Short-Lived Buildings in China: Impacts on Water, Energy, and Carbon Emissions
Abstract
This paper has changed the vague understanding that "the short-lived buildings have huge environmental footprints (EF)" into a concrete one. By estimating the annual floor space of buildings demolished and calibrating the average building lifetime in China, this paper compared the EF under various assumptive extended buildings' lifetime scenarios based on time-series environmental-extended input-output model. Results show that if the average buildings' lifetime in China can be extended from the current 23.2 years to their designed life expectancy, 50 years, in 2011, China can reduce 5.8 Gt of water withdrawal, 127.1 Mtce of energy consumption, and 426.0 Mt of carbon emissions, each of which is equivalent to the corresponding annual EF of Belgium, Mexico, and Italy. These findings will urge China to extend the lifetime of existing and new buildings, in order to reduce the EF from further urbanization. This paper also verifies that the lifetime of a product or the replacement rate of a sector is a very important factor that influences the cumulative EF. When making policies to reduce the EF, adjusting people's behaviors to extend the lifetime of products or reduce the replacement rate of sectors may be a very simple and cost-effective option.
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Cai et al estimated that extending Chinese building lifespans to 50 years could reduce CO2 emissions by over 400 Mt per year (one fifth of current construction-related emissions) and save 3 EJ of energy per year.
“Cai et al [66] estimated that extending Chinese building lifespans to 50 years could dramatically reduce CO 2 emissions by over 400 Mt per year (one fifth of current construction-related emissions) and save 3 EJ of energy per year.”
From Material efficiency strategies to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with buildings, vehicles, and electronics—a review (2019) · cites this paper as [66]
Lifetime extension of buildings can reduce material-related GHG emissions by 40%.
“| | | ↓40% [66] | | | | →aging |”
From Material efficiency strategies to reducing greenhouse gas emissions associated with buildings, vehicles, and electronics—a review (2019) · cites this paper as [66]
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- Authors
- Cai, W., Wan, L., Jiang, Y., Wang, C., & Lin, L.
- Affiliations
- Tsinghua University (CN)
- State Key Joint Laboratory of Environment Simulation and Pollution Control (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Wang, Can
- Venue
- Environmental Science & Technology
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2015-11-24
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 24
- Pages
- 13921-13928
- ISSN
- 0013-936X (ISSN-L)
- 1520-5851
- OpenAlex
- W2278137156
- Cited by
- 125
- References
- 26
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 7
- FWCI
- 3.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Environmental Science & Technology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China (71273153, 71303133, 71525007)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Sustainability and Ecological Systems Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Building and Construction › Sustainable Building Design and Assessment
- Keywords
- building demolition, environmental footprint, water abstraction, energy consumption, CO2 emissions, urbanization, replacement rate, environmental extended input-output model, China
- MeSH terms
- Belgium, Carbon Dioxide, China, Conservation of Natural Resources, Energy-Generating Resources, Environment, Housing, Italy, Mexico, Models, Theoretical, Urbanization, Water
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