Reducing China's building material embodied emissions: Opportunities and challenges to achieve carbon neutrality in building materials

Hongyou Lu; Kairui You; Wei Feng; Nan Zhou; David Fridley; Lynn Price; Stephane de la Rue du Can

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2024.109028

Reducing China's building material embodied emissions: Opportunities and challenges to achieve carbon neutrality in building materials

iScience. 2024 Jan 26;27(3):109028. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2024.109028. eCollection 2024 Mar 15.

Authors

Hongyou Lu¹, Kairui You^{2

3}, Wei Feng^{1

2

3}, Nan Zhou¹, David Fridley¹, Lynn Price¹, Stephane de la Rue du Can¹

Affiliations

¹ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
² Institute of Technology for Carbon Neutrality, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
³ School of Material Sciences and Energy Engineering, Shenzhen University of Advanced Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China.

Abstract

Embodied emissions from the production of building materials account for 17% of China's carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and are important to focus on as China aims to achieve its carbon neutrality goals. However, there is a lack of systematic assessments on embodied emissions reduction potential of building materials that consider both the heterogeneous industrial characteristics as well as the Chinese buildings sector context. Here, we developed an integrated model that combines future demand of building materials in China with the strategies to reduce CO₂ emissions associated with their production, using, and recycling. We found that measures to improve material efficiency in the value-chain has the largest CO₂ mitigation potential before 2030 in both Low Carbon and Carbon Neutrality Scenarios, and continues to be significant through 2060. Policies to accelerate material efficiency practices, such as incorporating embodied emissions in building codes and conducting robust research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) in carbon removal are critical.

Keywords: Energy Modelling; Energy management; Engineering; Materials science.