Combinations of building construction material for residential building for the global warming mitigation for Malaysia

Abstract

Global warming mitigation is used as a key to devise built environment strategies and sustainable policies in developed countries that aim to reduce the rate of carbon emissions. The goal of this research is to mitigate global warming from building construction by suggesting an alternative building scheme for Malaysia. A problem related to the building industry is releasing carbon dioxide emission. Use of timber for construction has less impact on the environment due to less carbon dioxide emissions, thus making wood the best material for wall construction. However, as the Malaysian climate is hot and humid, wood encounters many defects and deteriorates. Presently, most buildings in Malaysia are built from other materials such as concrete or brick. In the last 40 years, wood materials in building schemes in Malaysia have dropped from 60% to almost 5%. This research proposed a new approach to minimize the effect of CO2 emission for buildings as well as to improve their structural stability for a longer lifespan because these would encourage the Malaysian construction industry to use wood components in their building schemes. In this study, SIMAPRO Software was used to assess CO2 emissions caused by seven different types of building schemes in wall constructions. The results from a simulation of three time frames of twenty, one hundred and five hundred years showed that timber scheme is the best choice for construction. To promote the use of timber, a new building scheme that would solve the problem of timber wood structure in Malaysia were proposed. The alternative building scheme has combined precast concrete and timber (H8) to improve the timber scheme deficiency while releasing less CO2 emissions compared to other systems. Therefore (H8) could replace current building schemes. This research can facilitate decision-maker to choose the most flexible scheme for Malaysian housing. Thus, this system could be positively and widely used in the Malaysian construction industry.