Resources, Conservation & Recycling 175 (2021) 105885

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Resources, Conservation & Recycling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec

Full length article

Capturing variability in material intensity of single-family dwellings: A case

study of Toronto, Canada
Aldrick Arceo *, Melanie Tham , Gursans Guven , Heather L. MacLean , Shoshanna Saxe
Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, M5S 1A4, Canada

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The need to reduce resource use in the built environment is widely recognized, but quantitative understanding of
Material intensity material use in buildings is limited, especially at neighbourhood and city scales. Existing bottom-up material
Single-family dwellings inventories largely rely on typology-based methods, using representative buildings with little quantification of
Living space conditions
variability in material use. They also typically focus on advancing material replacement or recycling with less
Floor area
attention to reducing material use. This paper quantifies the material intensity of 40 single-family wood framed
Canada
dwellings in Toronto, Canada. Design and construction drawings from the Toronto Committee of Adjustment and
local building codes were used to estimate material quantities for each building. The variability in material use
and intensity is explored per building, floor area and number of bedrooms and the largest drivers determined to
identify opportunities for building design modifications to meaningfully reduce material intensity. Variability in
the quantities of construction materials used within the single-family dwellings studied is large, with coefficients
of variation ranging from 13% up to 160%. Concrete basements are the largest driver of material use by mass
(mean 56% of total material mass) and building envelope insulation by volume (37%). This paper advances our
understanding of the range of material intensities within a single building type in one city and the largest drivers
of material use within single-family dwellings. This provides valuable information for including variability in
typology approaches to bottom-up urban material intensity and insights for policy/design pathways for reducing
material use in single-family dwellings.

1. Introduction
This study examines the material intensity (MI) of 40 single-family
dwellings (SFDs) in Toronto, Canada, estimates the variability in MI
within a single building type, and identifies the largest drivers of MI
within the studied building class. Cities around the world are increas­
ingly tasked with accommodating population growth through delivery
of social and economic infrastructure (Fishman et al., 2016). The task of
delivering infrastructure in cities, which includes new construction and
maintenance of buildings and horizontal infrastructure (e.g., roads,
bridges), drives the global exploitation of metallic and non-metallic
minerals (UNEP, 2019). Natural resource use is linked to environ­
mental degradation (e.g., global warming, water pollution), energy
consumption, non-renewable resource depletion, and waste accumula­
tion. Accordingly, better material stewardship is key to achieving long
term sustainability goals (Bergsdal et al., 2007; Stephan et al., 2013;
Tanikawa and Hashimoto, 2009).
Within cities, buildings account for more than 80% of construction
related material stocks (Tanikawa and Hashimoto, 2009). With rapid
growth projected in the building sector, reducing material use in
building construction is increasingly important (IEA, 2019). Efforts to
understand and mitigate building material use are limited by a lack of
analyses quantifying material use in buildings and limited descriptions
of the functions served by the materials (Hertwich et al., 2019). Studying
MI improves understanding of building material consumption and
thereby provides insights into opportunities for material reduction.
Material intensity has been studied in the literature towards four
related goals: 1) to support understanding of regional or city scale ma­
terial use through bottom-up material flow analysis (MFA) (e.g., Klee­
mann et al. (2017)); 2) to support construction material recycling as part
of efforts toward a more circular economy (e.g., Bergsdal et al. (2007));
3) to facilitate reducing material use in buildings (light weighting) (e.g.,
Gontia et al. (2018)); and 4) to support the inventory analysis compo­
nent of life cycle assessment (LCA) of buildings (e.g., Bastos et al.
(2014)). Bottom-up MFA and circular economy research have largely
relied on extrapolating MIs calculated for reference buildings

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: aldrick.arceo@mail.utoronto.ca (A. Arceo).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105885
Received 8 January 2021; Received in revised form 10 August 2021; Accepted 21 August 2021
Available online 1 September 2021
0921-3449/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A. Arceo et al.
(typologies) to larger units of study (e.g., neighbourhood, city). This
approach has facilitated the study of large areas such as the building
stock within a city, but has overlooked the variability within a single
type of building; thereby resulting in unexamined uncertainty in the
bottom-up assessments. Much of the research on building MI has focused
on identifying potential for material recycling from old buildings to new
buildings (circular economy concepts); a gap in the study of MI is the
paucity of research aimed at understanding effective pathways towards
light weighting while preserving function and durability in buildings.
Environmentally driven light weighting requires reducing environ­
mental burdens either through using less material (e.g., lighter struc­
tures) or using less greenhouse gas intensive materials (Hertwich et al.
(2019)).
The objective of this study is to develop an understanding of MI and
its variability in a set of single-family dwellings (SFDs) in Toronto,
Canada, to facilitate the inclusion of variability and uncertainty in
bottom-up MFA studies and to provide relevant insights for public policy
surrounding material use in building and neighborhood design. By
quantifying MI for a large number of buildings within one typology, this
paper advances the field by providing an indication of heterogeneity in
material use and intensity within a particular type of building (SFDs).
