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Many cities have encountered challenges associated with rapid urban development, population growth and aging, in which urban renewal has become a promising option. Different renewal strategies, such as redevelopment, refurbishment and conservation, not only contributes to quality improvement and energy consumption reduction of dilapidated urban are...
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... In the reference, comparable indicators are used to evaluate the sustainability of building products. In another article, sustainable emergy indexes were also utilized to assess building system, especially for EYR, ELR and ESI (Cui et al., 2021). Wang et al. (2019a) conducted the comparative sustainability analysis based on the point of view of emergy, which also adopted a set of indicators, including R%, N%, EYR, EIR, ELR and ESI, etc. ...
As the world’s largest ceramics producer and exporter, China’s ceramic industry is being sharply watched because of excessive resource consumption and pressing environmental issues. Given the specific performances of the ceramic production system, a full set of improved emergy indicators have been adopted to assess environmental sustainability. By taking a typical building ceramic tile plant as an example, this paper conducted a case study, including emergy analysis, ecological indicators, sensitivity analysis, and industrial pollutant emergy analysis (exhaust gas, wastewater, and solid waste). The results demonstrate that (1) non-renewable resource accounts for 57.7% of the total emergy amount and is the primary factor for the emergy analysis; (2) clay is the major contributor to non-renewable resource emergy (26% of the entire emergy; (3) emergy sustainability index is 0.041, which displays poor environmental sustainability; (4) the unit emergy value of building ceramic tile plant is 4.01E+12 sej/kg in the paper; (5) sensitivity analysis results of two assumptions illustrate the non-renewable resources has the biggest fluctuation (5.77%) in hypothesis 1 and the clay (2.63%) have the dominant status in hypothesis 2; (6) the solid waste is the major contributor and accounts for 3.69% of the entire emergy and 95.56% of the industrial pollutant emergy. In light of comprehensive discussions, two positive measures are proposed to improve environmental sustainability, containing enhancing the proportion of renewable energy input and recycling material replacement, respectively.
... The whole life cycle emergy framework is also significant for the sustainable design of building systems. Applying such methods enables the comprehensive assessment of various inputs in building systems; effective calculations of energy flow, material flow, and information flow; and optimization of sustainable building designs [19][20][21]. ...
Sustainable architecture holds research significance as a necessary approach to address climate change. However, the lack of a clear definition and diverse research methods present obstacles in this field. To overcome these challenges, this study adopts an integrated approach that combines ecological and low-carbon aspects and considers the entire life cycle system. The highlight of this article is the integration of two research methods to assess the sustainability of a building system from both ecological and carbon footprint perspectives. This approach has not been extensively explored by researchers thus far. The aim is to quantitatively explore and evaluate the sustainability performance of building systems. The research findings reveal that, among the five life cycle stages, the operational stage of a building exhibits the highest proportions of emergy consumption and carbon emissions, accounting for approximately 89.4% and 90%, respectively. From an emergy analysis perspective, newly constructed building systems demonstrate qualified sustainable parameters (Emergy Sustainability Indicator (ESI) = 2.7 > 1)). However, as the building system ages and operates over time, the overall sustainable parameters gradually decrease, eventually becoming unqualified. Furthermore, carbon emissions analysis indicates that total carbon emissions accelerate with the aging of the building, highlighting the necessity of continuous inputs of material flow, energy flow, and information flow to maintain the building system’s sustainability. The cross-feedback model emerges as the most effective correction method among the input processes, although data collection poses a challenge due to its nonlinearity. This study provides a fresh perspective for architects and building managers, offering insights that contribute to mitigating climate change and promoting sustainable practices in the built environment.
... Additionally, some researchers use emergy analysis as an assistant design tool for architects to enhance the sustainability performance of building systems [18]. Furthermore, there is a growing trend in exploring the integration of emergy research with whole life cycle theory, involving the analysis of ecological emergy sustainability of entire building systems, renewal design strategies, the impacts of building materials throughout their life cycles, and the operational effects of buildings [19][20][21]. ...
Sustainable building systems can effectively reduce environmental pressures and mitigate the deterioration of the global climate. The sustainability of complex building systems is influenced by various factors. This article quantitatively analyzes building systems from an ecological emergy and carbon emissions perspective, and considers typical feedback structures’ impact. A neural network algorithm is employed for sustainability prediction analysis. The results demonstrate that both from an emergy and carbon emissions perspective, the operational phase of the building and the production phase of building materials are the main contributors (accounting for over 90%). Among the three types of feedback subsystems, the cross-feedback structure has a more significant impact and yields the best corrective effect. For example, the correction proportion of the building’s emergy sustainability parameter reaches 11.3%, while it is 15.8% for carbon emissions. The neural network model predicts a decreasing trend in the energy sustainability of buildings and increasing carbon emissions over time. To improve the sustainability of building systems, measures such as ecological landscape design and carbon sequestration in building materials are considered, which can enhance the sustainability of buildings to a certain extent.
