Global greenhouse gas emissions from residential and commercial building materials and mitigation strategies to 2060

Xiaoyang Zhong; Mingming Hu; Sebastiaan Deetman; Bernhard Steubing; Hai Xiang Lin; Glenn Aguilar Hernandez; Carina Harpprecht; Chunbo Zhang; Arnold Tukker; Paul Behrens

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-26212-z

Global greenhouse gas emissions from residential and commercial building materials and mitigation strategies to 2060

Nat Commun. 2021 Oct 21;12(1):6126. doi: 10.1038/s41467-021-26212-z.

Authors

Xiaoyang Zhong¹, Mingming Hu^{2

3}, Sebastiaan Deetman^{2

4}, Bernhard Steubing², Hai Xiang Lin^{2

5}, Glenn Aguilar Hernandez², Carina Harpprecht^{2

6}, Chunbo Zhang², Arnold Tukker^{2

7}, Paul Behrens^{8

9}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, 2333 CC, Leiden, The Netherlands. x.zhong@cml.leidenuniv.nl.
² Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, 2333 CC, Leiden, The Netherlands.
³ School of Management Science and Real Estate, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 40045, China.
⁴ Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, 3584 CB, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
⁵ Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics, Delft University of Technology, 2628 CD, Delft, The Netherlands.
⁶ German Aerospace Center (DLR), Institute of Networked Energy Systems, Curiestreet 4, 70563, Stuttgart, Germany.
⁷ Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research TNO, 2595 DA, The Hague, The Netherlands.
⁸ Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), Leiden University, 2333 CC, Leiden, The Netherlands. p.a.behrens@cml.leidenuniv.nl.
⁹ Leiden University College The Hague, Leiden University, 2595 DG, The Hague, The Netherlands. p.a.behrens@cml.leidenuniv.nl.

Abstract

Building stock growth around the world drives extensive material consumption and environmental impacts. Future impacts will be dependent on the level and rate of socioeconomic development, along with material use and supply strategies. Here we evaluate material-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions for residential and commercial buildings along with their reduction potentials in 26 global regions by 2060. For a middle-of-the-road baseline scenario, building material-related emissions see an increase of 3.5 to 4.6 Gt CO2eq yr-1 between 2020-2060. Low- and lower-middle-income regions see rapid emission increase from 750 Mt (22% globally) in 2020 and 2.4 Gt (51%) in 2060, while higher-income regions shrink in both absolute and relative terms. Implementing several material efficiency strategies together in a High Efficiency (HE) scenario could almost half the baseline emissions. Yet, even in this scenario, the building material sector would require double its current proportional share of emissions to meet a 1.5 °C-compatible target.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't