10), transportation (target 11.2), production and consumption systems (SDG12 and targets 2.4 and 9.4), and climate action (SDG13). Industrial ecology approaches are also beneficial to rapidly industrializing countries, where improvements in economic performance and the environment must be carefully balanced. Finally, by tracking flows of material and energy, industrial ecology promotes resource efficiency and provides a strong basis for making sustainable production and consumption decisions.

Fully decarbonizing global industry is essential to achieving climate stabilization, and reaching net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050–2070 is necessary to limit global warming to 2 °C. This paper assembles and evaluates technical and policy interventions, both on the supply side and on the demand side. It identifies measures that, employed together, can achieve net zero industrial emissions in the required timeframe. Key supply-side technologies include energy efficiency (especially at the system level), carbon capture, electrification, and zero-carbon hydrogen as a heat source and chemical feedstock. There are also promising technologies specific to each of the three top-emitting industries: cement, iron & steel, and chemicals & plastics. These include cement admixtures and alternative chemistries, several technological routes for zero-carbon steelmaking, and novel chemical catalysts and separation technologies. Crucial demand-side approaches include material-efficient design, reductions in material waste, substituting low-carbon for high-carbon materials, and circular economy interventions (such as improving product longevity, reusability, ease of refurbishment, and recyclability). Strategic, well-designed policy can accelerate innovation and provide incentives for technology deployment. High-value policies include carbon pricing with border adjustments or other price signals; robust government support for research, development, and deployment; and energy efficiency or emissions standards. These core policies should be supported by labeling and government procurement of low-carbon products, data collection and disclosure requirements, and recycling incentives. In implementing these policies, care must be taken to ensure a just transition for displaced workers and affected communities. Similarly, decarbonization must complement the human and economic development of low- and middle-income countries.

This is the preprint of the peer-reviewed article in the Journal of Industrial Ecology: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jiec.13122 Scenario-based assessments are a useful tool to explore unknown futures and inform decision makers and the public of the consequences of different courses of action. Scenario developments in Industrial Ecology have focused on disparate components of the socioeconomic metabolism and case studies, and few efforts of comprehensive and cumulative scenario formulation are documented. Many important, empirically derived relationships between material cycles, end-use services, and energy use are relevant to global scenario modeling efforts, e.g., of integrated assessment models (IAMs), which do not routinely describe material cycles or the life-cycle impacts of various technology shifts. These inconsistent depictions of material cycles and their environmental impacts hinder the assessment of sustainable development strategies such as demand-side sufficiency, material efficiency, and energy efficiency. We developed three highly detailed scenarios covering 20 global regions to 2060 for the service provisioning of dwelling area and personal transport grounded in salient building and vehicle operation parameters. Our scenarios are based on, and interface with, the Low Energy Demand (LED) and Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP1 and SSP2) narratives. The results comprise scenario-, region-, and period-specific narratives and corresponding parameter values, including per-capita floor space and vehicle stocks, building and vehicle archetype mixes, passenger-km, vehicle-km, vehicle occupancy rates, and implementation potentials of nine material efficiency strategies. The explicit storyline extension approach presented here is an alternative to the aggregate GDP-driven or historical trend extrapolations of service or energy demands. We describe the scenario formulation processes, resulting parameters, their applications, and offer an outlook for prospective sustainability models.

Material production accounts for 23% of all greenhouse gas emissions. More efficient use of materials – through decoupling of services that support human wellbeing from material use – is imperative as other emissions mitigation options are expensive. An interdisciplinary scientific assessment of material efficiency and its links to service provision, material cycle management, and climate policy is needed to identify effective strategies and help design the policy framework required for their implementation. We present RECC, the Resource Efficiency-Climate Change mitigation framework, a first step towards such a comprehensive assessment. RECC is based on dynamic material flow analysis and links the services provided (individual motorized transport and dwelling) to the operation of in-use stocks (passenger vehicles and residential buildings), to the expansion and maintenance of these stocks to their material cycles (major materials like steel and cement), and to energy use and climate impacts. A key innovation of RECC is the up-scaling of detailed descriptions of future product archetypes with different degrees of material and energy efficiency, which are simulated with engineering tools.We utilize RECC with augmented storylines of the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSP) to describe future service demand and associated material requirements. Ten material efficiency strategies at different stages of the material cycle can be assessed by ramping up their implementation rates to the identified technical potentials. RECC provides scenario results for the life cycle impacts of ambitious service-material decoupling concurrent with energy system decarbonization, giving detailed insights on the resource efficiency-climate change mitigation nexus to policy makers worldwide.

