Effects of end-of-life management options for materials on primary energy and greenhouse gas balances of building systems

In this study we have analysed the life cycle primary energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) balances of concrete-frame and timber-frame multi-storey building alternatives, designed to meet the current Swedish building code, considering different end-of-life scenarios. The scenarios include recycling of concrete and steel, cascading by recycling of wood into particle board and energy recovery at the end-of-life of the board, energy recovery of wood by combustion, and landfilling of wood with and without landfill gas (LFG) recovery. The energy recovered is assumed to replace fossil coal or gas. Our analysis accounts for energy and GHG flows in the production and end-of-life phases. We estimate the GHG emission changes achieved per unit of difference in finished wood in buildings or in harvest forest biomass between the timber buildings and the concrete building. The results show that the timber building systems give significantly lower life cycle primary energy balances than the concrete building system for all the end-of-life options. The concrete building system gives higher life cycle GHG balances than the timber alternatives for all the end-of-life options, except when wood is landfill without LFG recovery. The end-of-life primary energy and GHG benefit of wood materials is most significant for energy recovery while the benefit of cascading is low. However, replacing fossil gas instead of fossil coal significantly reduce the carbon benefits of the timber alternatives. The benefits of recycling steel and concrete are small. This study shows that end-of-life options for building materials can offer opportunities to reduce energy use and GHG emissions in the built environment.