Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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Emergy parameters for ensuring sustainable use of building materials

Tilba Thomas a, b, A. Praveen b, *
a
APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University, Kerala, India
b
Department of Civil Engineering, Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Technology, Kottayam, 686 501, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The transition towards a more resource efficient economy require suitable policies to regulate the re-
Received 20 December 2019 sources needed to support development initiatives. Unregulated extraction of natural resources to
Received in revised form support infrastructure expansion activities has led to resource constraints and environmental degrada-
13 May 2020
tion. Hence an appropriate regulatory tool is necessary to ensure sustainability in resource use. The
Accepted 18 May 2020
Available online 17 July 2020
utility of emergy for resource use regulation in the construction industry has been demonstrated in this
study. Emergy analysis has been identified as a comprehensive approach which is able to accommodate
^ as de
Handling editor. Cecilia Maria Villas Bo the work done by biosphere towards the formation of resources along with the energy used, until refined
Almeida products are evolved out of them. An environmentally fragile area has been chosen as the study area and
building data for the past 25 years has been analyzed using emergy approach to evaluate the environ-
Keywords: mental performance of buildings. Different parameters to assess sustainability of materials and processes
Emergy connected with construction sector has been evolved in line with the thermodynamic principles. Further,
Sustainability the investigations undertaken have also established that a sustainable material use policy can be evolved
Building material
across the required time periods to facilitate efficient utilization of natural resources and building ma-
Policy regulation
terials. Emergy per unit cost, emergy per unit area of the building and percentage of emergy content in
various building materials are identified as the key parameters that could be used to regulate the
environmental sustainability of resource use in the construction sector. Also, establishing a time scale
based resource use factor to ensure renewability of every natural resource would help not only to evolve
strategies for optimum resource use but also to identify the potential options for recycling/reuse of
construction materials.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction damaged the local ecosystem by triggering regional instability

