Application of bamboo as sustainable building material for reducing carbon footprint in Malaysia

Abstract

The issue of climate change, which is brought on by both natural and artificial emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG), is a severe problem on a global scale. Despite the efforts made by Malaysia's government to cut carbon emissions, the country now ranks thirty-first among the world's countries with the highest total levels of carbon emissions. According to the World Green Building Council and the International Energy Agency, the building sector is responsible for 39 per cent of the world's total carbon emissions. 28 per cent of those emissions coming from operational carbon emissions and 11 per cent coming from embodied carbon emissions associated with materials, transportation, and construction processes throughout the building's life cycle. Bamboo as a raw material in structural and nonstructural works has the potential to be one of the most environmentally friendly and cost-effective construction methods in recent years. bamboo is a highly renewable and rapidly growing material with qualities that make it appropriate for use in the construction industry. Bamboo's high flexibility and growth rate, as well as its low weight-to-height ratio, give it a wide range of applications as a building material. The aim of this paper is to investigate the application of bamboo as sustainable building material while reducing a building’s carbon footprint in Malaysia. The objective of this paper is to study the viability of bamboo as a building material in Malaysia and to determine a strategy in reducing carbon footprint of a building.