The study examines MI of 40 wood framed SFDs that were submitted for
construction approval in Toronto, Canada, in either 2019 or 2020, de­
termines the variability in MI and identifies the largest drivers of MI. The
paper explores the influence of building functionality and living space
on the use of construction materials in SFDs. The studied MI dataset was
built through quantifying material use in the SFDs using material take­
offs from publicly available building drawings published by the Toronto
Committee of Adjustment (CoA) between July 2019 and February 2020.
SFDs were analyzed because they comprised the majority (54% or
7.6 million out of 14.1 million) of occupied dwellings in Canada in 2016
(Statistics Canada, 2017), and their rate of construction is steadily
increasing (Statistics Canada, 2020).
Section 2 of the paper reviews the literature on MI data applications,
development, and gaps. Section 3 discusses the data for the 40 SFDs, and
the methods used to quantify MI. Section 4 presents the findings of the
study, focusing on the variation in MI within the studied building and
the impact of considering differing building functionality and living
space conditions. This section discusses key limitations and areas for
future research. Finally, Section 5 states the conclusions.
2. Literature review
During the last two decades there has been growing interest in MI of
buildings within the industrial ecology and engineering design com­
munities (Lanau et al., 2019). Early studies used the MI of buildings in
bottom-up MFA to inform policies for local material cycles within the
construction sector (Tanikawa et al., 1999; Tanikawa and Imura, 2000).
With increasing attention to natural resource consumption and associ­
ated material availability, as well as environmental impacts of buildings,
there has been rising interest in MFA and related circular economy ap­
proaches to recycle construction materials (e.g., glass) or elements (e.g.,
window). This is exemplified by a Scopus search for MFA/circular
economy and buildings that resulted in 7 refereed journal articles pub­
lished in 2000 and 1095 in 2020.
Material intensity of buildings has been used to support a bottom-up
understanding of quantities and compositions of material stocks at
regional and city scales and as an initial step in LCA of buildings. Some
studies examined physical changes in building stocks over time and
associated accumulation of materials to determine material use patterns
(Mastrucci et al., 2017; Schandl et al., 2020; Tanikawa and Hashimoto,
2009); other studies quantified the associated embodied energy and
environmental impacts of material stocks and flows (Hong et al., 2016;
Schandl et al., 2020; Stephan and Athanassiadis, 2017).
The state-of-the-art in bottom-up MFA is to use building typologies
(sometimes referred to as building archetypes) to classify the building
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 175 (2021) 105885
stock according to type of use (residential, commercial, institutional)
and age of construction using detailed analysis of one or a small number
of buildings to represent each typology (Ortlepp et al., 2016). The
representative typologies and their MIs are then scaled to approximate
all the building stock in a city or other jurisdiction. For example, Tani­
kawa and Hashimoto (2009) used a single case study for each of four
building typologies in Japan and four building typologies in the UK;
Ergun and Gorgolewski (2015) used a single-case study for each of their
five building typologies to represent Toronto’s SFDs from different time
periods; Ortlepp et al. (2018) averaged the results from eight case
studies for each of their five building types for Germany’s five typologies
(i.e., multi-family dwellings from different eras). These studies have not
considered heterogeneity of material use within a building type and the
associated MI variability; thus, almost universally, bottom-up urban
MFAs do not discuss the inherent uncertainty in their findings.
Much of the existing research on building MI, and bottom-up MFA,
focuses on circular economy and the potential to proactively plan for
material recycling and design for disassembly, thereby lessening the
need for virgin materials (Ergun and Gorgolewski, 2015; Lanau and Liu,
2020; Lederer et al., 2020; Miatto et al., 2019). However, new buildings
are being built faster than old ones are demolished; accordingly material
recycling on its own does not have the capacity to sufficiently reduce the
consumption of virgin materials (Bergsdal et al., 2007; Mollaei et al.,
2021). A gap in the study of MI is the small number of research studies
exploring effective pathways towards light weighting while preserving
function and durability of buildings.
Material intensity data support the inventory analysis component of
LCA for buildings and are required to assess the embodied environ­
mental impacts (e.g., global warming potential) of whole buildings,
assemblies, and construction materials (Anand and Amor, 2017; Cabeza
et al., 2014). An LCA of even a single building is a resource intensive
process because a building can be broken down into many elements and
the method requires detailed data on the many construction assemblies
and materials (Bonnet et al., 2014; Carabaño et al., 2017; Mayer and
Bechthold, 2019); thus, LCA practitioners generally use only a small
number of building case studies when analyzing the energy use and GHG
emissions of buildings (Bastos et al., 2014; Lawania and Biswas, 2016;
Stephan and Stephan, 2014). Material intensity data support the
development of LCA benchmarks for buildings. These benchmarks can
be used to compare the embodied GHG intensities of new buildings
during the early design stage when design changes aimed at reducing
environmental impacts are most feasible (Birgisdottir et al., 2017; De
Wolf et al., 2015; Rasmussen et al., 2019; Simonen et al., 2017). LCA
building benchmarks are generally a compilation of case studies from
different data sources (e.g., engineering firms, existing MI databases,
published literature), but most have been based on a small amount of
data for each building typology.