Buildings consume significant amount of natural resources as
raw materials during its construction phase and often end its useful
period of life by generating large quantities of waste (Bjorn, 2001).
Over these years, this process has culminated in over-exploitation
of environmental resources, global warming, damage to biotic
and abiotic components and creation of higher environmental
toxicity potentials (Wagner, 2002; Amoe ^da, 2015). Construction
activity often consumes considerable quantity of inert natural
materials towards the preparation of aggregates and building
blocks such as clay block, granite, and natural stones. Uncontrolled
extraction of raw materials from their places of origin to meet the
rising demand, which initially might not be perceived as unsus-
tainable, have resulted in severe environmental problems and
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: praveen@rit.ac.in (A. Praveen).
(Brown and Ulgiati, 1997). These in turn raise significant challenges
in ensuring sustainable use of construction materials that have very
low replenishment rates (Bianchini et al., 2005). Several options are
exercised to reduce this growing environmental degradation
caused by the uncontrolled extraction and use of resources.
Replacement of natural aggregates with recycled aggregates and
development of new materials to ensure sustainable processes are
found to have positive effect on reducing the emission of carbon
dioxide-one of the most harmful greenhouse gas of anthropogenic
origin (Burciaga et al., 2019; Reddy et al., 2019). Further, attempts
are also made to configure the occupancy spaces in building units
and to design the functional elements in order to reduce con-
sumption of environmental resources and also the maintenance
costs (Juan and Cheng, 2018).
The concept of material or product circularity is an emerging
approach towards ensuring sustainability of construction materials.
Demand to implement policies and regulations on material energy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.122382
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 T. Thomas, A. Praveen / Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382
efficiency coupled with compelling need for certifications in envi-
ronmental sustainability of building systems force the existing
buildings too to renovate, repair or replace the redundant compo-
nents or units (Andric et al., 2017). The eventual demolition or
modification of existing buildings to meet the aforementioned re-
quirements in addition to the construction of new buildings, is
expected to produce significant quantity of waste unless it is
effectively reused (Khasreen et al., 2009). Thus, a transition is
required from the linear understanding of consumption and pro-
duction of construction materials towards a circular model where
the products and materials continue to circulate instead of ending
up as waste (Bundgaard et al., 2017; Tecchio et al., 2017; Ghisellini
et al., 2016). Several works have been carried out for improving the
material circularity through improving the supply chain manage-
ment of materials (Gharaei et al., 2019a, 2019b; Hoseini Shekarabi
et al., 2019). Further, research efforts are also undertaken for
improving the quality control and green production policies of
materials (Gharaei et al., 2019c, 2019d). Thus, in order to regulate
the resource consumption in a sustainable manner, an appropriate
yardstick for optimizing consumption is necessary.
Different parameters to assess sustainability in the selection of
materials and construction processes are also widely reported.
Thermodynamic principles are successfully used for defining
environmental sustainability of building systems (Dincer and
Rosen, 2012; Amantea et al., 2014). Buildings can be considered
as thermodynamic engines that use energy to provide specific
services and also maintain acceptable performance even under
varying environmental conditions (Pulselli et al., 2007). A growing
number of tools such as energy analysis, ecological footprint anal-
ysis, life cycle analysis, exergy analysis, emergy analysis, etc. are
available for evaluating the material and energy requirements of
these thermodynamic engines (Amponsah, 2011). However, except
the emergy analysis tool, all the other available techniques are
unable to provide a comprehensive environmental analysis as they
exclude the environmental work provided by the biosphere in the
formation of resources along with the energy used during extrac-
tion, manufacturing and maintenance of building elements
(Srinivasan et al., 2011). Emergy is identified as a scientific method
that can offer a more accurate and detailed picture of complex
systems and their association with ecological elements (Niccolucci
et al., 2007; Williamson et al., 2015). It accounts for services pro-
vided by the environment which are free and outside the economy
established on the basis of monitory transactions (Brown and
Ulgiati, 1999). Emergy analysis has been widely used to evaluate
various types of systems, including geographical systems, food
production, industrial processes, buildings, knowledge and human
work (Amaral et al., 2016). It is also considered as a powerful tool
for evaluating the housing and building industry and has demon-
strated its utility in the development of environmental designs.
Emergy based approach could successfully develop optimal insu-
lation levels for a building envelope and to elevate its performance
to meet maximum potential (Pulselli et al., 2007; Srinivasan et al.,
2011). Emergy is also used to assess the optimum levels of recy-
cling and is observed that materials whose refining costs are high
have the greatest benefits when recycled (Amponsah et al., 2011,
2012; Brown and Buranakarn, 2003).
Emergy can be defined as the sum of all inputs of energy needed
directly or indirectly to produce products or deliver services
(Odum, 1996; Brown and Ulgiati, 2004). It is the memory of all
energy values that was degraded in a transformation process before
