Comparison between the life cycle carbon footprint of refurbished and new buildings: a case study of community centre

Abstract

Buildings are a huge carbon emitter. Efforts are being made to cut both embodied and operational carbon emissions to reduce the impact on the built environment. This study aims to compare the Life Cycle Carbon Footprint (LCCF) and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of two alternatives: refurbishment and radical replacement of an existing community centre building in Liverpool to identify options that could achieve significant CO2 emission reductions in an economically viable way. The calculation methods are standardised by the United Kingdom's Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors to overcome the limitations of life cycle analysis undertaken in previous research. This refers to the Inventory of Carbon and Energy database from which embodied calculation factors were extracted to get the greenhouse gases. While the operational emissions data were obtained from a thermal simulation through Integrated Environmental Solutions software. The results of this study showed that the refurbishment scenario is the best option since it emits 50% less greenhouse gas and reaches 64% lower costs compared to the new build case throughout the building's life cycle. Such that the LCCF of the refurbishment scenario was 215,084.36 kgCO2 e/m2 and its LCC £ 88,135.32, while the replacement scenario achieved 429,397.44 kgCO2 e/m2 and £ 246,213.59. It can be deducted that to reach significant reductions in carbon emissions rates with a lower economic impact, refurbishment is preferable to demolition and new construction, even if the building shows several damages and defects, which suggests that the UK government should incentivise and encourage re-use for faster environmental rehabilitation.