Recent efforts have resulted in larger datasets that capture a wider
range of buildings and MIs at regional (Gontia et al., 2018; Hart et al.,
2021; Yang et al., 2020) and global scales (De Wolf et al., 2015; Heeren
and Fishman, 2019; Marinova et al., 2020). These datasets facilitate
improved understanding and opportunities for comparison of buildings
and are made publicly available to benchmark typical ranges or be used
as inputs to estimate building and material stocks. However, they
include a limited number of case studies and do not yet include enough
data to systematically analyze variability within building typologies.
Additionally, the datasets report material use for each building but
include only partial information on the roles of the materials (e.g.,
concrete used in basement slab versus walls), limiting the ability to
identify design approaches to reduce MI.
Some authors of bottom-up MFA and circular economy studies re­
ported that limitations in MI data produced uncertainty in their results
(Cheng et al., 2018; Kleemann et al., 2017; Mastrucci et al., 2017; Mesta
et al., 2019). Increased differentiation among buildings within each
building typology will facilitate more accurate estimation of variability
in MI, improved understanding of the heterogeneity of building material
A. Arceo et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 175 (2021) 105885

use and associated environmental implications, which will in turn Table 1

improve the accuracy of bottom-up larger (e.g., city) scale MI studies. Summary of characteristics of the 40 proposed new build single-family dwellings
Buildings vary considerably even within a single typology. In SFDs, for (SFDs) in Toronto, Canada, obtained from the Toronto committee of adjustment
example, owners have different attributes that they desire in a dwelling (City of Toronto, 2020a). The buildings are numbered in order of increasing
(e.g., preferences over the type of cladding and roofing, standard size gross floor area.
versus tiny house) (Boeckermann et al., 2019; Gontia et al., 2018; Building Building Number of Gross Gross floor Number of
Morgan and Cruickshank, 2014), builders have different construction configuration floors floor area plus bedrooms
above areaa basement
approaches (UDIA, 2020), and locations have different building codes
ground (m2) area (m2)
and geographic conditions (Saxe et al., 2020; Schiller et al., 2018).
1 Detached 2 122 178 3
Overlooking the variability in material use within a single building ty­
2 Detached 2 151 227 3
pology produces unexamined uncertainty in the results of bottom-up 3 Semi- 2 157 235 3
assessments and results in less effective material reduction strategies detached
generated from building MI or LCA studies. 4 Detached 2 182 270 3
In summary, studies on MI have not systematically analyzed vari­ 5 Detached 3 182 254 3
6 Detached 3 185 258 3
ability within different building typologies nor dealt with the impor­
7 Detached 2 192 295 3
tance of material stewardship considerations in design. This paper 8 Detached 2 216 324 4
examines the variability in MI within a single building type, SFDs, in a 9 Detached 2 230 324 4
case study city, Toronto, and identifies the largest drivers of MI within 10 Detached 2 231 328 4
11 Detached 2 247 346 4
the type to support policy and design efforts to reduce material con­
12 Detached 2 250 379 4
sumption in SFDs. 13 Detached 3 251 343 4
14 Detached 3 253 343 3
3. Data and methods 15 Detached 2 262 389 4
16 Detached 2 268 379 4
17 Detached 2 270 412 3
3.1. Single-family dwelling case studies 18 Detached 2 282 422 4
19 Detached 2 282 423 4
Forty sets of design drawings for SFDs in Toronto, Canada, were 20 Detached 2 285 394 5
collected from the Toronto Committee of Adjustment (CoA) website 21 Detached 2 309 446 4
22 Detached 2 312 465 4
(City of Toronto, 2020a). These drawings were part of rezoning and
23 Detached 2 318 438 5
minor variance applications to the CoA. The CoA reviews applications to 24 Detached 2 322 503 4
construct buildings that vary from the zoning and design code as of right 25 Detached 2 323 497 4
permissions (e.g., floor space index, lot coverage, building height) (City 26 Detached 2 346 521 4
of Toronto, 2020a). All applications are posted online from the date of 27 Detached 2 358 534 5
28 Detached 2 364 588 4
application to final decision of the CoA to give any person (e.g., neigh­ 29 Detached 2 371 526 4
bours) an opportunity to make comments (City of Toronto, 2020b). The 30 Detached 2 387 550 4
applications contain an application form, zoning notice, site layout, and 31 Detached 2 400 568 4
construction drawings. Material takeoffs were completed using the 32 Detached 2 426 629 4
33 Detached 2 427 643 4
construction drawings (all in PDF format).