reaching the current state of any matter (Brown and Ulgiati, 1999).
Different forms of energy are involved in the emergy estimation of
materials and the emergy value of each of the streams and systems
in the network of energy flow is determined in emergy analysis
(Hau and Bakshi, 2004). In this, the energy value of all materials are
converted into a common unit of solar energy called solar emergy
joules or in short, solar emjoules (sej). This enables the direct
comparison of various materials, energies, and processes which
could not have been done otherwise (Brown and Ulgiati, 2004).
Emergy estimation incorporates the rate of natural resource con-
sumption and exploitation, carrying capacity of the environment,
and the production of wastes and pollutants across the lifecycle
(Giannetti et al., 2006). Sustainability of materials used in the
building systems could also be effectively assessed using emergy
analysis. Environmental assessment of buildings using emergy is
gaining momentum among the research community as it unifies
different kinds of energy used for the material production and
services into a common unit (Roudebush and BrownM T, 2015).
The baseline reference for all emergy calculations includes three
sources of earth energy: the available energy from solar radiation,
geothermal sources, and dissipation of tidal momentum (Brown
et al., 2016). The solar emergy of a resource or commodity is
calculated by expressing all the resources and energy inputs used
for its production in terms of their corresponding inputs of solar
energy equivalent (Odum, 1996). Thus, the concept of emergy helps
to overcome the obstacles faced in using varied types of energy
obtained from different materials or sources that are traditionally
used (Amponsah, 2011). The Unit Emergy Value (UEV) of an item
can then be derived, which is the emergy required to generate one
unit of a product or service, either directly or indirectly. In some
cases, it is convenient to express emergy as per unit basis of vol-
ume, mass, etc. to transform the accounted quantities in the
emergy expression (Giannetti et al., 2006). Higher UEV of a service
or product is an indicator of a higher amount of energy utilized in
the production of 1 unit of that service or product and vice versa.
Thus, the total solar emergy of a product, can be estimated using
Eqn. 1,
X
n
U¼ Ei  Ti (1)
i¼1
where U is the total emergy calculated over all the independent
input flows, Ei is the exergy, i.e., the energy available to be used, and
Ti is the solar transformity of the ith input flow of a product or
service. The same item can have varying values of transformity
depending upon the system pathways used for its production. In
order to avoid the repetitive process of calculating the trans-
formities each time, UEVs reported in the earlier studies are used
here (Amponsah and Le Corre, 2011). Though emergy is increas-
ingly being used as a tool for environmental system evaluations, it
is still in its early stages with many issues yet to be resolved,
especially in the evaluation of building construction sector. These
issues include variability in UEVs of the same material depending
on the place of origin, method of production and baseline revisions
occurring from time to time. Subsequently, it is also suggested that
emergy investigation results could be appropriately used by public
policymakers in the planning of sustainable pathways for resource
use, as well as for careful management of natural resources (Ulgiati
et al., 1994).
The resource use pattern is observed to vary across different
time periods and hence intervention at appropriate instant need to
be initiated judiciously. Investigating the time scale effect on the
ecosystem services, when appropriately represented in the emergy
values, would provide utility information for policy framing and
regulatory intervention on natural resource use. Emergy per unit
cost is an appropriate indicator of environmental degradation is-
sues emerging from extraction/procurement of natural resources. It
could be used to identify the cost escalation occurring due to
sudden variation in material supply. Building emergy to building
 T. Thomas, A. Praveen / Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382
cost ratio has been used earlier to assess the emergy flow involved
in a building maintenance activity (Pulselli et al., 2007). Emdollars
which are considered as the economic equivalent of emergy is
obtained by dividing emergy by the ratio of emergy to money in the
economy and they reflect emergy contributions to an economy
(Odum, 2002). Another parameter called emprice, which is the
emergy received for money spent, is appropriate to assess the life
cycle emergy cost of materials like concrete and clay brick (Brown
and Buranakarn, 2003). Environmental barriers in the procurement
of materials that result in the cost escalation and environmental
degradation could be forecasted well in advance by correlating with
the available market cost information on materials. Thus, when the
focus is given on any particular sector or production process such as
building industry, emergy based parameters are capable of
providing insights into the thermodynamic efficiency and quality of
the process and its output, and its interaction with the surrounding
environment (Brown and Ulgiati, 1997). This makes it necessary to
demonstrate the utility of emergy parameters for real time envi-
ronmental assessment of resource use pattern prevailing in a re-
gion. Suitability in selecting emergy as a parameter for the resource
use regulation in the construction industry is evaluated based on
the data obtained from randomly selected houses constructed in
the chosen study area during a period of 25 years from 1994 to
2018. The specific objectives of the research are to understand (i)
the implication of material use based on the variation of building
emergy values across a time span of 25 years (ii) the impact of
