This research presents the global warming potential (GWP) from ‘cradle to construction site gate’ for both a hypothetical office building and apartment building, located in New South Wales, Australia.
For each building type two different building processes were evaluated: a conventional cast-in-place reinforced concrete framed building and an engineered timber building.
The GWP per Gross Floor Area per square metre for the office building was 202 kgCO2-e/m2 [i.e. kilograms of CO2 equivalent gases per square metre] for the reinforced concrete building and only 46 kgCO2-e/m2 for the timber building, less than a quarter as much.
The GWP per Gross Floor Area per square metre for the apartment building was 205 kgCO2-e/m2 for the reinforced concrete building and 93 kgCO2-e/m2 for the timber building.
The amount of greenhouse gases potentially sequestered in the timber office building was 2,500 tonnes of CO2-e and 1411 tonnes of CO2-e in the timber apartment building.
