Multi-scale, circular economic potential of non-residential building stock

减少对新材料的需求和减少具体化碳将是建筑业在未来几十年面临的最重大挑战之一。在20世纪，累计开采的资源增加了23倍，包括目前被锁在建筑物和基础设施中的材料。这种消耗速度远远超过了地球的再生能力，并对全球温室气体(GHG)排放产生了严重影响。解决这一相互关联的材料需求和排放问题需要在实践中逐步改变，并实施循环经济(CE)减少-再利用-再循环战略，在这些战略中，材料得到高度重视并尽可能长时间地使用。然而，缺乏对建筑库存中锁定的材料类型和数量的详细了解，使得估计CE潜力是不可行的。这个项目将开发一个空间多尺度框架，以评估个别建筑、城市和国家的CE潜力。将这一新框架应用于英国的非住宅建筑，将能够评估现有存量的CE潜力--在建筑、城市和国家层面。该框架将利用自下而上的材料流动分析来评估建筑水平的材料强度、体现的碳和CE潜力。这将与遥感和卫星数据相结合，以评估城市层面的建筑库存，并应用需求建模来探索未来的材料需求情景-考虑不同的建筑组合和优化的CE潜力。这种物质需求的具体碳影响也将得到预测，因此它可以被视为英国脱碳途径的一部分。这将是至关重要的，因为在建筑环境的整个生命周期中，体现碳的比例只会增加，而且随着电网脱碳，从而将运行中的温室气体排放降至最低，这种比例将继续增加。这项研究将建立证据基础，以证明循环经济在应对建设中的这些挑战方面可以发挥的作用，并提供必要的知识，以促进政策和实践的转变。

Reducing the demand for new materials and reducing embodied carbon will be one of the most significant challenges that the construction sector faces in the coming decades. The 20th century oversaw a 23-fold increase in accumulated resources extracted, including materials currently locked in buildings and infrastructure. This rate of consumption far exceeds the planet's capacity to regenerate, and has serious implications for global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Addressing this interlinked material demand and emissions problem requires a step-change in practice, and implementation of circular economic (CE) reduce-reuse-recycle strategies, where materials are highly valued and remain in use for as long as possible. However, detailed knowledge of material types and quantities that are locked in the building stock is lacking, making estimation of CE potential unfeasible. This project will develop a spatially multi-scale framework to assess CE potential in individual buildings, cities and countries.Application of this new framework to non-residential construction in the UK will enable estimation of CE potential in the existing stock - at building, city and national level. The framework will utilise bottom-up material flow analysis to assess building level material intensity, embodied carbon and CE potential. This will be combined with remote sensing and satellite data to assess city level building stocks, with demand modelling applied to explore future material demand scenarios - considering different construction mixes and optimised CE potential. The embodied carbon implications of this material demand will also be forecast so it can be considered as part of UK decarbonisation pathways. This will be essential as the proportion of embodied carbon in the whole life carbon of the built environment is only increasing, and will continue to do so as the electricity grid is decarbonised and thus operational GHG emissions are minimised. This research will build the evidence base to demonstrate the role the circular economy can have in tackling these challenges in construction, and provide the knowledge required to facilitate shifts in policy and practice.