various material choices that emerged during the chosen period
(iii) identification of appropriate emergy parameters that could act
as a tool to regulate the resource use and (iv) to establish the utility
of emergy parameters for understanding the interaction of con-
struction process with the surrounding environment.
Organization of this paper consists of the following sections.
Section 1 included introduction, review of literature and objectives
of this research. Section 2 describes the methodology of work un-
dertaken and illustrates the study area and its environmental sig-
nificance. This section also contains the system boundary and
systems diagram which is the basic element of emergy analysis.
Section 3 discusses the results of analysis carried out on the vari-
ation of material emergy, key contributors of emergy and param-
eters of emergy to assess resource availability. Section 4 presents
the conclusion, future impact and limitations of the current study.
2. Methodology
Unregulated extraction of natural resources to support infra-
structural development projects have culminated in environmental
degradation at several locations across the world (Shiferaw and
Holden, 1998; Croitoru and Sarraf, 2010). In order to assess the
impact at regional level, a sample area from Wayanad district
located in the southern most state of Indian peninsula, Kerala, is
selected. The chosen area is considered as one of the eight “hottest
hot-spots” among the thirty six biodiversity hotspots around the
world (Western GhatsUNESCOWorld Heritage Convention, 1342).
The study area, having an elevation of 700e2100 m above mean sea
level, is geographically located along the edge of Deccan plateau
and is also a part of highly sensitive Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve
designated as UNESCO World Heritage site (Santhoshkumar and
Kaoru, 2010; Sateesh et al., 2018). Even though a significant part
of the district is covered by forest, continued and indiscriminate
exploitation of the natural resources point towards an imminent
environmental crisis leading to serious concerns to its fragile
ecology (Münster and Münster, 2012). Inorder to counter the
deteriorating environmental state, efforts are being undertaken to
make the developmental processes ‘carbon neutral’ in the study
area (Mani et al. 2011).
3
The existing emergy parameters such as Environmental Loading
ratio (ELR), Emergy Yield Ratio (EYR), Emergy Investment Ratio
(EIR), Sustainability Index (SI), Recycle Benefit Ratio (RBR) and
Recycle Yield Ratio (RYR) are successfully used in assessing envi-
ronmental implications of resource use (Brown and Ulgiati, 1997;
Amponsah et al., 2011). But often, these parameters fall short of
providing required information that would facilitate real time
assessment of the implications. Thus in order to regulate and
quantify the resource use in construction industry, relevance of
using emergy based parameters for a period of 25 years spanning
from 1994 to 2018 using the data on building materials used for the
construction of residential units in this environmentally vulnerable
region are investigated. A systems diagram which represents the
system boundary and the resource flow in and out of the system
forms the basis of analysis. The various steps of action undertaken
in this investigation are explained in subsequent sections.
2.1. Sample description and systems diagram boundary
Detailed information regarding the materials used in a
randomly selected building constructed every year from 1994 to
2018 were collected from the respective planners/builders. In order
to assess the variation of material cost during the chosen period,
the market price of all the important materials corresponding to
the time of construction were also collected from the records
available at Economics and Statistics department, Government of
Kerala (Market price of building, 2019). The common resource flow
pattern in the construction of residential units is represented using
systems diagram which provides an overview of the scope and
boundaries considered in the analysis. Energy pathways shown in
Fig. 2 represent all driving energies of the materials and their in-
teractions within the system. The systems diagram is prepared
using standard systems language symbols where both industrially
procured materials and naturally procured materials flow into the
building system and the waste generated goes to the energy sink
(Odum, 1996). The human labour and services related to building
construction that did not significantly influence the UEVs of ma-
terials were excluded in this analysis (Meillaud et al., 2005). The
building material data collected are segregated to compute the
emergy values of the building components using the available UEVs
as shown in Table 1. Building construction sector is witnessing large
scale introduction of new materials and this phenomenon has
resulted in more dependence on the industrial materials over those
that are pooled directly from natural deposits. Emergy assessment
of materials used in the building units would reflect overall impact
due to the resource use at a global scale. This has resulted in the
investigation of two different scenarios, namely, the impact of
resource extraction on the construction process at the regional
level and escalation in the material emergy values due to improved
production processes. These aspects are evaluated based on esti-
mation of emergy values of materials used for building
Table 1
Unit Emergy Values used in this paper *UEV values are relative to.GEB2016
Item UEV(sej/kg) Reference
Brick 2.79Eþ12 Brown and Buranakarn (2003)
Cement 2.68Eþ12 Brown and Buranakarn (2003)
Gravel 1.28Eþ12 Odum (1996)
Sand 1.70Eþ12 Amoe^da (2010)
Steel 5.29Eþ12 Brown and Buranakarn (2003)
Rubble 1.28Eþ12 Odum (1996)
Wood 1.82Eþ12 Odum (1996)
Paint 1.94Eþ13 Brown and Buranakarn (2003)
Laterite 1.66Eþ12 Computed by authors
Mosaic 1.47Eþ12 Computed by authors
4 T. Thomas, A. Praveen / Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382

