Carbon Footprint of Construction Industry

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 124 (2020) 109783
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/rser
Carbon footprint of construction industry: A global review and supply

chain analysis
Nuri Cihat Onat a, Murat Kucukvar b, *
a
Qatar Transportation and Traffic Safety Center (QTTSC), College of Engineering, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar
b
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, College of Engineering, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Keywords: This paper conducts a global review and a macro-level supply chain analysis focusing on carbon footprint of
Construction industry construction industry worldwide for the period between 2009 and 2020 using the Scopus database. A total of
Carbon footprint 1833 journal articles are revealed with focus on carbon footprint in the field of construction in general, of which
Global supply chain analysis
only 115 (6% of the total) studies have a macro-level analysis of the construction sector, providing a more
Multi-region input-output analysis
Global review
holistic overview of the construction sector from various aspects. These macro-level studies were reviewed and
classified based on journal, country, year, method, scope of analysis, type of construction, and period. The
findings showed that approximately 60% of these studies focus on the Chinese construction industry and the
majority of studies analyzed national-level (75%) and city-level (18%) carbon footprints of construction. On the
contrary, global-level analysis has a lower share, which accounted for only 6% of reviewed articles. The review
showed that more than 20% of studies use the input-output analysis as the main methodological approach to
quantify macro-level carbon emission from construction sector, which is followed by the process-based life cycle
assessment with 10% share, where more bottom-up approaches are employed. There are only a handful of ar
ticles found in the literature using a hybrid life cycle assessment and global multiregional input-output analysis
for carbon footprint accounting of construction. Furthermore, there is also no study found in the literature, which
presented a comprehensive regional and global supply chain analysis of construction carbon footprints. The
results revealed that the largest portion of carbon emissions stem from the regional and global supply chains of
the construction industries. The authors concluded that carbon reduction policies should not only consider the
limited regional impacts; however, it must take into account the role of indirect, complex and interconnected
global supply chains of construction industries.
1. Introduction reducing environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and

improving the efficiency of energy and resources. Kucukvar and Tatari
Sustainable development has become a crucial concern for countries [3] discussed the concept of sustainable development and sustainable
all around the world. The most widely used definition of sustainable construction in the United States of America (USA) with the term of
development was given by a report of the Bruntland Commission held in triple-bottom-line analysis that aims to improve the environmental,
1987 stating that sustainable development is the realization of today’s economic, and social dimensions of residential and nonresidential con
needs considering the future generation needs as well [1]. Alongside struction, simultaneously.
sustainable development, the concept of “Green Economy” gets more Construction, as one of the main industries of the countries’ econ
attention by the time, especially in growing economies. Economic wel omy, contributes to gross domestic product increase [4–6]. The con
fare and social well-being increases are highly correlated with reducing struction industry has the potential to be one of the most dynamic
environmental pollution and ecological problems [2]. In other words, industrial sectors at the heart of global economic growth, leading to the
sustainable development goals of the United Nation have played a evolution of societies around the world in the following decades. The
catalyzer role in industrial sustainability, which leads to social welfare global construction industry has rapid growth stemming from increasing
improvement by increasing the rate of employment and income, investments in infrastructure, building, energy, and transportation
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: mkucukvar@qu.edu.qa (M. Kucukvar).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2020.109783
Received 25 October 2018; Received in revised form 7 January 2020; Accepted 14 February 2020
Available online 3 March 2020
1364-0321/Published by Elsevier Ltd.