34 Detached 2 428 648 4
Rezoning and minor variance applications were collected from June 35 Detached 2 434 613 4
2019 to February 2020. A total of 3248 applications (e.g., proposed 36 Detached 2 438 612 4
major renovations of SFDs and commercial low-rise buildings, proposed 37 Detached 2 456 714 4
new build SFDs) were posted. Of these, 174 included complete con­ 38 Detached 2 482 702 4
39 Detached 2 551 838 5
struction drawings – consisting of site survey, architectural drawings, 40 Detached 2 620 892 5
cross-sections, schedules, and construction notes; 40 out of 174 appli­
a
cations with complete drawings were proposed new build SFDs; the Gross floor area as defined in the Ontario Building Code (OBC) is “total area
of all floors above grade measured between the outside surfaces of exterior walls
remaining were proposed major renovations of SFDs. Within the current
or between the outside surfaces of exterior walls and the center line of firewalls”
study, data were collected and analysed for the 40 proposed new build
(Government of Ontario, 2019).
SFDs. The raw data for the 40 SFDs is presented in Guven et al. (2021).
The 40 proposed new build SFDs are characterized based on
representative of a typical modern house in Toronto due to common­
configuration (detached, semi-detached), number of floors above
alities in structural design. Further, applications to the CoA are very
ground, gross floor area, and number of bedrooms (Table 1). In terms of
common during new construction or renovations (City of Toronto,
configuration, 37 of the SFDs are detached dwellings, the remaining
2020a).
three are semi-detached. All are two or three story wooden structures
with finished basements constructed of concrete (16 out of 40 basements
have walkouts). The structure of the SFDs is representative of a typical 3.2. Methods
modern Canadian house (Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation,
2014). The methods used to develop the MI for the SFDs consist of three
The mean gross floor area - the area above grade - of the studied SFDs main steps: material takeoff, MI calculation and MI aggregation (Fig. 1).
is 314 m2 with a standard deviation of 111 m2 (Table 1). The gross floor Step 1. Material takeoff
area of the largest SFD (SFD 40) is five times that of the smallest SFD This study estimated the material quantities in the 40 SFDs using
(SFD 1). The large difference in the gross floor area between the two material takeoff methods as described in (Pratt, 2010). Construction
SFDs indicates disparity in living space conditions across SFDs in Tor­ drawings for each SFD in PDF format were uploaded to AutoCAD 2020.
onto. The number of bedrooms ranges from three to five (Table 1). Built-in AutoCAD dimensioning features were used to measure the di­
By their nature, applications made to the CoA have slightly larger mensions of the construction elements. The different elements were
floor space index (i.e., ratio of floor area above ground and site area), classified by material to calculate material volumes. Using the densities
taller building height, or shorter building setback than prescribed in the of materials from LCA databases and Canadian construction product
local zoning by-law. Despite this bias in the samples, the SFDs are brochures, volumes of materials were converted to masses (in kg).

3
A. Arceo et al.
Fig. 1. Conceptual diagram of methods used to calculate the material intensity (MI) of the single-family dwellings (SFDs).
Further details of the material takeoff process are provided in the Sup­
plementary Information, as is a comparison of results to Ergun and
Gorgolewski (2015), which developed building typologies for Toronto.
Construction materials were classified by building element using
UniFormat Level 4 – a commonly used construction classification system
in North America (CSI and CSC, 2010). Three major building elements
were considered as the physical boundary within which construction
materials were inventoried. These three building elements were the
substructure (foundations, slabs-on-grade, subgrade enclosures), shell
(superstructure, exterior enclosures), and interiors (interior construc­
tion, finishes) (Guven et al., 2021).
A few of the construction drawings for some of the SFDs were missing
details for a small number of construction materials. Examples of these
details include the thicknesses of concrete slabs, cross sectional di­
mensions of studs, plates, and joists, and spacing of rebar. These details
were estimated based on the 2012 Ontario Building Code (OBC) (spe­
cifically, version dated July 1 – December 31, 2019) (Government of
Ontario, 2019), the latest version available at the time of the research. A
list of building details where the OBC was consulted is shown in Table S4
of the SI. As all the SFDs were built to local code, the supplemental in­
formation collected from the OBC is expected to be representative of the
types and dimensions of the construction materials used in the SFDs. At
the time of writing, three more recent versions of the OBC have been
published but the relevant changes have been minor and do not affect
the material specifications used in this work.
Twenty-nine construction materials (aluminum, asphalt felt, asphalt
shingles, bitumen, brick, cement board, concrete, copper, expanded
polystyrene, extruded polystyrene, fiber board, fiberglass, glass, gran­
ular fill, gypsum board, hardboard, lumber, mineral fiber, mortar, ori­
ented strand board, plywood, poly vinyl chloride, polyethylene,
polyurethane, rubber, solid wood, steel, stone, and stucco) were iden­
tified from the construction drawings of the 40 SFDs, though not every
material was present in each building. Overall, 21 construction mate­
rials were present in at least 5 of the buildings and are reported in the
analysis (asphalt felt, asphalt shingles, bitumen, brick, concrete,
expanded polystyrene, fiberglass, glass, granular fill, gypsum board,
hardboard, lumber, mineral fiber, mortar, plywood, polyethylene, rub­
ber, solid wood, stucco, steel, stone).
