Sustainability of buildings: New perspectives on material-related environmental impacts of buildings

Antti Ruuska

Research output: ThesisDoctoral ThesisCollection of Articles

Abstract

The human influence and impact of GHG emissions on climate system are globally acknowledged. Limiting global temperature rise requires significant emission savings by all countries across all sectors, building sector being one of the most prominent ones. Buildings consume natural resources and cause environmental pressure over their life cycles. The design stage decisions influence all the environmental impacts of the building life cycle, but they are a less researched topic. Also material-related impacts, or embodied energy and emissions of building materials, have been given only limited attention in past research, despite their increasing importance due to the development towards more energy efficient, and zero energy buildings. In spite of the seemingly great importance of material efficiency (or material savings), of buildings, it is not evident, which are the most important environmental impacts of building materials. This dissertation creates new knowledge on aforementioned topics.
Translated title of the contributionKestävä rakentaminen -Näkökulmia rakennusmateriaalien ympäristövaikutuksiin
Original languageEnglish
QualificationDoctor's degree
Awarding Institution
  • Aalto University
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Junnila, Seppo, Supervising Professor
  • Häkkinen, Tarja, Thesis Advisor, External person
Publisher
Print ISBNs978-952-60-7901-1, 978-951-38-8630-1
Electronic ISBNs978-952-60-7902-8, 978-951-38-8629-5
Publication statusPublished - 2018
MoE publication typeG5 Doctoral dissertation (article)

Keywords

  • sustainability
  • environmental impacts
  • GHG-emissions
  • material efficiency
  • embodied carbon
  • design process
  • construction
  • buildings
  • building materials

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