Abstract
Modern society is underpinned by a complex web of economic and social activities; commerce, transport, and leisure interweave providing support to not only sustain, but also enhance our way of life. In doing so we have created unprecedented environmental impacts and a burden that must be carried by our planet and our planet alone. Much of this burden is associated with cities, which appear to ‘sustain’ immense populations and satisfy the consumption activities of its many inhabitants. Unfortunately such activities normally require a quantity of natural resources well beyond the bio-capacity of its locality.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Amato, A., 1996. A Comparative Environmental Appraisal of Alternative Framing Systems for Offices. PhD thesis, Oxford Brookes University.
Boustead, I. and Hancock, G.F., 1979. Handbook of Industrial Energy Analysis. Ellis Horwood, Chichester.
Brown, A.I., Hammond, G.P., Jones, C.I. and Rogers, F.J., 2006. Greening the UK building stock: historic trends and low carbon futures 1970–2050. Proc. Second International Green Energy Conference (IGEC-2). 25–29 June 2006, Oshawa, Canada, p423–435.
Brundtland. 1987. Our Common Future, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development. World Commission on Environment and Development.
Chapman, P., 1976. Methods of energy analysis. In Aspects of Energy Conversion(Blair I.M., Jones B.D. and Van Horn A.J. (eds.). Pergamon, Oxford, 739–757.
Doughty, M.R.C. and Hammond, G.P., 2004. 0Sustainability and the built environment at and beyond the city scale, Building and Environment, 39(10): 1223–1233.
Eaton, K.J. and Amato, A., 1998. A Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Modern Office Buildings. The Steel Construction Institute, Berkshire. SCI Publication 182.
Hammond, G.P., 2000. Energy, environment and sustainable development: a UK perspective. Trans IChemE Part B: Process Safety and Environmental Protection 78: 304– 323.
Hammond, G.P. and Jones, C.I., 2007. Benchmarks for embodied energy & carbon: domestic buildings. Proc. of the International Conference of the Society for Sustainability and Environmental Engineering 07 (SSEE 07), 31 October–2 November, Perth, Australia.
Hammond, G.P. and Jones, C.I., 2008a. Embodied energy and carbon in construction materials, Proc. Instn Civil Engrs: Energy, 161 (2): 87–98. [DOI:10.1680/ener.2008.161.2.87].
Hammond, G.P. and Jones, C.I., 2008b. ‘Inventory of Carbon and Energy’(ICE), Version 1.6a, Sustainable Energy Research Team (SERT), Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Bath, Available from: www.bath.ac.uk/mech-eng/sert/embodied/.
Howard, N., Edwards, S. and Anderson, J., 1999. BRE Methodology for Environmental Profiles of Construction Materials, Components and Buildings. Report BR370, CRC, London.
IFIAS. 1974. Report of Workshop on Energy Analysis, International Federation of Institutes of Advanced Studies, Stockholm.
ISO. 2006a. Environmental management – Life Cycle Assessment – Principles and Framework. EN ISO 14040, International Standards Organization, Geneva, Second Edition.
ISO. 2006b. Environmental Management – Life Cycle Assessment – Requirements and Guidelines. EN ISO 14044, International Standards Organization, Geneva.
Loh, J. 2002. Living Planet Report 2002. WWF International, Gland, Switzerland.
ODPM, 2001. English House Condition Survey. Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, London, UK.
Palmer, J., Boardman, B., Bottrill, C., Darby, S., Hinnells, M., Killip, G., Layberry, R. and Lovell, H., 2006. Reducing the Environmental Impact of Housing. Final Report. Consultancy study in support of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution’s 26th Report on the Urban Environment. Environmental Change Institute, Oxford.
Rogers, R. 1997. Cities for a Small Planet, Faber and Faber, London.
Slesser, M. 1978. Energy in the Economy, Macmillan Press, London.
Treloar, G.J., Love, P.E.D., Faniran, O.O. and Iyer-Raniga, U., 2000. A hybrid life cycle assessment method for construction, Construction Management and Economics18 (1): 5–9.
Acknowledgments
The research leading to the development of the ICE inventory was principally supported via a UK research grant awarded by the Carbon Trust and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) [Grant GR/S94292/01, as part of the ‘Carbon Vision Buildings’ (Building Market Transformation (BMT)) Programme] awarded to the first author (GPH). Both authors are grateful to the BMT consortia co-ordinators: Dr Brenda Boardman and Dr Mark Hinnells of the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. Dr Boardman was succeeded in her post by Dr Nick Eyre on October 1, 2007. The corresponding author (CIJ) is at present partially funded via a strategic partnership between E.ON UK (the electricity generator) and the EPSRC to study the role of electricity within the context of ‘Transition Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy’ [under Grant EP/F022832/1]. Here the ICE database is being used to aid the determination of the embodied energy and carbon associated with various types of power generation plant. Prof. Hammond is the co-leader of this large consortium of university partners (jointly with Prof. Peter Pearson, an energy economist from Imperial College London). The authors greatly appreciate the interchange with Peter Pearson and the other main UK partners at E.ON Engineering and at the Universities of East Anglia (Prof. Jacquie Burgess), Leeds (Dr Timothy Foxon), Loughborough (Dr Murray Thomson), Surrey (Prof. Matthew Leach), and Strathclyde (Dr Graham Ault and Prof. David Infield), as well as at Imperial College London (Prof. Goran Strbac) and Kings College London (Dr Neil Strachan). The authors have also benefitted from a discourse with colleagues in the Sustainable Energy Research Team (SERT) at Bath. However, the views expressed are those of the authors alone and should not necessarily be attributed to the collaborators or funding bodies.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hammond, G.P., Jones, C.I. (2010). Embodied Carbon: The Concealed Impact of Residential Construction. In: Dincer, I., Hepbasli, A., Midilli, A., Karakoc, T. (eds) Global Warming. Green Energy and Technology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1017-2_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1017-2_23
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-1016-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-1017-2
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)