Modeling environmental impacts of using sustainable wood on low-rise building construction in Taiwan

• Main Author: Li, Sheng-Han
• Published: University of Sheffield 2012
• Subjects: 691.1
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.575380

The purpose of this thesis was to identify using wood sustainably in buildings in Taiwan with low environmental impacts. First, attitudes of building design-related professionals were investigated towards the use of wood in building design in Taiwan. And then, since most of wood is imported to Taiwan from overseas, it is necessary to investigate the environmental impacts of wood and sustainability of wood resources. A simplified assessment of using wood in a sustainable manner was proposed, including five indicators, such as embodied energy consumption, embodied CO2 emissions, economic cost, forest resource and natural durability of wood species. In the third part of the thesis, environmental impacts of wood structure, reinforced concrete structure and steel structures were analysed in construction and material recovery phases. Both qualitative and quantitative research methodology was utilised in this thesis. Qualitative methodology in questionnaire survey was applied to the analysis of attitudes of building professionals towards the use of wood in Taiwan. Quantitative research based on life cycle assessment (LCA) was applied to the analysis of environmental impacts of imported wood and three different building structures in Taiwan. The results of questionnaire survey revealed positive attitudes towards the use of wood in building design. It has found that at present professionals preferred using wood in substructure than in main structure in building design. In addition, factors of economic value, beauty, sustainability of resources, availability of resources and the role of proprietor influenced their attitudes of wood utilisation. Besides, as for sustainability of using wood with five indicators, wood from Canada was the most sustainable resource, followed by Oceania, and Sweden. Concerning environmental impacts of three structures, no matter where wood was imported from, wood structure showed the least environmental impacts both from cradle to gate or from cradle to cradle perspectives