construction in the sampled region. Hence, variation of emergy for
different materials were studied to extract the environmental effect
across the timescale, including those procured directly from nature
and industrially produced ones. This investigation would also help
to identify the impact of various new material choices that emerged
during the period of study. The cost of materials, that experience
various barriers in their procurement or undergoing significant
short fall in supply, tend to rise as per the principles of demand-
supply theory. This phenomenon forces to rely on emergy per
unit cost of each material in order to forecast environmental
implication in procurement well in advance using the available
market information on various materials. Material emergy values
per unit area of building unit is an appropriate parameter to isolate
the significant materials that demand sustainability interventions
in construction unit. Also, the relation between total emergy value
of each material and its percentage by volume constructed is a
direct estimator for regulating the procurement management.
The UEVs of all the materials used in the construction of

Fig. 1. Flow chart of the methodology adopted.

 T. Thomas, A. Praveen / Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382 5

sampled buildings were corrected to the revised Geobiosphere
Emergy Baseline (GEB2016 ) established by (Brown et al., 2016). Also,
for a few locally used materials like laterite and mosaic tiles, UEVs
were computed by authors based on GEB2016 . The UEV estimation
of both laterite and mosaic is provided in Table 4. After determining
the emergy contribution of individual elements of the building, the
total emergy contribution of the building was computed for all the
buildings across the span of 25 years. A flowchart of the method-
ology adopted is shown in Fig. 1. A description of the entire build-
ings selected for the study and a brief illustration of the emergy
computation for one building among the chosen samples are pro-
vided in Table 2 and Table 3 respectively. The utility of using emergy
to assess impact in the construction process based on changes in
the material choices over a period of 25 years is discussed in the
following section.
Fig. 2. Systems diagram for existing material flow in the construction of small resi-
dential units.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Variation in material emergy
Fig. 3 provide information on the variation in percentage of
emergy value for different building materials to the total emergy
value of the buildings across all the sampled residential units
constructed during the period 1994 to 2018. The span of 25 years
have witnessed widely varying choices made in the selection of
materials. Major contributors to the emergy associated with the
building components are observed to be brick masonry, rubble
masonry, flooring, concrete and plastering. Significant variation in
emergy observed among those aforementioned components across
different building units are due to large variation in the quantity
used. Also, as these materials occupied a major bulk of the con-
structed volume, optimized selection based on the strength and
emergy of materials for the required functional space is needed to
address the prevailing resource use pattern. Among the masonry
and concrete components in the building, majority of the materials
are procured from locally available source deposits. Emergy
contribution in these segments are mostly from the high volume of
lower emergy valued materials that are directly extracted from
source. While emergy contribution from materials like cement,
paint etc., inspite of high UEVs, are not observed as significant due
to their relatively lesser volume. The improvement in material
quality achieved due to more refined production process is the
reason for increased emergy values and better engineering per-
formance. Flooring materials, which had very low emergy share
during the earlier years have now turned out to be a very high
contributor due to availability of better quality material in the
market. Also, it is observed that several newer materials for flooring
are introduced into the market in such a short span-from conven-
tional materials like red oxide polish, burnt clay tiles, mosaic tiles
and natural stones to vitrified ceramic tiles, which is the commonly
used flooring material in majority of the newly constructed
buildings.
Inspite of being the component with the lowest emergy share,
masonry is the most significant contributor due to higher volume of
materials required for construction of walls. Only a significant
reduction in the constructed volume of these components could

Table 2
Description of buildings selected for the study.

Year Area of the chosen building unit(sq.m) Building typology

Number of stories Foundation type Type of masonry for walls Flooring material Roofing type

1994 84.70 1 Random rubble Brick Mosaic RCC

1998 261.80 2 Random rubble Brick Mosaic RCC
2001 149.60 2 Random rubble Brick Red Oxide RCC
2002 147.40 1 Random rubble Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2003 329.98 2 Random rubble Brick Cement Concrete RCC
2004 69.85 1 Random rubble Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2005 94.60 2 Random rubble Brick Marble RCC
2006 202.77 2 Random rubble Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2007 75.90 1 Random rubble Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2008 256.30 1 Random rubble Brick Wooden Piece and Ceramic Tiles RCC
2009 141.49 2 Random rubble Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2010 80.30 1 Random rubble Laterite Ceramic Tiles RCC
2011 313.50 2 Random rubble Laterite and Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2012 164.38 2 Random rubble Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2013 506.00 1 Random rubble Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2014 130.71 1 Random rubble Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2015 222.54 2 Random rubble Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2016 250.80 2 Random rubble Brick Ceramic Tiles RCC
2017 217.17 2 Random rubble Brick Vitrified Tiles RCC
2018 213.66 1 Column Footing Brick Granite and Vitrified Tiles RCC

*Reinforced Cement Concrete is abbreviated as RCC.

6 T. Thomas, A. Praveen / Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382

Table 3
Sample emergy computation of a house constructed in 2014.

