Integrated carbon emission management for the United Arab Emirates construction industry

Abstract

Awareness of sustainable building construction and its benefits is growing in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to safeguard the interests of future generations. Although there is a wide range of sustainable building standards and assessment tools available, the application of Carbon Emissions management (CEM) in building projects is still less. This research provides an Integrated CEM framework to increase the environmental efficiency of building projects by estimating, monitoring and controlling the Embodied carbon emissions during the Tendering and construction stages. This research interprets the related literature and uses opinion of green building experts, through surveys to gather data on sustainable construction practices in the UAE. The approach also analyses the preferences and challenges of the UAE construction industry with current sustainable practices such as environmental performance evaluation, standards, tendering methods, rating tools and software used. It identifies the need for enhancing the environmental efficiency of buildings through an integrated CEM framework. It also performs two in-depth case-studies to practically test the CEM Model and conducted a focus group to validate the proposed Integrated CEM framework. Emphasis on Operational carbon emissions, prevalence of low-cost-bid-award criteria, Lack of awareness on CEM, unavailability of standard common-unit-of-measure and complexity of existing carbon estimation tools makes CEM very challenging. The proposed Integrated CEM framework addresses the challenges through a rigorous selection of contractors based on cost and carbon emissions as criteria, quantification of carbon emissions of project activities, and then to monitor and control the emissions during the construction stage. The research finds that Carbon Emissions, time and cost can be integrated into a framework with use of Earned Value analysis and simple in use tools, to provide a holistic evaluation of environmental efficiency in building construction. Findings include that the Construction industry can apply the Integrated CEM Framework and associated models in real-life practices without the requirement of additional software or processes. Finally, this research found that the implementation rate for CEM will increase through the use of a proposed Integrated CEM framework which includes the carbon cost(COCO2) tendering Model, Carbon Emissions Estimation Model(CE-EM) and Carbon emissions control and monitoring model(CE-MCM). The methodology and CEM framework, while geared toward the UAE construction industry, excel and Primavera; can be easily adapted to other countries and software. The integrated CEM framework will assist contractors, consultants and clients in making informed decisions about the carbon emissions in the UAE. It also promotes a proactive, environmentally conscious construction approach to enhance sustainable performance. The research suggests the use of CO2e as a unit of measure for accounting to give visibility to carbon emission management in addressing the impacts of climate change.