N.C. Onat and M. Kucukvar Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 124 (2020) 109783
sectors. It is expected to experience the average construction growth to number of studies focusing on macro-level estimations for construction
be 67% worldwide by 2020, 5.2% growth per year [7]. China, USA, sector. Hence, in Step 2, we used the keywords “Construction Sector” OR
India, Japan, and Canada are predicted to be leading economies in the “Construction Industry” AND “Carbon Footprint” OR “Carbon Emis
world have strong contributions to construction growth in 2020 [7], sions”. According to this literature search, a total number of 419 journal
where China and India have the most effective in this growth. Increasing articles were found. These studies include only journal articles including
population size is one of the main reasons for the rise of the USA and review studies in English Language. The full list of these studies is pro
Canadian construction markets. Moreover, Japan will have the slowest vided in Supplementary information (SI) file, available at journal’s
growth rate in construction development, however, it will still be one of website as data in brief format. While automatic filtering allowed us to
the main countries with high contribution to this industry [7]. Based on narrow down the studies focusing on sector at large. A large number of
the 2020 global construction forecast, China, Canada, India, Japan, and studies are found to be focusing on particular aspect of construction with
the USA are expected to be the leading contributors to the global con no emphasis on macro-level carbon footprint estimations. Hence, a
struction industry worldwide [7]. The selection of countries is based on detailed comprehensive review is conducted in Step 3 to manually filter
the construction spending and economical size of these countries. out the studies that are not within the scope of this literature search. This
Altogether, these five countries currently represent more than 50% of paper is mainly focusing on carbon footprint analysis applied for the
construction spending in the world [8]. Hence, the impacts of these construction industry at large and therefore the researchers excluded life
representing countries are important to reveal and worth analyzing their cycle assessment-based environmental studies on residential and com
global supply-chains. Furthermore, the analysis conducted for these mercial buildings, construction materials and heavy civil infrastructures
countries can be reproduced for any country in the world using the such as highway construction, bridges, and energy plants, which have no
method presented in this study. Therefore, the countries selected can macro level analysis. Initial screening filtered out the studies are not
also be seen as case studies. Another important characteristic of coun focusing on the construction industry or focusing on a particular aspect
tries studied in this paper is that they represent two major economic such as a building (residential, commercial, etc.), a process or compo
structures in terms of export and local production. While countries such nent in construction (material, etc.). A full list of these studies and the
as USA, Germany, and Japan rely more on exports, India and China reason why each is excluded or included are provided in Table S1 in the
make more local production. Hence, the impacts and supply-chain Supporting Information (SI) file available at journal’s website. In step 4,
related insights are more critical from this perspective. a comprehensive review of 115 studies is conducted [16–129] and the
In this context, analyzing the environmental impacts of construction studies are grouped under multiple categories such as details of author,
industries is critical for the sustainability of construction supply chains title, publication year, journal, country studied, method (survey,
as well as inside the industry itself [9,10]. To this end, this research aims input-output analysis, LCA), analyzed system (building sector, industry
to evaluate the global carbon footprints of construction industries of at large or construction materials), scope of the analysis (city, national,
world major construction markets such as China, USA, India, Japan, and or global), and time period (single year or multi-year time series) (see
Canada considering the fact that global climate change is one of the Table S2 in SI file available at the journal’s website).
significant results of human being’s unsustainable manner [11] bringing After narrowing down the review with relevant articles, 115 studies
on damages to the natural environment, agriculture, water supplies, are analyzed in details and the bibliometric analyses results are first
transportation systems, and more specifically human health and safety visualized in Fig. 1 for country, system analyzed, scope of the study, and
[12–14]. Greenhouse gases (GHGs), especially Carbon dioxide (CO2), period. If the total sample of all studies focusing on carbon footprint in
are the main factors responsible for climate change. Therefore, in sus the field of construction, the number of macro level studies represents
tainability assessment, the environmental impacts should be analyzed in only 6% percent of the total. Among these 6% (155 studies), the results
a more holistic way considering the linkage between many components showed that approximately 60% of them are focusing on Chinese con
of the system such as economy, environment, policy, planning, and so struction industry. China is followed by United Kingdom (UK) with 8%,
ciety [15]. In this regard, this paper determines the carbon hotspots in and United States of America (USA) and Australia with 4%, respectively.
which environmental impacts are more intense both in the supply chain These countries accounted nearly for 80% of all published papers.
