Assessment and Quantification of Embodied Energy and Carbon Emissions of Sustainable Construction Materials: A Critical Review

This critical review assessed and quantified reported embodied-energy and embodied-carbon characteristics of selected sustainable construction materials, with emphasis on low-carbon cementitious materials, recycled materials, earth-based materials, bio-based materials and engineered sustainable products. The analysis demonstrates that the environmental characteristics of sustainable materials cannot be represented reliably by a single universal coefficient. The reported embodied-energy values in the source dataset span wide ranges, with particularly low values reported for industrial by-products and minimally processed earth materials. However, these low values are strongly influenced by allocation and processing assumptions. Bio-based and engineered products show that mass-normalized energy values must be interpreted together with manufacturing intensity, moisture condition, functional performance and supply-chain context. Embodied carbon similarly varies with material composition and production route, but its relationship with embodied energy is not one-to-one. Cementitious materials illustrate the importance of process emissions from calcination, while recycled metals illustrate the role of electricity carbon intensity. For fly ash and GGBS, the reported low coefficients are strongly dependent on how the upstream burden of the parent process is allocated. For timber and other bio-based materials, fossil emissions and biogenic carbon storage must be reported separately and transparently. The critical analysis further shows that variability in published coefficients arises from both physical production differences and methodological differences. System boundary, geography, electricity mix, transportation, allocation, recycling assumptions and carbon-accounting conventions can all influence the reported value. Consequently, material-level screening should use ranges and metadata rather than relying on a single number without qualification. The principal contribution of the study is therefore methodological as well as quantitative: it establishes a structured basis for assessing embodied energy and carbon in sustainable construction materials while identifying the conditions required for meaningful interpretation. The findings support the development of harmonized, region-specific and source-traceable material databases. They also provide a foundation for the next stage of research, in which the quantified material coefficients can be incorporated into functional, building-scale and full life cycle assessment frameworks.

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