Sustainable materials selection with emerging structural materials

The construction industry is rapidly changing to meet growing demand and reduce its environmental impact. These objectives can be met, in part, through improved selection of construction materials. However, the material properties including embodied carbon (EC) of emerging construction materials are less well documented in material property databases compared to conventional ones, providing barriers to their utilisation and correct perception of their decarbonisation potentials. This study provides material property data for emerging structural materials through a comprehensive literature review, visualises the results on material property charts, and analyses these data comparing to conventional materials. Only 18% (37 out of 204) of the emerging structural materials reviewed had EC values; less (11%) had embodied energy values. Analysis of the data demonstrates that using alternative and emerging materials for structural beams and columns can substantially reduce EC. For example, in the beam case study presented and using cradle-to-gate EC data (excluding stored carbon in wood), engineered wood products (glulam, cross-laminated timber) and reused steel achieve 3-5% of the EC of primary steel. Therefore, we highlight the benefits of collecting material property and environmental impact data for emerging materials and their potential for greater adoption to achieve lower carbon construction.