Assessment of Environmental Impact of Thai Housing

Year 2011, Volume: 24 Issue: 3, 585 - 591, 25.11.2011

Nachawit Tikul , Panya Srichandr

Abstract

Building and construction has consumed a lot of various resources and emitted pollution.  These cause environmental problems, especially global warming.  The buildings and constructions in various regions and different styles will lead to different environmental problems and levels of seriousness.   The objective of this research is to assess the global warming impact from the use of construction materials in residential buildings since this type of building represents about 89% of all buildings in Thailand. The principles of ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006 were  used as the research methodology. The study started with collection of data and analysis of residential buildings in Thailand to conclude which type of building would be studies.  Based on the data collected, most of the residential buildings in Thailand are  two-storey reinforced concrete houses with an average space of 152 m2 consisting of 3 bedrooms, 2 restrooms, 1 kitchen, 1 dining room, 1 living room, hip roof and 1 car-parking area. This information was used as the functional unit. The system boundary of this study included all life cycles of building materials i.e. raw material extraction and processing, product manufacturing, transportation, installation, operation and maintenance, and disposal (at the end of the life-span of the materials). The life-span of the building is 50 years.  From the calculation, it is found that the value of global warming potential of Thai housing is  4.98E+07 gCO₂ eq. A reinforced concrete causes global warming of 4.98E+07 gCO₂ eq, and concrete is the construction material having the greatest environmental impact representing up to 2.55E+07 g CO₂ eq or 54.80%, followed by mortared brick wall of 1.35E+07 gCO₂ eq or 29.08%, and steel structures of 6.12E+06 gCO₂ eq or 13.13%.  However, laminated timber and door timber both have a positive effect upon the environment.

 

Keywords: environmental impact; global warming; Thai housing; building materials; life-cycle assessment.

 

 

Keywords

environmental impact; global warming; Thai housing; building materials; life-cycle assessment.

References

• CIWMB. Designing with vision: a technical manual for materials choices in sustainable construction. Management Board. (2000). Integrated Waste
• J. Heverlee. Green Architecture (Architecture & Design). Taschen. (2000).
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Indoor Air Facts No. 4 (revised) Sick Building Syndrome. (2007).
• Dominique Hes. The impact of a dominant culture on the greenness of the built environment – a response using a case study. Centre for Design, RMIT university. (2004).
• National Statistical Office Thailand. Report or Construction Industry Survey. (2000-2005).
• Asif M, Muneer T, Kelley R. Life Cycle Assessment: A case study of dwelling homes in Scotland. Build Environ. 2007:42(3):1391-1394
• International Organization for Standardization. ISO 14040: Environmental management - Life Cycle Assessment - Principles and framework. (2006).
• International Organization for Standardization. ISO 14044: Environmental management - Life Cycle guidelines. (2006). and
• The National Statistical Office. Percentage of Private Households by type of Living Quarters and Area. (2005).
• Real Estate Information Center. Housing. (2007).
• National Institute of Standards and Technology. Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability. (2006).
• B. Weidema and M.S. Wesnæs. Data Quality Management for Life Cycle Inventories: an Example of using Data Quality Indicators. J. Cleaner Production, 4(3):167-174 (1996)
• R. Bretz. SETAC LCA Workgroup: Data Availability and Data Quality. CIBA Specialty Chemicals Inc., Consumer Care Division. Switzerland. (1998).
• R.R. Tan and Lee Michael A. Briones. Fuzzy data reconciliation in reacting and non-reacting process data for life cycle inventory analysis. Journal of Cleaner Production. 2