Urbanisation and decarbonisation: contradictory or complementary

Abstract

Urbanisation is a global trend due to a growth in population and economic activities. As more and more infrastructure and construction facilities are expected to be built in cities, reducing the carbon emissions arising from new and existing built facilities becomes a critical task for governments around the world. Despite that, reducing the carbon emitted from built facilities is particularly challenging for high-density cities. Despite the existence of various building environmental assessment models like LEED and BREEAM, the assessment is hugely driven by the energy consumption during the operational stage. Nonetheless, carbon emissions can also be reduced at different stages of the construction life cycle, e.g. through careful selection of materials, minimisation of construction and demolition wastes, introduction of sustainable retrofit concepts, etc. These should create ample opportunities for the construction industry to help commensurate the carbon reduction targets and thus combat climate change even under the urbanisation regime. However, the current research endeavour in low carbon construction is still rather fragmented. In this keynote lecture, the speaker will share his thoughts on how civil engineers and the construction community as a whole can contribute to reducing the life cycle carbon emissions of built facilities holistically. The discussions will be reinforced by the findings of some research studies in this area including the product carbon footprint and green assessment, sustainable refurbishment, green logistics, etc. Finally, the way forward for low carbon research will be identified to help high-density cities transform into low carbon living spaces for our future generations.