With the growth of the field of industrial ecology (IE), research and results have increased significantly leading to a desire for better utilization of the accumulated data in more sophisticated analyses. This implies the need for greater transparency, accessibility, and reusability of IE data, paralleling the considerable momentum throughout the sciences. The Data Transparency Task Force (DTTF) was convened by the governing council of the International Society for Industrial Ecology in late 2016 to propose best†practice guidelines and incentives for sharing data. In this article, the members of the DTTF present an overview of developments toward transparent and accessible data within the IE community and more broadly. We argue that increased transparency, accessibility, and reusability of IE data will enhance IE research by enabling more detailed and reproducible research, and also facilitate meta†analyses. These benefits will make the results of IE work more timely. They will enable independent verification of results, thus increasing their credibility and quality. They will also make the uptake of IE research results easier within IE and in other fields as well as by decision makers and sustainability practitioners, thus increasing the overall relevance and impact of the field. Here, we present two initial actions intended to advance these goals: (1) a minimum publication requirement for IE research to be adopted by the Journal of Industrial Ecology; and (2) a system of optional data openness badges rewarding journal articles that contain transparent and accessible data. These actions will help the IE community to move toward data transparency and accessibility. We close with a discussion of potential future initiatives that could build on the minimum requirements and the data openness badge system.

Building heat demand is responsible for a significant share of the total global final energy consumption. Building stock models with a high spatio-temporal resolution are a powerful tool to investigate the effects of new building policies aimed at increasing energy efficiency, the introduction of new heating technologies or the integration of buildings within an energy system based on renewable energy sources. Therefore, building stock models have to be able to model the improvements and variation of used materials in buildings. In this paper, we propose a method based on generalized large-scale geographic information system (GIS) to model building heat demand of large regions with a high temporal resolution. In contrast to existing building stock models, our approach allows to derive the envelope of all buildings from digital elevation models and to model location dependent effects such as shadowing due to the topography and climate conditions. We integrate spatio-temporal climate data for temperature and solar radiation to model climate effects of complex terrain. The model is validated against a database containing the measured energy demand of 1845 buildings of the city of St. Gallen, Switzerland and 120 buildings of the Alpine village of Zernez, Switzerland. The proposed model is able to assess and investigate large regions by using spatial data describing natural and anthropogenic land features. The validation resulted in an average goodness of fit ( R 2 ) of 0.6 .

© 2017, Yale University. Material usage and the related embodied environmental impact have grown in significance in the built environment. Therefore, cities and governments need to develop strategies to reduce both the consumption of resources during usage phase as well as the embodied impact of the current building stock. This article proposes a new component-based building inventory database as a basis to develop such strategies using building stock modeling. The developed database clusters the building stock according to building typology (single-family houses, multifamily houses, and office buildings), age, and the main construction systems of the different building components. Based on the component makeup, it lists the necessary material input and waste output for different refurbishment options for each building component. The advantages of the proposed database structure are shown based on two applications for the developed database for Switzerland. The component-based database allows optimization of refurbishment strategies not only from an energetic perspective, but also with respect to materials, both on the input (sourcing of materials) and the output (waste streams) level. The database structure makes it possible to continuously extend the data set by adding new refurbishment options or add data such as component-specific lifetimes, costs, or labor intensities of the refurbishment options. In combination with an aligned economic model, this would give an even more holistic view, impact, and feasibility of different refurbishment scenarios both in environmental and economic terms.

