The housing sector is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and a large body of literature has focused on measuring the environmental impact of houses, using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. This literature reaches the conclusion that alternative construction materials should be used to reduce the environmental impact of buildings. While such research provides essential knowledge on the carbon footprint of the housing sector, few studies take into account the economic side of the issue. This paper addresses this gap by calculating the Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of houses and matching the results with the LCA stages. The methodology is developed for two reference houses in Belgium. Considering all elements and materials used in the construction process, this approach allows a comparison of each house’s elements based on the required investment to abate their carbon footprint. The most striking results are that (1) the operational stage (i.e., the use of houses) accounts for about 65% of the total carbon impact of a house; (2) a 1€ investment in sustainable materials induces a drop of 1 to 1.3 kgCO₂eq; (3) this effect is heterogeneous across materials, with the highest returns obtained for external walls (-6 KgCO₂eq) and windows (-3 to -6 kgCO₂eq) and the lowest returns obtained for ground floor (-0.3 kgCO₂eq).

中文翻译：

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建筑业的可持续发展成本 – 比利时的家庭住宅案例


住房部门是温室气体排放的主要贡献者，大量文献都集中在使用生命周期评估 （LCA） 方法衡量房屋对环境的影响上。该文献得出的结论是，应使用替代建筑材料来减少建筑物对环境的影响。虽然此类研究提供了有关住房部门碳足迹的基本知识，但很少有研究考虑到该问题的经济方面。本文通过计算房屋的生命周期成本 （LCC） 并将结果与 LCA 阶段相匹配来解决这一差距。该方法是为比利时的两家参考公司开发的。考虑到施工过程中使用的所有元素和材料，这种方法允许根据所需的投资对每栋房屋的元素进行比较，以减少其碳足迹。最引人注目的结果是 （1） 运营阶段（即房屋的使用）约占房屋总碳影响的 65%;（2） 对可持续材料投资 1 欧元会导致 1 至 1.3 kgCO₂当量下降;（3） 这种效应在不同材料之间是异质的，外墙（-6 KgCO₂eq）和窗户（-3 至 -6 kgCO₂eq）的回报最高，底层的回报最低（-0.3 kgCO₂eq）。