Paper from the First International Conference on Buildings and the Environment, 16-20 May 1994, held at the Building Research Establishment, Watford, UK.

 SUMMARY

Embodied energy (ee) of building materials is an important component of total energy use related to buildings and construction. This is increasingly the case as energy use in buildings becomes better controlled.

This paper describes recent studies of embodied energy for seven major building materials. Methods have been developed by which the ee and consequential carbon dioxide emissions of alternative building designs can be estimated and aggregated for designs of buildings with different combinations of materials.

Initial ee is but one factor for making environmental comparisons between materials; other environmental impacts and life cycle factors such as maintenance and refurbishment must also be considered in developing an overall assessment of environmental implications.