Comparative Whole Building Life Cycle Assessment of Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction Performance of Reinforced Concrete and Timber Stadiums—A Case Study in China

Yu Dong, Tongyu Qin, Siyuan Zhou, Lu Huang, Rui Bo, Haibo Guo and Xunzhi Yin
Additional contact information
Yu Dong: School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Tongyu Qin: School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Siyuan Zhou: School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Lu Huang: School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Rui Bo: School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Haibo Guo: School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China
Xunzhi Yin: School of Architecture, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-24

Abstract: Many stadiums will be built in China in the next few decades due to increasing public interest in physical exercise and the incentive policies issued by the government under its National Fitness Program. This paper investigates the energy saving and carbon reduction performance of timber stadiums in China in comparison with stadiums constructed using conventional building materials, based on both life cycle energy assessment (LCEA) and life cycle carbon assessment (LCCA). The authors select five representative cities in five climate zones in China as the simulation environment, simulate energy use in the operation phase of stadiums constructed from reinforced concrete (RC) and timber, and compare the RC and timber stadiums in terms of their life cycle energy consumption and carbon emissions. The LCEA results reveal that the energy saving potential afforded by timber stadiums is 11.05%, 12.14%, 8.15%, 4.61% and 4.62% lower than those of RC buildings in “severely cold,” “cold,” “hot summer, cold winter,” “hot summer, warm winter,” and “temperate” regions, respectively. The LCCA results demonstrate that the carbon emissions of timber stadiums are 15.85%, 15.86%, 18.88%, 19.22% and 22.47% lower than those of RC buildings for the regions above, respectively. This demonstrates that in China, timber stadiums have better energy conservation and carbon reduction potential than RC stadiums, based on life cycle assessment. Thus, policy makers are advised to encourage the promotion of timber stadiums in China to achieve the goal of sustainable energy development for public buildings.

Keywords: reinforced concrete; timber; energy saving; carbon reduction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1566/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/4/1566/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:4:p:1566-:d:322682

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().