The data record contains Material Intensity data for buildings (MI). MI coefficients are often used for different types of analysis of socio-economic systems and in particular for environmental assessments. Until now, MI values were compiled and reported ad-hoc with few cross-study comparisons. We extracted and converted more than 300 material intensity data points from 33 studies and provide the results in a comprehensive and harmonized database. Material intensity is reported as kilograms per gross floor area for 32 materials as primary data points. Furthermore, we augmented the data with secondary attributes for regional information, such as climate and socioeconomic indicators. The data are hosted on the version control platform GitHub using accessible data formats and providing detailed contribution guidelines. This “database seed” facilitates data analysis, accessibility, and future data contributions by the research community. In the Technical Validation we illustrate that consistency of the data and opportunities for further analysis. This database can serve scientists from various disciplines as a benchmark to determine typical ranges and identify outliers., Design Type(s)data integration objectiveMeasurement Type(s)material propertiesTechnology Type(s)digital curationFactor Type(s)geographic location • temporal_intervalSample Characteristic(s)anthropogenic environment Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data (ISA-Tab format)

The aim of this study is to investigate the most important drivers of environmental impacts and identify the influence of parameters on the uncertainty of the environmental impacts in various climate zones and future climate scenarios. We couple a combined greenhouse energy demand-yield simulation tool with a life cycle assessment to identify the drivers for greenhouse energy, water and CO2 demand as well as yield production. Environmental impacts are evaluated using the methods of IPPC for assessing climate change and available water remaining (AWARE) for water scarcity impacts. Furthermore, we compare the results for all five main climate world regions. With a global sensitivity analysis, we identify the parameters with the highest influence on life-cycle impact for each region. Crop growth features (e.g. node development rate and plant density), energy systems (e.g. heating and cooling supply systems), cover materials and inside temperature are the most influential input parameters for climate change impacts, but the ranking between these parameters depends on the location and climatic conditions of the greenhouse. In cold climates and higher latitudes, heating and electricity (mostly for lighting) processes are on average responsible for 85 to 90% of total climate change impacts. In hot climates, active cooling, in addition to natural ventilation, as well as electricity processes rank the highest (in the range of 60 to 75%) and in moderate climates, heating and cooling systems account for 60 to 70% of climate change impacts. Also for the AWARE results, crop growth related parameters are most influential. Among different processes in greenhouse, irrigation is responsible for 90% of water impacts in all regions, but the absolute magnitude of impact varies greatly among the different greenhouse locations.

Construction material plays an increasingly important role in the environmental impacts of buildings. In order to investigate impacts of materials on a building level, we present a bottom-up building stock model that uses three dimensional and geo-referenced building data to determine volumetric information of material stocks in Swiss residential buildings. We used a probabilistic modeling approach to calculate future material flows for the individual buildings. We investigated six scenarios with different assumptions concerning per capita floor area, building stock turnover, and construction material. The Swiss building stock will undergo important structural changes by 2035. While this will lead to a reduced number in new constructions, material flows will increase. Total material inflow decreases by almost half while outflows double. In 2055 the total amount of material in- and outflows are almost equal, which represents an important opportunity to close construction material cycles. Total environmental impacts due to production and disposal of construction material remain relatively stable over time. The cumulated impact is slightly reduced for the wood-based scenario. The scenario with more insulation material leads to slightly higher material-related emissions. An increase per capita floor area or material turnover will lead to a considerable increase in impacts. The new modeling approach overcomes the limitations of previous bottom-up building models and allows for investigating building material flows and stocks in space and time. This supports the development of tailored strategies to reduce the material footprint and environmental impacts of buildings and settlements., Journal of Industrial Ecology, 23, ISSN:1088-1980, ISSN:1530-9290

The energy demand of buildings heavily depends on outdoor temperature. Current climate change projections suggest an increase in annual mean temperatures of up to 5.4°C for Switzerland until the end of the century. In this study, an existing bottom-up building stock model is coupled with the latest spatio-temporal climate change projections. This allows for simulating the heat demand for each Swiss building for three different climate change scenarios and three periods. It is found that while space heat demand can decrease up to 33% by the end of the century, the need for air conditioning can arise. Furthermore, the impact of climate change differs between regions in Switzerland., Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1343, ISSN:1742-6588, ISSN:1742-6596

