Assessing the embodied carbon reduction potential of straw bale rural houses by hybrid life cycle assessment: A four-case study

To cope with the problem of global warming and achieve sustainable development of society, controlling carbon emissions becomes more and more important. The completed area of rural houses in China is growing fast, and emitting large greenhouse gases in construction. In this study, the hybrid life cycle assessment (Hybrid-LCA) is used to calculate the embodied carbon emissions (ECE) of straw bale rural houses. The results show that the carbon emissions of building materials accounts for 97% in the materialization stage, while the material transportation and construction stages contribute to only about 3%. The wood-structure and light-steel structure are worth recommend low carbon straw bale rural houses, the net carbon emission can be reduced by 96.75% and 76.92% compared with the reference rural houses. The structural type of the rural houses will influence the carbon emission of the full materialization stage. By replacing high carbon materials with low carbon materials such as straw bale in ordinary rural houses, the ECE of rural houses can be reduced by 39.54%. The findings of this study will shed important light on the low carbon construction of rural houses in the future.