Building Element Component Unit Raw Data UEV (sej/kg) Solar Emergy(sej)

Random Rubble masonry Rubble kg 48369.42 1.3Eþ12 6.17Eþ16

Cement Mortar kg 35867.52 2.5Eþ12 9.01Eþ16
Brick masonry Cement Mortar kg 22298.75 2.5Eþ12 5.60Eþ16
Brick kg 68715.73 2.8Eþ12 1.92Eþ17
Concrete Plain Cement Concrete kg 19200 1.4Eþ12 2.64Eþ16
Reinforced Cement Concrete kg 80250 1.4Eþ12 1.10Eþ17
Plastering Wall Plastering kg 12155.52 2.5Eþ12 3.06Eþ16
Ceiling Plastering kg 9771.84 2.5Eþ12 2.46Eþ16
Flooring Ceramic Tiles kg 6624 2.8Eþ12 1.85Eþ16
Plain Cement Concrete kg 205200 1.4Eþ12 2.82Eþ17
Cement Mortar kg 3556.80 2.5Eþ12 8.94Eþ15
Painting Painting on wood kg 8.77 1.9Eþ13 1.70Eþ14
White washing on wall kg 155.04 1.9Eþ13 3.00Eþ15
Doors and Windows Wood frames kg 385.73 1.8Eþ12 7.03Eþ14
Glazed shutters kg 220.70 1.1Eþ12 2.35Eþ14
Reinforcement Mild Steel rods kg 2568 5.3Eþ12 1.36Eþ16
Total Emergy of the building 9.18Eþ17

Table 4
Unit Emergy Value computation of laterite stone and mosaic.

Materials Component Component level Unit Emergy Value (sej/kg) Quantity (kg) Emergy of components (sej/kg) Unit Emergy Value of the material (sej/kg)

Laterite Clay 2.55Eþ12 0.30 7.65Eþ11

Sand 1.28Eþ12 0.70 8.96Eþ11 1.66Eþ12
Mosaic Cement 2.68Eþ12 0.14 3.83Eþ11
Marble dust 1.28Eþ12 0.21 2.74Eþ11
Sand 1.28Eþ12 0.21 2.74Eþ11
Stone Chips 1.28Eþ12 0.43 5.46Eþ11 1.47Eþ12

lower the inherent emergy value attached to them. A few earlier
buildings had used low emergy materials like laterite stones, but
soon the faster rate of extraction has led to the emergence of
concrete block, which possesses a higher emergy value. Burnt clay
bricks too were used in earlier buildings which, due to environ-
mental reasons are currently not available in the market. Founda-
tion units too had exercised different options ranging from random
rubble masonry to isolated column footing. The UEV of rubble is
very low, but the higher volume requirement in construction
Fig. 3. Variation in material emergy among the sampled buildings.
resulted in the escalated emergy level. Another significant obser-
vation is that of concrete which is positioned as the major emergy
contributor. It is a material with high UEV and significant con-
structed volume. The variation in the emergy contribution of other
elements such as steel, plastering, wood, painting etc., which have
high UEV is found to be negligibly small. Though UEV of industrially
produced materials used in the construction process is high, their
total emergy share in the entire building is observed to be insig-
nificant due to very low quantity requirement. Wood is mostly used
for doors and windows, but is increasingly being replaced by pre-
fabricated doors and windows made out of concrete, steel,
aluminium or PVC (Poly Vinyl Chloride) based products. This
replacement has occurred due to short fall in the supply of timber.
The total replacement of wood products to RCC precast doors,
windows and ventilator have not resulted in a visible rise in the
emergy contribution due to lesser quantity of the materials used.
The change in emergy values are basically attributed to two
factors: (i) shift in the choice of materials from those with low
emergy value due to the introduction of better materials that have
higher emergy and (ii) large volume requirement of materials with
low emergy values. The increased purchasing power of the people
have led to the construction of larger buildings along with their
preference for high valued materials. The low emergy materials
were always required in bulk and was extracted in an unregulated
environment and eventually culminated in large scale degradation
and restriction in procurement. The prevailing practice of material
reuse/recycle in the construction process is very minimal though
large volume of construction materials being used have very low
emergy values and with high reuse/recycle potential. Even for the
materials that are high in emergy level such as steel, non-formal
pooling centres to support recycling options do exist. Total
emergy of a building unit is influenced by the low emergy materials
which had bulk requirement while the materials that have very
high UEV have a meager percentage share of total building emergy.
T. Thomas, A. Praveen / Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382 7

Fig. 4. Influence of material volume on total emergy of building.

