Characterizing The Environmental Implications From The Decoration Activities Of Buildings By Using LCA Method

The construction industry is the pillar industry of the national economy.While maintaining the sustained growth of the national economy and promoting the continuous improvement of living standards,it also brings tremendous pressure to the ecological environment,because it consumes enormous resources and energy as well as produces huge amount of construction waste.In the life span of buildings,the resources,energy consumption and environmental impact of decoration and decoration projects are relatively small compared with other construction stages?such as construction of the building structure?.Even the attention of decoration stage is kind of low,the variety of materials and the complexity of the process of decoration are rather complex during the decoration of civil buildings?residential or commercial buildings,etc.?.That is the reason why the level of green development of civil buildings needs to be improved urgently.It is of great academic value and practical significance to carry out environmental impact research of decoration projects.Based on the theory and method of life cycle assessment?LCA?,this study defines the object and scope of LCA research for decoration projects.At the same time,52 commercial and residential decoration projects are investigated as field research.First-hand data information such as material consumption lists,equipment energy consumption data and the generation of decoration waste is obtained.At the same time the LCA software and database?Gabi?provides an environmental effect assessment method?in terms of carbon emissions?from different dimensions of decoration projects.In addition,on the macro scale,the environmental impact of China's building decoration projects?to the year 2050?is preliminarily estimated and predicted.Based on the predicting conclusion,this study put forward some strategies for reducing environment impact.The results show that:Equivalent carbon emissions per unit area of commercial and residential decoration processes?including raw material production,construction and installation processes as well as waste disposal stages?are 137 kg CO₂ eq/m² and 30 kg CO₂eq/m²,respectively.Among the four sub-divisional of decoration process,the construction process of floor project produces the greatest environmental impact?residential and commercial constitute 46%and 86%respectively?.In order to control the environmental impact?take carbon emission as the principle?of decoration project,scenario-based hypothesis analysis?such as choosing low-carbon green decoration materials and choosing clean energy to reduce energy consumption and emissions?is carried out.Commercial and residential buildings can reduce up to 51%?60kg CO₂ eq/m²?and 43%?13kg CO₂ eq/m²?carbon emissions using the method carried out.In addition,the implementation of the full decoration contract model can reduce 49%of the carbon emissions.If the scope is the whole country?taken the year 2017 as an example?,the carbon emissions can be reduced up to 130million tons cumulatively.This study can provide references for identifying the main environmental impact factors of decoration projects and proposing the optimization methods of decoration plans?including materials and processes?as well as estimate the environmental impact of decoration industry.