Urbanization has led to more construction of more buildings, roads, and infrastructure. Also, as the building process has evolved along with the evolution of mankind, people keep destroying old buildings and reconstructing new ones, which can be thought that construction will continue in the future as well. A new residential construction report from the U.S. Census Bureau states that the number of new houses started building in June 2020 is 1,186,000 and the number of new houses completed construction in June is 1,225,000. Considering these numbers only count for June 2020 within the USA, I believed that the environmental cost of buildings and constructions is worth calculating.

According to the United Nations Environmental Program, building and construction took up 39% of all carbon emissions in the world in 2019. There are two components of carbon measurements: operational carbon emissions and embodied carbon of a building. The operational carbon emissions account for energy used in lighting, cooling, and heating the building. Globally, the operational emissions take up 28% of carbon emissions. Embodied carbon emissions mean the carbon footprint of the building materials and construction processes, which is responsible for the remaining 11%.

While embodied carbon emissions occur only in the construction process, operational carbon emissions continuously occur until the end of the building’s life cycle, highlighting the fact that most carbon emissions come from energy use. In order to reduce carbon footprint, it is important to design an energy efficient building. It could save energy by utilizing renewable energy that can replace fossil fuels and apply new cooling, heating, and lighting systems.

Bibliography

Budds, Diana. “How Do Buildings Contribute to Climate Change?” Curbed, Curbed, 19 Sept. 2019, www.curbed.com/2019/9/19/20874234/buildings-carbon-emissions-climate-change.

“New Report: the Building and Construction Sector Can Reach Net Zero Carbon Emissions by 2050.” World Green Building Council, 23 Sept. 2019, www.worldgbc.org/news-media/WorldGBC-embodied-carbon-report-published#:~:text=Together, building and construction are,buildings) accounting for 28%.