... Fatma and Brian (2022) studied the relationship between circular economy and the environment using the life cycle sustainability assessment [29]. To analyze the sustainability comparison of different renewal strategies in the building system, the LCA-emergy approach was selected and verified [30]. ...
Rivers play a key role in regulating urban ecology, which can improve urban climate while slowing the heat island effect. As one of embodied energy in the field of ecology, emergy theory can be used to quantitatively evaluate the ecological characteristics of a system. This will help to further explore urban ecological sustainability in this article. In this study, four ecological riverbank reconstruction projects have been executed to restore the ecology along the banks of the Jinchuan River in Nanjing, China, which focus on the key river–lakeside and waterfront space in the main urban area. The LCA–emergy–carbon emission method was applied through a series of indicators, including emergy indexes and carbon emission indicators. It is important to distinguish prior research, and few have utilized this approach on urban waterways and waterscapes. The results illustrate that the reconstruction system has obvious improvement significance to the whole river ecology. This change can also be seen when using LCA–emergy analysis. In a 20-year cycle, the emergy of the material production stage and maintenance phase account for a major emergy share, followed by the construction stage, transportation process, and design process stage. The sustainability (ESI indicator) has been improved after carrying out the reconstruction projects. By choosing water and gravel as the primary material, the carbon emission can be reduced. The water treatment process accounts for the vast majority of carbon emissions. Secondly, gravel also plays an important role in carbon emission. Finally, an improved measure (clean energy reuse) was conducted to enhance the ecology of the reconstruction projects and obtained a significant ecological sustainability boost.
... By reviewing the literature of the past five years, only a few articles cover the LCA-Emergy method. For example, for building refurbishment, several strategies have been conducted based on the emergy-LCA method [35]. A residential building was selected for sustainability investigation in light of emergy analysis [36]. ...
From a global perspective, the ecological sustainability of building systems has always been a hot research topic, especially in China, where the annual amount of new construction is nearly half of the world. The difficulty is making a complete and accurate ecological assessment of the building system. This study has designed and adopted the LCA-Emergy-ANN framework to assess and analyze an airport building system for sustainability. The results demonstrate that building material emergy and operational stage emergy play a critical role and account for 92.4% of the entire emergy, which are the primary contributors. As the vital indicator, the emergy sustainability index (ESI) is 0.669, which is unsustainable (The eligibility standard is 1). Simultaneously, to ensure the accuracy of the data results, sensitivity analysis was performed. The artificial neural network (ANN) was used by integrating the LCA method and emergy approach to predict the sustainability trend in the long run. In the end, the optimization strategy is proposed to enhance the sustainability of the building system.
... Research findings by Iodica et al. [29] showed that selective demolition and increased recycling reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 88%. A case study by Cui et al. [30] shows that demolishing an existing building and building a new one emits less carbon than rebuilding, renovating and conserving the building. Applying prefabricated systems would ensure the possibility of dismantling buildings and, therefore, reduce emissions that the previously mentioned authors observed through their research activities. ...
... Considering the involvement of stakeholders at different phases, Wang et al. (2019) divided the life cycle into project initiation, project application, project inspection, project proposals, project announcement, project implementation, and maintenance and operation phases. Cui et al. (2021) divided the life cycle into demolition, construction, and operation and maintenance phases to investigate the energy flows in buildings under different regeneration strategies. However, Zhuang et al. (2019) focused on the DM phase and divided it into seven subphases that included project application, project plan making, and field investigations etc. ...
During the life cycle of an urban regeneration project, stakeholders enter and exit the project, which has different impacts on its sustainable development. However, few researchers have studied the dynamic changes in stakeholder relationships during a project's life cycle before they discussed the management of the stakeholders. To bridge this research gap, this study established a framework to conduct dynamic stakeholder relationship analysis for urban regeneration projects based on social network analysis (SNA), which has been widely and successfully applied to stakeholder relationship analysis. A case analysis of the Enning Road regeneration project in Guangzhou, China was applied to illustrate the application of this framework. In this example, 18 major stakeholders and the relationships among them were identified via case-based content analysis. Indexes, such as network density, average distance, nodes of centrality, and stakeholder influence index that denote the network structure and stakeholder characteristics were obtained and analyzed, which provided implications to improve the management of the stakeholders in the project. This study indicated the values of dynamic stakeholder relationship analysis for the management of stakeholders in urban regeneration projects and could provide a useful guide for researchers and practitioners to conduct dynamic stakeholder relationship analysis to facilitate sustainable urban regeneration.
