Quantifying CO2 Emissions Released from the Materialization Stage of a Traditional Building in Egypt

Elmokadem, Ashraf Abd Elfattah; Waseef, Ahmad; Fikry, Islam

doi:10.21608/pserj.2018.32284

Quantifying CO2 Emissions Released from the Materialization Stage of a Traditional Building in Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ faculty of engineering port said university

² Lecturer at Architectural engineering and urban planning, faculty of engineering, Port Said University

³ faculty of engineering, Port Said University

10.21608/pserj.2018.32284

Abstract

It is known that the construction industry is always playing an important role in social and economic development, which already pushed it to be considered as a primary source of carbon dioxide emissions. Consequently, carbon mitigation plans and energy conservation strategies of buildings had attracted the concentration of many developed countries. Many past studies have been conducted to assess carbon emissions associated with the operation, maintenance and disposal stage of buildings and to reduce it as CO2 emissions must be assessed firstly in order to find the suitable mitigation plan. There is no any conducted study proposed to assess the initial carbon emissions released from traditional buildings in Egypt. In order to address that issue, the current study proposes a detailed framework for the buildings' initial emissions assessment; the study divides the life cycle of traditional buildings into three stages based on material flow: the materialization and on-site construction stage, operation and maintenance stage and disposal stage. The current study is only focusing the materialization and on-site construction stage as it represents the initial emissions of the building's life cycle. Finally, the carbon emissions debt of the case study is quantified. Results show that the materialization and on-site stage of a traditional residential building in Egypt (with a concrete structure) is contributing a large amount of CO2 emissions which must be mitigated in the future by adding renewable energy alternatives (which can cut down an equivalent future emissions' debt of the traditional energies going to be consumed by the building).

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