As one quarter of global energy use serves the production of materials, the more efficient use of these materials presents a significant opportunity for the mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the renewed interest of policy makers in the circular economy, material efficiency (ME) strategies such as light-weighting and downsizing of and lifetime extension for products, reuse and recycling of materials, and appropriate material choice are being promoted. Yet, the emissions savings from ME remain poorly understood, owing in part to the multitude of material uses and diversity of circumstances and in part to a lack of analytical effort. We have reviewed emissions reductions from ME strategies applied to buildings, cars, and electronics. We find that there can be a systematic trade-off between material use in the production of buildings, vehicles, and appliances and energy use in their operation, requiring a careful life cycle assessment of ME strategies. We find that the largest potential emission reductions quantified in the literature result from more intensive use of and lifetime extension for buildings and the light-weighting and reduced size of vehicles. Replacing metals and concrete with timber in construction can result in significant GHG benefits, but trade-offs and limitations to the potential supply of timber need to be recognized. Repair and remanufacturing of products can also result in emission reductions, which have been quantified only on a case-by-case basis and are difficult to generalize. The recovery of steel, aluminum, and copper from building demolition waste and the end-of-life vehicles and appliances already results in the recycling of base metals, which achieves significant emission reductions. Higher collection rates, sorting efficiencies, and the alloy-specific sorting of metals to preserve the function of alloying elements while avoiding the contamination of base metals are important steps to further reduce emissions.

Until this day, data in industrial ecology (IE) have been commonly seen as existing within the domain of particular methods or models, such as input–output, life cycle assessment, urban metabolism, or material flow analysis data. This artificial division of data into methods contradicts the common phenomena described by those data: the objects and processes in the industrial system, or socioeconomic metabolism (SEM). A consequence of this scattered organization of related data across methods is that IE researchers and consultants spend too much time searching for and reformatting data from diverse and incoherent sources, time that could be invested into quality control and analysis of model results instead. This article outlines a solution to two major barriers to data exchange within IE: (a) the lack of a generic structure for IE data and (b) the lack of a bespoke platform to exchange IE datasets. We present a general data model for SEM that can be used to structure all data that can be located in the industrial system, including process descriptions, product descriptions, stocks, flows, and coefficients of all kind. We describe a relational database built on the general data model and a user interface to it, both of which are open source and can be implemented by individual researchers, groups, institutions, or the entire community. In the latter case, one could speak of an IE data commons (IEDC), and we unveil an IEDC prototype containing a diverse set of datasets from the literature. © 2019 The Authors. Journal of Industrial Ecology, published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., on behalf of Yale University. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.

A rapidly increasing use of building materials poses threats to resources and the environment. Using novel, localized life cycle inventories and building material intensity data, this study quantifies the resource use of building materials in mainland China and evaluates their embodied environmental impacts. Newly built floor area and related material consumption grew 11% per annum from 2000 to 2015, leveling off at the end of this period. Concrete, sand, gravel, brick, and cement were the main materials used. Spatially, construction activities expanded from east China into the central part of the country. Cement, steel, and concrete production are the key contributors to associated environmental impacts, e.g., cement and steel each account for around 25% of the global warming potential from building materials. Building materials contribute considerably to the impact categories of human toxicity, fossil depletion, and global warming, emphasizing that greenhouse gas emissions should not be the sole focus of research on environmental impacts of building materials. These findings quantitatively shed light on the urgent need to reduce environmental impacts and to conserve energy in the manufacturing processes of building materials on the national scale.