... Retrofit de sistema térmico [16] Residência unifamiliar Portugal Retrofit de sistema térmico de cobertura [15] Residência unifamiliar Portugal Retrofit de toda construção [5] Residencial multifamiliar Noruega Retrofit de toda construção [17] Edificação educacional -Não especificada ...
O processo de retrofit de edificações pode ser uma opção sustentável para o reaproveitamento de edificações e a mitigação de impactos ambientais. O objetivo do estudo é realizar uma revisão sistemática de literatura sobre o tema de ACV aplicada em retrofit, buscando analisar as contribuições e os métodos considerados. O estudo parte de 27 artigos publicados em periódicos internacionais, estruturados como estudos de caso e revisões sistemáticas. Nota-se que o retrofit de edificações oportuniza o aproveitamento de edificações existentes, a implementação de estratégias sustentáveis e, também, o desenvolvimento de mais estudos no âmbito científico nacional.
... LCA has been widely used to compare refurbishment with demolition and reconstruction of buildings [20,25,28,29]. Most of the authors agree on the fact that even an in-depth refurbishment has lower embodied emissions than new construction during the production stage as it implies fewer materials' production and embodied energy consumption, as well as less waste generation [11,20,25,28]. ...
... Considering the use stage, new buildings can provide higher energy efficiency than refurbished ones along the building's life cycle [30]. Similarly, Cui et al. demonstrated that substantial environmental benefits can be obtained in both the refurbishment and rebuilding strategies since the energy yield ratio for the rebuilding strategy is higher than for refurbishment, which means the better performance of refurbishment considering that fewer resources are required to generate greater benefits [29]. Saade et al. observed that refurbishment is environmentally better than demolition and new construction in 5 case studies, and confirmed that the embodied energy tend to diminish significantly by increasing the energy efficiency of buildings [31]. ...
This work demonstrated, through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), the environmental advantages brought by the application of the Structural Inspection and Diagnosis (SID) methodology to the structural refurbishment of 7 traditional buildings located in the city of Porto (Portugal), when compared to the common total demolition and reconstruction approach.
The early diagnosis of the conservation state of the existing structural elements, and their characterization provides fundamental information for optimizing the design of the refurbishment towards environmental sustainability. SID approach can reduce by 75.3%, on average, the demolished material and provide the lowest environmental burdens in the environmental categories of Global Warming, Acidification, Eutrophication, Ozone, and Abiotic Depletion, Photochemical Ozone Creation potential, Human Toxicity as well as Energy Demand when compared with the total demolition and reconstruction scenarios. In terms of relative environmental impact for the reconstruction scenarios, it was concluded that reinforced concrete, in the form of lightweight and solid slabs, presents the worst performance due to the concrete production process. Furthermore, timber structures show better environmental performance when compared to the use of glued laminated timber. The establishment of the SID tool as a consolidated methodology can be a unique opportunity to systematically include, in the refurbishment of traditional buildings, the principles of the environmental sustainability required by EU policies in the construction sector, providing a significant reduction of demolition wastes and the maximization of the preservation of existing structural materials.
... The details of energy in the building system can be described as follows: For instance, the emergy theory and building information modeling were combined into a building system to evaluate sustainability [28]. For building refurbishment, several strategies have been conducted based on the emergy-LCA method [29]. As the basic components of a building system, building materials sustainability has been also a concern by scholars [30][31][32]. ...
In the context of ecological building and green building popularity, building sustainability assessment is becoming more and more important. In this paper, a comprehensive evaluation platform by coupled LCA method and energy method was designed, verified, and analyzed to assess the sustainability of the building system. The main results illustrated that the construction stage is the most critical stage in terms of emergy angle. From a sustainability perspective, the Emergy Sustainability Indicator was at a moderate level (1.0141), which can be considered to increase the proportion of renewable energy and reduce the proportion of non-renewable resources to improve the sustainability degree. Of the three scenarios designed, the second scenario has the best sustainability in the building system. The unit emergy value of the whole building was also shown to demonstrate the unit emergy of an individual. In order to verify the accuracy of the data, a sensitivity analysis was conducted. Finally, two types of positive measures are proposed to ameliorate the environmental sustainability in the building system, containing the increasing proportion of renewable energy and using recycled building materials.