and inside the industry itself to improve the environmental efficiency of Fig. 1b presents that most of the papers focused mainly on construction
the construction industry. Considering that the monitoring sector’s and industry with 63% share. It is followed by building and cement sectors
countries’ overall emissions are not easy tasks, top-down approaches with 22% and 7%, respectively. Only very few studies developed a
such as multi-region input-output (MRIO) analysis can be helpful for macro-level analysis for carbon footprint analysis of construction and
decision-makers in sustainable development policies by monitoring the building materials. When looking at Fig. 1c, it is observed that the ma
direct and indirect effects of the national and global environmental jority of studies analyzed national (75%) and city-level (18%) carbon
impacts. footprints of construction and global-level studies have a lower share,
which accounted for only 6% of all published papers. Furthermore, it is
2. Literature review found that almost half of studies (58%) analyzed the carbon footprint of
construction for multiple periods and the rest of studies conducted for a
2.1. Carbon footprint of construction industry: global literature review single year (see Fig. 1d).
For top-down methods, we see that input-output analysis (IOA) is the
A comprehensive literature review is conducted to investigate the most preferred method (24 out of 115 studies) compared to other
methodological and application-based gaps. The Scopus database is used techniques such as hybrid life cycle assessment and multi region input-
for the literature review using specific key words and filtering. The output (MRIO) analysis. IOA method is followed by process-based life
structured review consists of four steps. In Step 1, a general literature cycle assessment, surveys, simulation, and structural decomposition
search was conducted to reveal to total number of journal articles focus analysis. These four methods represent more than 50% of methods used
on carbon footprint of construction (both macro and micro scale works). for carbon footprint analysis of construction (please see Fig. 2).
In Step 1, the keywords (“Construction” AND “Carbon footprint” OR
“Carbon emissions”) were search either in title, abstract, or keywords for 2.2. A review of MRIO tools/software
the time span between 2009 and 2020, accessed on 20th of November,
2019. According to this search, a total number of 1833 documents are Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as one of the most common methods for
retrieved. These studies include only journal articles in last 10 years. quantifying the environmental impacts of products. This method is used
After revealing the total number of carbon footprint studies in the field to evaluate the environmental impacts of products and services from the
of construction, the literature search was narrowed down to reveal total raw material acquisition step until the end-of-life step [130,131]. This
2
Fig. 1. Literature analysis of selected articles a) by country b) system analyzed c) scope d) period.
Fig. 2. Number of papers using a specific method.
3
traditional Life Cycle Analysis has rapidly emerged to the ‘Life Cycle highest resolution of countries in comparison with other databases. The
Sustainability Analysis’ method to measure the social and economic EUREAPA tool is utilizing EXIOBASE 2.1 as a global MRIO database
impacts in addition to the environment [132]. This new framework was [179]. The EUREAPA aims to support formal decision-making encom
first proposed by Ref. [133], which integrates three dimensions of sus passing several policy areas identified as key to the framework towards
tainable development into Life Cycle Analysis [134,135]. Life cycle achieving a resource-efficient Europe under the Europe 2020 Strategy.
assessment methods are widely used in the literature for environmental This tool used the environmentally extended multi-region input-output
assessment of energy [136–140], buildings [141,142], transportation model (EE-MRIO), which quantifies the emissions associated with 57
[143–149], material footprint [150], infrastructures [151,152]. consumption sectors for 113 regions for 2007 as a base year and shows
Although LCA method entails detailed sustainability analysis on a the contribution of each other sector in every country to the environ
product basis, they partly consider the supply chain-based indirect im mental and ecological impacts.