8 T. Thomas, A. Praveen / Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382
Thus, addressing sustainability of built environment require
detailed assessment of material emergy at different stages in the
building life cycle and ensuring continuous effort for optimum
resource use.
In Fig. 4, the slope of the points give the effect of increase in
emergy share when volume of construction increases. It is observed
that for all the materials, relation between percentage of material
emergy to the total volume of construction is linear. This also de-
mands an alternate view point on material emergy representation.
Inspite of modifying UEVs used in the emergy estimation based on
GEB data, they are still unable to reflect the material source state
needed for maintaining the sustainable resource procurement. The
emergy estimation also need to reflect the regeneration potential of
materials in order to monitor their rate of extraction, assess the
impact of recyclability and the need for appropriate regulatory
interventions.
3.2. Key contributors of emergy
Emergy of individual materials per unit floor area of the building
is observed to be very useful to assess the environmental signifi-
cance of materials used in construction. In addition, it would also
act as a pointer towards assessing its recyclability potential.
Further, it is very difficult to assess the rate of extraction of building
materials from the deposits that span across wider geographical
extend. Hence, opportunity to have an early intervention to regu-
late their prevailing use can be provided using emergy based pa-
rameters. The plots of Fig. 6 show that the emergy footprint
observed in a building for various materials across the selected time
period has not varied much, though majority of naturally procured
materials reflected the effect of environmental barriers in their
procurement. An evaluation of constructed volume, the type of
material chosen, and their emergy values are necessary to under-
stand the appropriateness of decisions related to the building ty-
pologies. From Fig. 5, emergy value estimated per square metre of
buildings has not varied significantly across the period while the
total emergy value of the building units exhibited an increasing
trend. A near constant value of specific emergy of buildings es-
tablishes that despite wider variation in the choice of materials,
emergy values connected with the items used in bulk volume need
to be paid proper attention to ensure sustainability action. Hence
the need for evolving dynamic pathways for emergy estimation of
Fig. 5. Variation of total emergy and emergy per unit floor area of building unit across
the selected time period.
the construction materials towards the selection of appropriate
materials is justified.
3.3. Emergy to assess resource availability
Effective regulations for resource use can be implemented only
if emergy parameters are able to reflect the dynamic response of
environmental systems. The emergence of severe environmental
stress due to increased consumption of non-renewable construc-
tion resources as a result of increased wealth has been established
from the analysis. This strengthens the earlier observations made
on the connectivity between affluence, consumerism and envi-
ronmental health (Brown and Ulgiati, 1997). Further, appropriate
regulatory curbs imposed by government or administrative
agencies, which acted as an environmental barrier in the procure-
ment of natural materials in the region having higher purchasing
capacity, led to the escalation in market cost of the materials. In this
context, emergy per unit cost would be able to assess the sustain-
ability in construction material sourcing. It is clearly observed from
Fig. 7 that the emergy per unit cost of all materials decreased along
the time span of 25 years. For the industrially procured materials
like steel, paint, and cement, the fluctuation in emergy per unit cost
across 25 years demonstrated comparatively lower values with the
rest. For all the other materials procured directly from the envi-
ronment, there is a steady decline in the emergy per unit cost
which could be attributed to the escalated cost arising from issues
pertaining to its extraction. Only those materials whose cost data
were available from published records across the period are re-
ported here. The relevance of emergy per unit cost in the sustain-
ability assessment is again established, as observed by other
authors under different scenarios (Pulselli et al., 2007; Brown and
Buranakarn, 2003). The emergy per unit cost of rubble was
almost stable till 2009, but later started to decline steadily due to
very high cost that resulted from scarcity of this resource. A similar
pattern has been obtained for gravel, sand, and brick, which was
attributed to its reduced availability. Thus when a sudden shift in
the value of emergy per unit cost is observed, the results have
demonstrated that alternate options would emerge, but at a higher
emergy value. For industrially produced materials, the price vari-
ation is observed to be insignificant when compared to the mate-
rials that are directly extracted from the environment for
construction activities. This was primarily due to large volume of
extraction to support the increasing demand which culminated in
diminishing supply of locally pooled materials from a confined
resource base. It is also observed that adverse environmental ef-
fects caused by the locally pooled materials have affected the
construction process, as effective interventions using emergy based
parameters were absent. Thus, the emergy per unit cost of a
building material clearly establishes the variation in resource
availability which is indirectly measured from the market value
existed at that time for each item. As shown in the earlier figures, a
larger part of the total building emergy is contributed by those
materials that are directly extracted from nature. As the construc-
tion process in majority of the developing countries is significantly
influenced by the availability of locally pooled resources, an effec-
tive resource use regulation is necessary for sustainable operations
of this sector.
4. Managerial implications
Natural resources are being continuously extracted faster than
its formation rate in the environment to meet the rising demand of
development. The environmental degradation hence caused from
the unregulated pooling of resources is leading to the frequent
occurrence of catastrophic events all over the world (Wagner,
 T. Thomas, A. Praveen / Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382 9

