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Buildings and Climate Change

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Journal of Energy, Environment & Carbon Credits
Impact of Climate Change on Habitat and Health
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Buildings and Climate Change

Ms. Pratima Singh
Department of Resource Management, Institute of Home Economics, University of Delhi, India

ABSTRACT

It is a widely accepted fact that human activities are contributing to climate change at a very rapid pace.
Scientific evidence suggests climate change to be causal factor in rising sea levels, increased occurrence of
severe weather events, food shortages, changing patterns of disease, severe water shortages and the loss of
tropical forests significantly impacting almost every aspect of our environment, economies and societies.
This paper discusses the potential impact of buildings on climate leading to irreversible damage to
environment and ecosystem. Solution to the problem in the form of untapped potential of sustainable/green
buildings is also discussed to support energy efficiency and greenhouse gas (GHG) & non-CO2 GHG
emissions reduction.

Keywords: Greenhouse effect, global warming, energy resources, emissions.

*Author for Correspondence: E-mail : pratima_lic@hotmail.com

1. INTRODUCTION demand for larger houses, have added

Climate change is a grim issue impacting all
beings. It is an inevitable global challenge
having long-term implications for the
sustainable development of all the countries.
Numerous researches have claimed changing
weather patterns and rising sea levels due to
accelerated emissions of greenhouse gas
(GHG) from human activities. The Fourth
Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated
that between 1970 and 2004, global GHG
emissions due to human activities rose by 70
percent (IPCC, 2007).
The rapid growth of the global economy and
the rising trends in population and
urbanization has raised concrete jungles over
once verdant landscapes, threatening flora and
fauna. Social changes such as the splitting of
extended families into nuclear families and the
momentum to the increasing demand for
housing. Built up land increased from 0.23
billion global ha in 1961 to 0.44 billion global
ha in 2001; an increase of 91.3% (WWF,
2004). A combination of increasing quantity
and decreasing quality of the houses built is
straining the global ecosystem. Taking into
account its entire lifespan, the built
environment worldwide is currently
responsible for up to 25 to 40% of energy use,
30% of raw material use, 20% of water use
and 10% of land. The share of built
environment in global pollution emission is
estimated to be 30 to 40% solid waste
generation, 30 to 40% global greenhouse gas
(GHG) and 20 % water effluents (UNEP
DTIE, 2006). IPCC estimated rate of growth
of building-related GHG emissions to be 2.5%
per year for commercial buildings and 1.7%
per year for residential buildings (Levine et al,
2007). Furthermore, the Buildings and

ISSN: 2249-8621© STM Journals 2012. All Rights Reserved

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Journal of Energy, Environment & Carbon Credits
Impact of Climate Change on Habitat and Health
__________________________________________________________________________________________

Construction Sector is also responsible for
significant non-CO2 GHG emissions such as
halocarbons, CFCs, and HFCs, due to energy
consuming processes used for cooling,
refrigeration, and insulation materials. It is
likely that if nothing is done, GHG emissions
from buildings will be more than double in the
next 20 years.
While historically the majority of emissions
emanated from developed western countries, it
is expected that in the near future the level of
emissions from buildings in rapidly industri-
alizing countries in Asia will surpass emission
levels from buildings in developed western
countries. Even today, it is evident that clean
air is a major issue in the Asia Pacific region.
Of the 15 cities in the world with the highest
levels of particulate matter, 12 are located in
Asia. Urban air pollution contributes to the
death of nearly 0.5 million people annually in
Asia. Asia being the epicenter of natural
disasters necessitates massive reconstruction
efforts. And hence, there is a huge demand for
building materials in these areas. The
conventional methods of reconstruction and
resource use, lead to additional environmental
impacts such as soil erosion, flooding,
landslides and a loss in biodiversity.

Fig. 1: Energy-related CO2 emissions in major developing countries (1990-2000)

(Source: Buildings and Climate Change: Status, Challenges and Opportunities, 2007)

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Journal of Energy, Environment & Carbon Credits
Impact of Climate Change on Habitat and Health
__________________________________________________________________________________________

EMISSIONS THROUGHOUT A from fossil fuels. Significant GHG emissions

BUILDING’S LIFE CYCLE are also generated through construction
materials, in particular insulation materials,
In the life cycle of a building, various natural and refrigeration and cooling systems. Energy
resources are consumed, including energy consumption during the different stages of a
resources, water, land, and minerals, and many building’s life can be summarized as-
kinds of pollutants are released back to the
global environment. These environmental a) Manufacturing of building materials
inputs and outputs result in environmental (‘embedded’ or ‘embodied’ energy)
imbalances leading to global warming, b) Transport of these materials from
acidification, air pollution, etc., which inflict production plants to building sites (‘grey’
damage on human health and natural energy);
environment. Greenhouse gas emissions from c) Construction of the building (‘induced’
buildings primarily arise from their energy)
consumption of fossil-fuel based energy, both d) Operation of the building (‘operational’
through the direct use of fossil fuels and energy) and
through indirect use by consuming electricity e) Demolition of the building (and recycling
of which significant proportion is generated of their parts where this occurs).