Steps 2 and 3. Material intensity calculation and Material intensity
aggregation
This study calculated the MI of construction materials on both mass
and volume bases by normalizing the material quantities calculated in
Step 1 using three functional units: 1) 1 m2 of gross floor area (above
ground only); 2) 1 building; and 3) 1 bedroom. A 1 m2 of gross floor area
(above ground only) functional unit is very common in MFA and LCA
studies of buildings and provides information that helps identify dif­
ferences in approaches to design and construction technique. Previous
studies demonstrated that the use of floor area as a functional unit al­
lows building comparison on a reasonably homogenous basis (Chastas
et al., 2018; Moncaster et al., 2019). However, the normalization ob­
scures one of the biggest differences in buildings; they come in different
sizes even while serving similar functions. A 1 building functional unit
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 175 (2021) 105885
provides a comparison between SFDs that deliver a similar function -
occupancy to a household. A 1 bedroom functional unit was used as a
proxy for the number of occupants, which was unavailable.
For Step 3, Material intensity aggregation, for each SFD the MIs on
mass and volume bases were aggregated by building element (following
Uniformat level 4) and for the total building.
4. Results and discussion
4.1. Variability in material intensity (MI) for the individual construction
materials
The variability in the MI of the 21 construction materials found in at
least 5 of the SFDs, for the three functional units across the SFDs is
presented in Fig. 2 (Table S5 in Supplementary Information shows the
corresponding values for Fig. 2). The SFDs are comprised of different
subsets of the 21 materials. Key materials (ones used in the substructure
such as concrete, superstructure, and interior finishes) are present in all
40 SFDs; other materials including wall and roof enclosure materials
differ across SFDs. Tables S6 and S7 in Supplementary Information
indicate the number of SFDs that used each of the 21 construction ma­
terials and the number of different construction materials that each SFD
used, respectively.
In Fig. 2, the coefficient of variation (ratio of the standard deviation
to the mean MI) for each material was calculated based only on the
number of SFDs that used the material (i.e., if a SFD did not use a ma­
terial, a quantity of 0 was not entered as it would skew the results. In
such cases, the coefficient of variation calculation did not include the
SFD). Considering a 1 m2 functional unit, the coefficient of variation
ranges from 13% to 157% across the materials. The materials showing
the least variability are gypsum board (coefficient of variation of 13%),
lumber (18%), concrete (22%), and plywood (23%). The relatively
lower variability in these four materials compared with others is likely
caused by them being used consistently and in large quantities in
particular building elements; gypsum board is used for wall and ceiling
finishes; lumber is used for floor, roof, exterior wall, and interior wall
construction; concrete is used for slabs and foundation walls; plywood is
used for floor, roof, and wall sheathing.
Some construction materials including cladding (stucco, brick, stone,
and hardboard) and roofing materials (asphalt shingles, and rubber)
have relatively larger variability (coefficients of variation greater than
25%) (Fig. 2), reflecting their less consistent use within the sample. For
example, out of the 40 SFDs, 10 used brick veneer for the entire façade,
while the rest used other materials (e.g., stucco), sometimes in combi­
nation with brick veneer. Similarly, for roofing, 33 SFDs used asphalt
shingles for the entire roof (common for sloped roofs) while the rest used
rubber roof membranes (common for flat roofs), sometimes in combi­
nation with asphalt shingles.
The large variabilities for the rest of the materials are driven by the
less consistent use of these materials across the SFDs. Glass use varies
considerably in parallel with variation in window area (window area is
limited by local zoning by-laws – the permitted window area varies with
A. Arceo et al.
Fig. 2. Variability in the material intensity (MI) of 21 construction materials for three functional units across 40 single-family dwellings (SFDs). The construction
materials are ordered from the smallest to largest coefficient of variation. As the 40 SFDs used subsets of the 21 construction materials, some of the construction
materials presented on the x-axis are represented in less than 40 SFDs. The values in the parentheses on the x-axis indicate the number of SFDs that included
the material.
the type and floor area of the room in which the windows are installed);
steel use varies with foundation reinforcement.
Despite the common use of the gypsum board, lumber, concrete, and
plywood and that these materials have the lowest coefficients of varia­
tion in this study, there is still considerable variability (coefficients of
variation from 13%− 23%) and therefore using benchmark or typology
approaches without uncertainty would have likely have significantly
under or overestimated even these materials. Considering that other
materials such as roof and façade materials have higher coefficients of
variation, the expected errors in using benchmark or typology ap­
proaches would be even greater. The higher variability likely reflects a
freedom of choice and options for roof and cladding materials. As such,
particularly for these elements, design choices could be made to reduce
MI, increase recycled material use and or reduce emissions to the
environment. For example, brick could be chosen over other cladding
alternatives due to its high diversion rate (Ergun and Gorgolewski,
2015), or be less favoured due to its high primary GHG intensity
(Lawania and Biswas, 2018).
