A CASE STUDY OF CARBON REDUCTION BEST PRACTICES AND BENCHMARKING IN THE MALAYSIAN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

Building construction is the largest source of carbon emission which has the enormous impact on environment. The green building materials selection is crucial to achieve sustainable construction. The type of building materials affects the amount of carbon emission of a construction project. The aim of this study is to determine the carbon reduction best practice based on the benchmark level of building materials from a case study in the Malaysian construction industry. The objectives of this study are (1) to determine the amount of carbon emission for various types of building materials based on a case study of a construction project; and (2) to conduct carbon emissions modeling of building materials from the benchmark level for the Malaysian construction industry. The study extracts the building materials from the bill of quantity and converts in term of carbon emission. Using the Inventory of Carbon and Energy (ICE) by Hammond & Jones, the embodied carbon impact for each material was identified using boundaries defined by a ‘Cradle-to-Gate’ in building life cycle. The carbon calculator is used to estimate the amount of carbon emission for every model of building materials. Furthermore, fly ash used as the alternative materials of concrete in Model 1 while steel materials are replace by the recycled steel for Model 2 and secondary glass used in Model 3 instead of primary glass. The overall alternative from previous model used in Model 4. The consumption of timber is fixed in this study due to the natural and low embodied carbon. The result of this study shows the steel has the highest contribution of carbon emission. As the result of the models comparison, Model 4 is selected as a carbon reduction best practice with the carbon reduction of 15.2% by consumption of overall alternative materials. This reduction of carbon followed by Model 2 with 8.6%, Model 1 with reduction of 6.0% and Model 3 with the reduction of 0.6% carbon emission. From the research, the average carbon reduction of 7.6% based on the benchmark level of case study is achievable to be a helpful reference for the construction professionals in selecting green construction material.