Fig. 6. Emergy of the materials per unit area of the building selected across different time scales.
10 T. Thomas, A. Praveen / Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382

Fig. 7. Variation in material emergy per unit cost across the selected time periods
*Cost considered is in Indian rupee. 1 US dollar is approximately equivalent to 70 Indian rupees.
 T. Thomas, A. Praveen / Journal of Cleaner Production 276 (2020) 122382
2002). In majority of situations, the regulations and restrictions are
initiated only when observable damages occur. Extraction of nat-
ural resources need to be judiciously undertaken by optimizing the
quantity pooled from various locations without violating the
principles of sustainability. Hence, a resource which is treated as
renewable at a particular point of time, need not remain renewable
at a later period. This is because of the fact that, rate of replenish-
ment of natural resources may not match with the rate of extraction
of the resource and might soon turnout to be unavailable. But
methods to quantify this time scale effect of resource consumption
are not available. As the depletion rate of resource increase, the
emergy for its procurement also increases which is indirectly re-
flected in its procurement cost. Thus, emergy in combination with
cost can be considered as a criteria to evaluate the environmental
sustainability of materials besides ensuring optimum utilization of
resources. Based on detailed analysis, emergy has been identified as
a promising tool to ensure circularity of products, thereby easing
the pressure in using environmental resources. Thus emergy as a
potential regulatory tool for effective management of natural re-
sources has been established in this research paper.
5. Conclusion
The relevance of emergy parameters that could be used for
regulating the resource use towards implementing sustainable
construction policies is well illustrated in this paper. Emergy is
proposed as an appropriate measure that could effectively bring out
the thermodynamic state of the system or component to take better
environmental decisions on the material use. The detailed evalua-
tion of 25 buildings constructed across the period 1994 to 2018
have helped to identify key parameters that could be used to ensure
attainment of sustainable material use in the construction sector.
The analysis has clearly demonstrated that the price escalation in
its procurement due to environmental factors can be used as a
parameter that could be combined with emergy for decision
making. Relating the quantity of building materials with their
emergy values and assessment of emergy value of materials used
per unit area of the buildings enable the planners and designers to
arrive at the right combination of construction materials for a target
emergy state. Emergy per unit cost of building materials that are
extracted locally, combined with the market information on the
cost of these materials, is able to interpret the sustainability aspect
of resource consumption. The need for evaluation of time scale
renewability of building materials have been highlighted not only
to regulate its use, but also to incorporate newer approaches of
recycling/reuse. Emergy has been identified as an appropriate tool
to regulate the consumption of natural resources and ensure
adoption of sustainable material use policies in construction sector.
Earlier studies have used emergy as a time independent parameter
to assess various processes. It is established here that emergy can
be combined with various dynamic parameters like cost to capture
the time scale effect on the environment arising from uncontrolled
resource use. Thus, the results obtained in this research throws
open wider options in utilizing thermodynamic state based build-
ing planning process for sustainable building design. This would
call for a relook at the existing approaches of emergy computations
by incorporating a replenishability factor for natural resources.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Tilba Thomas: Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investiga-
tion, Writing - original draft. A. Praveen: Conceptualization, Su-
pervision, Writing - review & editing.
11
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgements
This work is funded by Centre for Engineering Research and
Development (CERD), APJ Abdul Kalam Technological University,
Government of Kerala, India (Grant No: KTU/RESEARCH4/2408/
2017).
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