TY - JOUR
T1 - A whole life cycle performance-based ECOnomic and ECOlogical assessment framework (ECO2) for concrete sustainability
AU - Hafez, Hisham
AU - Kurda, Rawaz
AU - Al-Ayish, Nadia
AU - Garcia-Segura, Tatiana
AU - Cheung, Wai Ming
AU - Nagaratnam, Brabha
N1 - Funding information:
This work is funded by the Faculty of Engineering and Environment’s research development fund (RDF) at Northumbria University, UK.
PY - 2021/4/10
Y1 - 2021/4/10
N2 - Concrete is the primary building material worldwide with a substantial impact on the built environment sustainability. Hence, it is necessary to assess concrete’s combined functionality, economic and environmental impact. In this paper, two concrete sustainability assessment frameworks, MARS-SC and CONCRETop, were studied. Building on the identified gaps, a new framework, ECO2 was developed. ECO2 is a multi-criteria decision analysis framework that accounts for carbon sequestration of concrete, impact allocation of raw materials, and the impact from the use and end-of-life phases. Hence, it could be used to optimize the proportions of a concrete mix based on a user-defined sustainability objective. A case study concluded that, due to the whole life cycle scope, the environmental impact calculated through ECO2 is 20% higher than that by MARS-SC and CONCRETop. In case of reinforced concrete, where service life requirements are different, the ranking of the alternatives according to ECO2 will significantly change comparatively.
AB - Concrete is the primary building material worldwide with a substantial impact on the built environment sustainability. Hence, it is necessary to assess concrete’s combined functionality, economic and environmental impact. In this paper, two concrete sustainability assessment frameworks, MARS-SC and CONCRETop, were studied. Building on the identified gaps, a new framework, ECO2 was developed. ECO2 is a multi-criteria decision analysis framework that accounts for carbon sequestration of concrete, impact allocation of raw materials, and the impact from the use and end-of-life phases. Hence, it could be used to optimize the proportions of a concrete mix based on a user-defined sustainability objective. A case study concluded that, due to the whole life cycle scope, the environmental impact calculated through ECO2 is 20% higher than that by MARS-SC and CONCRETop. In case of reinforced concrete, where service life requirements are different, the ranking of the alternatives according to ECO2 will significantly change comparatively.
KW - Concrete
KW - Framework
KW - Life cycle assessment
KW - MCDA
KW - Sustainability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85100019074&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126060
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126060
M3 - Article
SN - 0959-6526
VL - 292
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
M1 - 126060
ER -
