Embodied energy of building materials and green building rating systems : a case study for industrial halls

Green building rating (GBR) systems are developed to provide independent assessment standards that evaluate in a few categories about the performance and sustainability of buildings. However, same category might weight differently in each of the GBR systems. A particular system might favor certain strategies over others due to difference in weighting. This is particularly the case for industrial halls since current GBR systems are catered more for commercial buildings than for industrial halls, which pose a significantly different geometry. This paper explores the impact of different building materials (concrete vs steel) on the embodied energy of the building structure, and compares that to the GBR score earned under the material category for the same structure. Through a sensitivity analysis in the calculation of embodied energy, the major source of uncertainty is identified and its effect on GBR score is discussed. This paper forms part of a project that also studies the operation energy and the demolition energy of building, which together with the embodied energy constitute the total life-cycle-energy demand