Similar trends in MI variability are found when employing the other
functional units (1 building and 1 bedroom), but the scale of variability
in MI is slightly higher compared to the 1 m2 gross floor area functional
unit. Variability in MI ranges from 37% to 186% (coefficients of varia­
tion) on a building basis and from 24% to 185% on a bedroom basis
compared to 13% – 157% on a floor area basis. Predictions from
benchmark or typology approaches on these bases are likely to have
lower accuracy compared to those based on gross floor area.
4.2. Variability in total material intensity for the single-family dwellings
Fig. 3 shows the total MI for the SFDs on a mass basis broken down by
construction material for the three functional units: a) 1 m2 gross floor
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 175 (2021) 105885
area; b) 1 building; and c) 1 bedroom (Table S8 in Supplementary In­
formation shows the corresponding values for Fig. 3). The SFDs are or­
dered from smallest to largest gross floor area. The total MIs on a volume
basis across the three functional units have similar findings to those on a
mass basis and are shown in Supplementary Information, Fig. S1.
In Fig. 3a, the 40 SFDs have a mean total MI of 1020 kg/m2 with a
standard deviation (SD) of 150 kg/m2. The MI per m2 is not correlated
with building size, (r(38) = − 0.026, p = 0.88), which contradicts a
previous research suggestion that an increase in SFD size would entail
economies of scale with respect to material use (Wilson and Boehland,
2005). Increases in building size in the current study are accompanied
by changes in footprint geometries, ceiling heights, and window-to-wall
ratios that require a preservation of material use per m2.
The 40 SFDs have a mean total MI of 321,000 kg/building (SD =
121,000) (Fig. 3b). Total material use increases linearly with building
size. Building size is a strong predictor of building MI but not necessarily
of differences in function as represented by number of bedrooms, which
vary less than gross floor area. SFDs with larger floor areas use both
more material overall and more of individual materials, including the
dominant materials, concrete by mass and batt insulation by volume
(see discussion in Section 4.3).
The 40 SFDs have a mean total MI of 81,200 kg/bedroom (SD =
25,700) (Fig. 3c). Overall, there is a large variation in the mass of ma­
terials used to supply a bedroom, strongly correlated with the size of the
bedroom (r(38) = 0.53, p < 0.01). From a functional perspective, it is
arguable that both a small and large bedroom provide similar functions
(somewhere to sleep), but the actual functionality (e.g., ability to use
bedroom also as an office) and prestige of a bedroom may change with
size. The OBC defines a standard bedroom as 6 m2 floor area (without
built-in closet) and master bedroom as 10 m2 (without built-in closet)
(Government of Ontario, 2019). The average standard bedroom in the
A. Arceo et al.
Fig. 3. Material intensity (MI) on a mass basis for 40 single-family dwellings (SFDs) in Toronto, Canada on a) 1 m2 gross floor area, b) 1 building, and c) 1 bedroom
functional unit bases. Key characteristics of SFDs 1–40 are indicated in Table 1. The SFDs are ordered from left to right in order of increasing gross floor area.
study was 12 m2 and average master bedroom was 25 m2, indicating
bedrooms being constructed in SFDs in Toronto that went through the
CoA are 2 – 2.5 times larger than those defined in the OBC. Smaller
bedrooms have large potential to reduce MI.
4.3. Relative contributions of construction materials and building
elements to material intensity
The contributions of the different materials to total MI considering
both mass and volume bases are shown in Fig. 4 (Tables S9–S10 in
Supplementary Information show the corresponding values for Fig. 4).
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 175 (2021) 105885
On a mass basis (Fig. 4a), the SFDs are composed mainly of concrete
(Mean (M) = 56% of total material mass, SD = 7%) followed by granular
fill (M = 12%, SD = 3%) and brick (M = 10%, SD = 5%). While all the
SFDs have a wooden structure and are perceived as wood framed
buildings, structural lumber is a lesser contributor (M = 8%, SD = 2%)
on a mass basis.
On a volume basis (Fig. 4b), batt insulation including mineral fiber,
fiberglass, and polyurethane is the largest contributor, contributing an
average of 37% (SD = 6%) to total MI. This is followed by concrete (M =
25%, SD = 5%), lumber (M = 13%, SD = 2%), brick (M = 6%, SD = 4%),
gypsum board (M = 6%, SD = 1%), and granular fill (M = 6%, SD = 2%).
A. Arceo et al.
Fig. 4. Contributions of different construction materials to total material intensity (MI) for 40 single-family dwellings (SFDs) in Toronto, Canada on a) mass basis and
b) volume basis. Key characteristics of SFDs 1–40 are indicated in Table 1. The SFDs are ordered from left to right in order of increasing gross floor area.