High spatial resolution is critical for a building stock energy model to identify spatial hotspots and provide targeted recommendations for reducing regional energy consumption. However, input uncertainties due to lacking high-resolution spatial data (e.g. building information and occupant behavior) can cause great discrepancies between modeled and actual energy consumption. We present a modeling framework that can act as a blueprint model for most European countries based on geo- referenced data, building archetypes, and public algorithms. Further sophistication is added in a step-wise approach, including the shift from average to hourly weather data, refurbishment, and occupants’ heating schedules. The model is demonstrated for the city of Leiden, the Netherlands, and the simulated results are spatially validated against the measured natural gas consumption reported at postcode level. Results show that when these factors are considered, the model can provide a good estimate of the energy consumption at the city scale (overestimated by 6%). At postcode level, nearly 83% of the absolute differences between modeled and measured natural gas consumption are within one standard deviation (±25 kWh/m2a, about 30% of the mean measured natural gas consumption). Further research and data would be required to provide reliable results at the level of individual buildings, e.g. information on refurbishment and occupant behavior. The model is well suited to identify spatial hotspots of residential energy consumption and could thus provide a practical basis (e.g. maps) for targeted measures to mitigate climate change.

Circular economy is increasingly promoted as a solution to decouple economic growth and environmental impacts. To design a circular and sustainable system, a structured approach is needed. In this study, we suggest to follow a 3-step approach. First, the status quo is evaluated using environmental assessment methods. We determine current circularity (share of assessed product and material retained and further used in the system), environmental impacts, the most impactful products and processes, and assess contaminants and impurities. Second, scenarios favoring circularity strategies are developed and their environmental impacts evaluated. Third, the scenarios are compared and measures for environmental impact mitigation derived. The suggested approach was applied to the case study of thermal insulation in residential buildings in Switzerland. Coupling dynamic, prospective material flow analysis with life cycle impact assessment enabled to determine current and future environmental impacts. Current material circularity is low due to lacking incentives for recycling and legally required incineration of flame retardant containing oil-based materials. The most impact-intensive processes were the production of insulation materials and the incineration of oil-based materials including their adhering residues. The investigated scenarios include (i) increased recycling, (ii) augmented use of biogenic materials, and (iii) a combination thereof. All scenarios lead to reduced climate change and human toxicity impacts. The second and third scenario showed increased impacts for land use, ozone depletion, and ecotoxicity. Taking into consideration end-of-life already in the design process, phasing out toxic materials, and increasing usage of renewable materials are crucial for sustainable, circular system design.

Link to publisher's version:Energy and Buildings (2018) 168, pp 457-469© . This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license In this study, the objective is to redesign a previous concept for a single-family Zero greenhouse gas Emission Building (ZEB). The concept is redesigned based on comparing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission loads and compensation from different design solutions applied in Norwegian single-family ZEB pilot buildings and selected sensitivity studies. The objective is to see if a previously developed ZEB model (2011) can be redesigned to achieve a life cycle energy and material emission balance (ZEB-OM), which previously was not achieved. Five different design parameters are evaluated: area efficiency, embodied emissions in the envelope, insulation thickness, heating systems and different roof forms with respect to the photovoltaic area. Embodied emissions reductions were possible in the ground foundation, from around 1 kg CO2/m2 to 0.6 kg CO2/m2 per year. Both models are able to compensate for all operational emissions. The new model is in addition able to compensate for 60% of embodied emissions, whereas the previous model only could compensate for 5%. The new model does not reach the life cycle energy and material balance. The paper presents and discusses different approaches for achieving the ZEB-OM balance. Further concept model optimization is needed.

In order to reduce the energy demand of the building sector the energy demand of existing buildings need to be reduced. However, the retrofit of buildings is a complex task. Many options, such as replacing windows, improving the building envelope or replacing the heating system are available to improve the energy efficiency of a building or lower carbon emissions. Most building owners are not energy experts and are thus overwhelmed by the available choices for retrofitting their buildings. Furthermore, they can have false beliefs about the payback of energetic refurbishment. We propose a web based decision support system (DSS) using a geographic information system (GIS) based building stock model to inform building owners in a fashion, which is as simple as possible. This is achieved by using an extensive GIS database of building data. This eliminates the need for users to know the dimension of their building envelope or local climate data. The system allows users to select and compare different retrofit scenarios in terms of carbon emissions and energy savings and thus to inform themselves about the potential of energetic retrofit of their building., Energy Procedia, 122, ISSN:1876-6102, CISBAT 2017 International Conference Future Buildings & Districts – Energy Efficiency from Nano to Urban Scale

