A Life Cycle Inventory of Structural Engineering Design Strategies for Greenhouse Gas Reduction

The paper presents the results of a life cycle inventory (LCI) for various structural engineering design strategies. The strategies focus on alternative design approaches the structural engineer can implement to minimize a building’s contribution to global climate change. The approaches investigated include material selection, recycling or reusing a structure, maximizing material efficiency, thermal mass effects, and future adaptability. Analysis including operational energy use shows thermal mass effects offer the greatest potential for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Excluding operational energy use from the LCI shows that material selection is the most favorable design strategy. Consequently, the structural engineer has a significant role in mitigating both short-term and long-term carbon dioxide emissions of the built environment.