Concrete (56% and 25%), lumber (8% and 13%), brick (10% and
6%), and granular fill (12% and 6%) are major contributors to average
total MI both on mass and volume bases.
The contributions of the different building elements (according to
UniFormat level 4) to total MI considering mass and volume bases are
shown in Fig. 5 (Tables S11–S12 in Supplementary Information show the
corresponding values for Fig. 5). On a mass basis (Fig. 5a), foundation
walls are the highest contributor to total MI (M = 44%, SD = 8%) fol­
lowed by subbase layer (M = 12%, SD = 3%) and standard slabs-on-
grade (M = 11%, SD = 3%). As these three building elements are
located below grade, the results indicate that the majority of the total MI
(M = 67%, SD = 6%) is concentrated in the substructure. The substantial
contribution of the substructure to average total MI is attributed in large
part to the concrete and granular fill used in the basement. Other major
contributors to total MI on a mass basis include exterior wall veneer (M
= 13%, SD = 6%), interior fixed partitions (M = 3%, SD = 1%), and
exterior wall construction (M = 3%, SD = 1%).
With regards to the contributions of different building elements on a
volume basis (Fig. 5b), major contributors to average total MI include
foundation walls (M = 19%, SD = 5%), exterior wall supplementary
components (M = 15%, SD = 6%), roofing supplementary components
(M = 13%, SD = 4%), exterior wall veneer (M = 7%, SD = 4%), subbase
layer (M = 6%, SD = 2%), interior fixed partitions (M = 5%, SD = 1%),
subgrade enclosure wall supplementary components (M = 5%, SD =
7
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 175 (2021) 105885
2%), exterior wall construction (M = 5%, SD = 2%), standard slabs-on-
grade (M = 5%, SD = 1%), and floor construction supplementary
components (M = 4%, SD = 4%). The substantial contributions of some
building elements (i.e., supplementary components for exterior walls,
roofing, subgrade enclosure walls, and floor) to average total MI on a
volume basis are attributed to a large extent to the use of batt insulation,
while the contributions of some building elements (i.e., foundation walls
and standard slabs-on-grade) are attributed largely to concrete in
basements. The large contributions of concrete and batt insulation to
average total MI on a mass and volume basis, respectively, are associated
with the functionality of the SFDs (i.e., full height basements providing
additional living space and thermal comfort, respectively).
4.3.1. Impact of basements on material intensity
The large use of concrete in the substructure, particularly in the
foundation walls, makes it a dominant contributor to total MI on a mass
and volume basis. Within the sample of 40 SFDs, the foundation walls
enclose the basements, which are finished to provide additional usable
space such as bedrooms, recreation areas (gym, entertainment room,
wet bar, playroom), offices, utilities and furnace room, and storage (see
Table S13 in the Supplementary Information). While many of the
identified building elements are necessary to the existence of a SFD (e.g.
floor slab, walls), basements are not and are a stylistic and design choice.
Eliminating or reducing the size of basements and associated use of
A. Arceo et al.
Fig. 5. Contributions of different building elements to total material intensity (MI) for 40 single-family dwellings (SFDs) in Toronto, Canada on a) mass basis and b)
volume basis. Key characteristics of SFDs 1–40 are indicated in Table 1. The SFDs are ordered from left to right in order of increasing gross floor area.
concrete has the potential to dramatically reduce the MI of SFDs.
Basement excavation and finished basements have become increasingly
common in Toronto as homeowners aim for larger living spaces. Local
zoning laws incentivize expanding down rather than up or out; by-laws
limit the (above ground) floor space index (City of Toronto, 2013).
Policymakers, designers and constructors interested in reducing MI of
Toronto’s housing stock should consider the potential to prefer above
ground rather than below ground construction. Above ground con­
struction requires much less material use per m2 due to the reduced use
of concrete. In many instances, this would require by-law and zoning
changes to limits on floor space index, lot coverage, and/or building
height. Taller and/or wider buildings would have other impacts both
positive (e.g., increased views) and negative (e.g., reduced permeable
land), which would need to be weighed against such changes, but the
reduction in MI has the potential to be large.
4.3.2. Impact of building thermal improvement on MI
Building elements (exterior walls, roofing, subgrade enclosure walls,
floor, interior partitions) containing batt insulation are major contrib­
utors to total MI on a volume basis as discussed in Section 4.3. Across the
40 SFDs, batt insulation is used consistently in these building elements
to improve building energy efficiency. The OBC sets a minimum build­
ing envelope thermal resistance for different elements of a SFD (Gov­
ernment of Ontario, 2019). This requirement varies and is dependent on
8
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 175 (2021) 105885
the space heating equipment and provincial zoning of a SFD.
While batt insulation is a large contributor to total MI on a volume
basis, reducing its use in buildings may affect energy and operational
aspects of buildings. Further assessments are needed to better under­
stand and optimize building envelope thermal resistance requirements
for a breakeven between material use and building energy efficiency.