Different designs and concepts of low-energy and zero-emission buildings (ZEBs) are being introduced into the Norwegian market. This study analyses and compares the life cycle emissions of CO2 equivalents (CO2e) from eight different single-family houses in the Oslo climate. Included are four ZEBs: one active house, two passive houses, and a reference house (Norwegian building code of 2010). Monthly differences in CO2e emissions are calculated for the seasonally sensitive Norwegian context for electricity generation and consumption. This is used to supplant the previous applied symmetric weighting approach for CO2e/kWh factors for import and export of electricity for the ZEB cases. All the ZEBs have lower use-stage emissions compared with the other buildings or the reference case. Embodied impacts are found to be 60–75% for the analysed ZEB cases, confirming the importance of embodied impacts in Norwegian ZEBs. The lowest total emissions were from the smallest ZEB, emphasizing area efficiency. The highest emissions were from the reference case. By abandoning the symmetric approach, a new perspective was developed for assessing the performance of ZEBs within the Norwegian context. One of four ZEB cases managed to balance out its annual energy-related emissions.

Environmental Science & Technology, 47 (11), ISSN:0013-936X, ISSN:1520-5851

Switzerland declared the notion of the 2000 Watt society as their leitmotif towards a sustainable development in terms of energy. This implies that worldwide, no more than 17520 kWh of total primary energy and 1 ton CO2-eq. are to be consumed per capita and year for all services. Thus, in order to meet the targets of the 2000-Watt society, it is necessary to reduce primary energy demand by 44% and greenhouse gas emissions by 77%. The building stock model, described in this paper, assisted the government of Zurich to identify the necessary steps in order to achieve the goals with regard to the city‟s residential, school, and office buildings. The objective of this paper is to investigate the role of energy demand reduction in residential buildings on the way towards the goals of a 2000-Watt society. In order to illustrate the mechanisms within the building stock and to identify the effects of construction activity, the model works with different scenarios. Specific measures were isolated and analysed individually. All three measures act directly on the building stock; each have comparable reduction potential in terms of primary energy demand (ca. 15%) and greenhouse gas emissions (ca. 40%). In order to further cut back greenhouse gas emissions, measures to reduce carbon intensity of fuels and electricity need to be considered.

The goal of this study was to identify drivers of environmental impact and quantify their influence on the environmental performance of wooden and massive residential and office buildings. We performed a life cycle assessment and used thermal simulation to quantify operational energy demand and to account for differences in thermal inertia of building mass. Twenty-eight input parameters, affecting operation, design, material, and exogenic building properties were sampled in a Monte Carlo analysis. To determine sensitivity, we calculated the correlation between each parameter and the resulting life cycle inventory and impact assessment scores. Parameters affecting operational energy demand and energy conversion are the most influential for the building’s total environmental performance. For climate change, electricity mix, ventilation rate, heating system, and construction material rank the highest. Thermal inertia results in an average 2–6% difference in heat demand. Nonrenewable cumulative energy demand of wooden buildings is 18% lower, compared to a massive variant. Total cumulative energy demand is comparable. The median climate change impact is 25% lower, including end-of-life material credits and 22% lower, when credits are excluded. The findings are valid for small offices and residential buildings in Switzerland and regions with similar building culture, construction material production, and climate., Environmental Science & Technology, 49 (16), ISSN:0013-936X, ISSN:1520-5851

Achieving a sustainable urban future has become an important focus globally. In this paper, three major themes of a sustainable urban future are presented: a low carbon society, cities in the context of an ageing population and revitalization of the urban–rural fringe. Visions of these themes, in the context of highly industrialized regions, are discussed. To achieve a low carbon society, the importance of technological innovations such as new technologies and systems applied in buildings (homes and businesses), industries, and transportation are emphasized. To adapt to an ageing society, a compact city is seen with responsive transport, infrastructure and services that cater to the needs of the elderly. To enhance the urban–rural fringe, the introduction of eco-industries, which can create opportunities for both sides, is proposed.