Fig. 2: Energy consumed in the life of a building, estimated at 60 years

(Source: Buildings and Climate Change: Status, Challenges and Opportunities, 2007)

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Journal of Energy, Environment & Carbon Credits
Impact of Climate Change on Habitat and Health
__________________________________________________________________________________________
By far, the greatest proportion of the energy is
used during a building’s operational phase.
Research studies suggest that over 80% of
GHG emissions take place during a building’s
operational phase to meet various energy
needs such as heating, ventilation, and air
conditioning (HVAC), water heating, lighting,
entertainment and telecommunications
(Junnila, 2004; Suzuki and Oka, 1998;
Adalberth et al, 2001). A smaller percentage,
generally 10 to 20 percent, of energy is
consumed in materials manufacturing and
transport, construction, maintenance and
demolition. One can therefore achieve the
greatest reductions in greenhouse gas
emissions by targeting the operational phase of
buildings. This urges building professionals to
produce more energy-efficient buildings and
renovate existing stocks according to modern
sustainability criteria. Green and Eco-
buildings are the potent tools for achieving
sustainability and reducing impact of built
environment on environmental flora and
fauna.
GREEN BUILDING
Buildings have major environmental impact
over their entire life cycle. Buildings are one
of the major pollutants that affect air quality
and contribute to climate change. At the same
time, the building sector also has enormous
untapped potential for GHG and non-GHG
emissions reduction. It is important to support
energy efficiency and emission reduction
programmes in the building sector by
ISSN: 2249-8621© STM Journals 2012. All Rights Reserved
Page 64
recognizing them with high priority. Green
buildings can successfully achieve this and can
deliver rapid and cost-effective reductions to
emissions and energy consumption making
people realize is positive returns to the global
economy.
Green building refers to a comfortable and
healthy habitat, achieved by low impact
methods, consuming less resource than a
standard habitat, using environmental friendly
materials and products. Although new
technologies are constantly being developed to
complement current practices in creating
sustainable and green structures, the common
objective is that buildings need to be designed
keeping in mind the primary objective of
reducing the overall impact of the built
environment on human health and the natural
environment by:
 Efficiently using energy, water, and other
limited resources
 Protecting occupant health and improving
occupant productivity
 Reducing waste, pollution and
environmental degradation
This can be best achieved by being in harmony
with the ecosystem. The usual linear process
of resource extraction-use-disposal would be
converted to a self sustaining cyclic process by
adopting green-structures. Green building
reduces energy consumption in numerous
ways such as decreasing the embodied energy
of the building through efficient design, use of
Journal of Energy, Environment & Carbon Credits
Impact of Climate Change on Habitat and Health
__________________________________________________________________________________________
recycled and local materials, and recycling
construction waste. Building’s energy
consumption is also reduced over its lifetime
through strategically placed windows and
skylights, thus minimizing the need for
artificial ventilation and lighting. A single
mechanical fan can cool the house over night,
rather than relying on air conditioning. High
quality insulation reduces temperature
regulation costs in both summer and winter.
Additionally, houses can maximize passive
heating and cooling. South facing windows
with overhangs can reduce heating costs by 20
to 30 percent, and prevailing breezes, shading,
and natural plantings can keep houses cooler
in the summer. These are just the few
examples of the possibilities for reducing a
building’s energy requirements.
Specific solutions are applied to each situation,
such as for the construction of new buildings,
for the renovation of existing ones, for small
family houses and for large commercial
complexes. There is an urgent need to adapt
conventional buildings into more sustainable
and green habitats. However, these
technological solutions of green buildings can
only be helpful when building occupants are
committed to using energy-efficient systems in
an appropriate way.
SCENARIO IN INDIA
In India, green buildings literally means
“Only for rich concept.” The only few green
building initiatives in India are from the large
ISSN: 2249-8621© STM Journals 2012. All Rights Reserved
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housing corporate which demand towering
prices for such houses. Presently there is not a
single governmental scheme which talks about
“green slums or greening of slums’ or
‘greening of dwellings for all’.
The construction industry in India is being
growing at an astounding rate of 10% per
annum over the last ten years. As on October
2009, only a total 425 buildings have been
certified as green building covering over 310
million sq.ft area. Though research studies
reveal that buildings such as Wipro (Gurgaon),
ITC green centre (Gurgaon) and CII Godrej
GBC (Hyderabad) has significantly reduced
their energy to approximately 40-63% by
adopting green building standards, there is lot
more needs to be done from the governments
side. If the Energy Conservation Building
Codes are fully implemented, the overall
energy consumption from new commercial
buildings can be easily reduced by 25-40%.
Even in the existing commercial buildings,
retrofitting to standards can reduce the energy
consumption figure by around 25%.
CONCLUSION
Green Building is an emerging concept in the
rapid growing Infrastructure Industry. It is a
solution to the climate change and Global
warming which is mainly caused by
worldwide GHG emissions. Though this
concept is attracted by many countries and is
already implemented in many developed
countries in early 2000, in India, it is still in
Journal of Energy, Environment & Carbon Credits
Impact of Climate Change on Habitat and Health
__________________________________________________________________________________________

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 Journal of Energy, Environment & Carbon Credits
Impact of Climate Change on Habitat and Health
__________________________________________________________________________________________

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ISSN: 2249-8621© STM Journals 2012. All Rights Reserved

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