For example, Rivera et al. (2021) presents life cycle GHG emissions
analyses of passive energy efficiency measures, including insulation, for
high-rise buildings in Toronto.
4.4. Limitations and future work
The main limitation of this study is that the data are from one time
period, for one location (Toronto, Canada), and based on buildings that
had to apply for CoA approval (e.g., building constructors asking for
variances). We would expect more variability in MI if we sampled over a
larger time period, larger geographical scope, and/or included buildings
that did not need CoA approval. As such, this paper is likely conservative
in reporting the overall variability of MI in SFDs.
A number of recommendations should be considered to add to the
growing body of research that analyzes building MI.
1 Future bottom-up MFA and circular economy studies would benefit
from quantifying and characterizing the variability in MI in different
A. Arceo et al.
building types. This process will ensure that the large heterogeneity
in buildings is modelled for a more complete interpretation of results.
Our results provide one set of potential guidelines per material (e.g.,
22% variability for concrete within SFD typology). However, more
research is needed to understand if this degree of variability holds
across place and time.
2 Global MFA and circular economy communities would benefit from
collaboration to develop more spatially and temporally variant
publicly available MI data. Support from local governments and
building industries through building data provision would help in
the development of a wider MI database. Access to detailed building
data remains the most challenging aspect of urban MFA research.
3 Research on light weighting should be expanded to complement the
growing body of research on construction material recycling and
replacement to reduce overall resource consumption in the building
sector.
5. Conclusions
The aims of this research were to examine the variability in MI within
a single building type and identify the largest drivers of MI within the
type using SFDs in Toronto as a case study. This study develops an un­
derstanding of factors affecting variability in MI to support policy or
design pathways to reduce material use in SFDs.
Past studies on bottom-up MFA and circular economy have largely
relied on extrapolating the MI of a single building or a small number of
buildings to represent the entire building typology in a city or region.
Variability in the quantities of construction materials used within the
SFDs studied is large, ranging from 13% up to 160% coefficient of
variation for materials that occur in 5 or more SFDs. Deterministic
bottom-up MFA and circular economy studies should consider that un­
certainty in results is likely within each typology; much higher uncer­
tainty in results should be considered when the building materials
analyzed are not used consistently across buildings within a typology (e.
g., roofing and cladding materials). Failure to consider the variability in
MI comes with unexamined uncertainty in the results of bottom-up as­
sessments. Lacking more local data the variability identified in this study
could be used as an estimate of uncertainty for typology approaches to
urban MFA and LCA.
MI research on pathways towards building light weighting to reduce
overall material use lags circular economy studies. This study identifies
the largest drivers of material use to identify opportunities for adjust­
ments in SFD design to meaningfully reduce MI. For SFDs in Toronto,
Canada, current local zoning by-laws incentivizes high MI construction
(e.g., construction of concrete basements rather than expanding up or
out to increase living space). Perhaps unsurprisingly, we find that bigger
SFDs require linearly increasing more materials while delivering similar
function in terms of bedrooms. Normalizing construction of smaller
buildings and smaller bedrooms would reduce overall material use (and
have co-benefits of fitting more homes onto the same land). Zoning and
planning ordinances are a powerful determinant of how SFDs are built
and should be reconsidered to incentivize better material stewardship.
Further, potentially lower volume but similarly effective insulation
should be considered to reduce MI.
MI or environmental impact (e.g., GHG intensity) benchmarks are
commonly based on a small number of building case studies per typol­
ogy. The 40 buildings studied reveal a distribution in MI likely conser­
vatively predictive of other jurisdictions with similar construction
techniques (e.g., much of temperate North America). Cognizance of this
variability could facilitate the use of quantitative techniques (e.g.,
Monte Carlo simulation) to analyze and use in communicating the
impact of variability in MI on LCA findings, early-stage construction
material estimates, green building certification, and similar.
9
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 175 (2021) 105885
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Aldrick Arceo: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis,
Investigation, Resources, Data curation, Writing – original draft, Writing
– review & editing, Visualization. Melanie Tham: Resources, Data
curation. Gursans Guven: Data curation, Writing – review & editing.
Heather L. MacLean: Conceptualization, Investigation, Writing – re­
view & editing, Funding acquisition. Shoshanna Saxe: Conceptualiza­
tion, Investigation, Writing – review & editing, Funding acquisition.
Declaration of Competing Interest
We declare no competing interests.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank EllisDon, WSP, the NSERC Collaborative Research
and Development (CRD) program, Ontario centre of Excellence (OCE)
TargetGHG program, the University of Toronto, Faculty of Engineering
Dean’s Spark Professorship and the Canada Research Chair in Sustain­
able Infrastructure - grant number 232970 for funding, as well as BASF,
EllisDon and WSP for in kind support. The authors also thank Dr. Mel
Duhamel for review and editing.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105885.
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