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

减少对新材料的需求和减少隐含碳将是建筑行业在未来几十年面临的最重大挑战之一。20世纪，包括目前锁在建筑物和基础设施中的材料在内的累计资源采掘量增长了23倍。这种消费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。解决这种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，其中材料高度重视并尽可能长时间地保持使用。然而，由于缺乏对建筑库存中锁定的材料类型和数量的详细了解，因此对CE潜力的估计是不可行的。该项目将开发一个空间多尺度框架，以评估单个建筑、城市和国家的节能潜力。将这个新框架应用到英国的非住宅建筑中，可以在建筑、城市和国家层面上对现有存量的节能潜力进行估计。该框架将利用自下而上的材料流分析来评估建筑水平的材料强度、隐含碳和CE潜力。这将与遥感和卫星数据相结合，以评估城市一级的建筑存量，并应用需求模型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节能潜力。这种材料需求的隐含碳影响也将被预测，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，因为建筑环境的整个生命周期中隐含碳的比例只会增加，并且随着电网的脱碳和运营温室气体排放的最小化，这一比例将继续增加。本研究将建立证据基础，以证明循环经济在应对建筑领域的这些挑战方面可以发挥的作用，并提供促进政策和实践转变所需的知识。

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.