Environmental and Economic Evaluation of Wooden and Reinforced Concrete Non-residential Buildings I: A comparative analysis of GHG emissions by process-based LCA

This study measured greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in material production, transport, construction, and demolition of an existing reinforced concrete (RC) construction that was used as a special elderly nursing home with 1977.75m2 gross floor area and of a wooden construction that was designed with the same scale and functions as the RC construction by life cycle assessment. Gross GHG emissions measured 592.3 t-CO2eq by the wooden construction and 1155.6 t-CO2eq by the RC construction. From the viewpoint of GHG emission, we showed that the wooden constructions had an advantage over the RC constructions. In the case of modifying the structure of the wooden construction from semi-fireproof to fireproof, the gross GHG emission increased 6.5%. Also, in the case of modifying mat foundation to pile foundation, the gross GHG emission increased 8.4%. However, the advantages of the wooden construction remained in both cases when compared with the RC construction. After examining the relationship between the weight cover ratio and the GHG emission, we clarified a larger impact by a component of the constructions with higher environmental load units even if the weight was light.