pacts, which is also known as ‘cut-off’ [149,153]. Among the MRIO studies focusing on construction, Hung et al. [51]
Input-Output Analysis developed by Wassily Leontief accounts for all utilized MRIO modeling to quantify city-scale carbon emissions from the
direct impacts inside the industry as well as indirect impacts in the construction sector for Hong Kong. According to their analysis, more
supply chains, using the monetary flows between the industries involved than 95% emission is indirect and at least 32% higher than those esti
in the economy [154]. Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Assessment mated by conventional methods. Huang et al. [57] conducted a carbon
(EIO-LCA) method, was developed at the end of the ’90s and founded by footprint analysis of the world’s construction industries using IO anal
the US National Science Foundation [155]. The weakest aspect of this ysis and concluded that 94% of emissions are indirect emissions, mainly
model is focusing on specific environmental factors such as energy stemming from energy use. The emerging economies have more con
usage, water consumption, and carbon footprint in single-zone analyzes struction activities and thus, constitute 60% of the global carbon emis
[156]. Therefore, a different tool was developed by Australia, the UK, sions from construction activities. They concluded that the main areas
and Japan to analyze sustainability by integrating economic that require further improvements are the use of low embodied carbon
input-output tables with socio-economic and environmental indicators building material, the improved energy efficiency of construction ma
[157]. Kucukvar and Tatari [109] developed a detailed version of this chines, and the use of renewable energy sources. Bai et al. [48] inves
model, which is also called the Triple-Bottom-Line Economic tigated the inter-regional CO2 leakages in 30 Chinese sectors and
Input-Output Analysis, for sustainability analysis of the U.S. construc highlighted that the construction sector shows considerable carbon
tion industry. The social, economic and environmental impacts of abatement potential. Xing et al. [49] applied eco-efficiency analysis for
household demand, public sector consumption, and investment, private China’s industrial sectors and revealed that the construction sector is the
sector investments have also been analyzed using this model [158]. most dominant for energy usage, CO2 emissions, and some other envi
While the input-output models for a single domain are widely used in ronmental impact categories. Baynes et al. [180] analyzed the direct and
sustainability analysis, global input-output models are gaining world indirect environmental impacts of the construction sector in Australia
wide importance [159–162]. MRIO models have become an important and utilized Australian Industrial Ecology Virtual Laboratory to make a
modeling technique for global-level sustainability analysis [163,164]. more detailed analysis of GHG emissions. They highlighted that
World Input-Output Database (WIOD), Global Trade Analysis Project embodied resource flows and emissions associated with buildings should
(GTAP), Global Resource Accounting Model (GRAM), and Externality be taken into consideration when developing policies to reduce
Data and Input-Output Tools for Policy Analysis (EXIOPOL) are construction-related emissions. Chen et al. [181] conducted a
well-known databases used for MRIO analyses of different countries’ time-series analysis using IO tables for China’s construction industry and
manufacturing and service sectors [165,166], energy systems [167], showed that the great majority of emissions are indirect emissions. In
consumption and production [168], biofuels [169], and the built envi another work, Chen et al. [64] sectors in China including construction
ronment [170]. and highlighted that the construction sector emitted the most con
Several environmental footprint analysis software/tools are devel sumption emissions. Onat and Kucukvar (2017) [182] investigated
oped using global MRIO databases. For example, the Industrial Ecology direct and indirect carbon emissions of the Turkish construction in
Virtual Laboratory is working on creating Global MRIO tools to quantify dustry and concluded that the majority of emissions are indirect. Zhang
the sustainability impacts of countries for production and consumption and Liu [183] applied IO analysis for China’s construction sector and
[171]. The Global IE Lab and Chinese IE Lab are currently under estimated that indirect emission is dominant in the sector’s carbon
development phase and will be built based on the concepts of the emissions. Huang and Bohne [184] studied Norway’s construction
Australian Virtual IE Lab to enable the IE Virtual Lab infrastructure to be sector and highlighted that the use of materials with low embodied
applied to a global setting [172,173]. Furthermore, the Environmental emission is the most important policy area to reduce the sector’s emis
Footprint Explorer developed by the Industrial Ecology Program of sions. Chang et al. [185] analyzed the embodied impacts of construction
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) uses a projects in China and highlighted that embodied energy consumption is
detailed global MRIO database. This tool estimates environmental im around 25–30% of the total energy consumption, thus contributing to
pacts and value-added of production and consumption activities using GHG emissions significantly. Acquaye and Duffy [125] investigated
several time series data. MRIO database such as full Eora, Eora26, WIOD Ireland’s construction sector GHG emissions and highlighted that
r2013, EXIOBASE 2.3, EXIOBASE 3.41 and OECD [174,175]. This tool embodied emission in the construction material is the key area to
makes a detailed analysis of impacts for the EU region and globe based decrease emissions. Sharrad et al. [186] analyzed the environmental
on energy, GHG emissions, water, land materials, biodiversity, however impacts of construction projects in the USA and showed the benefits of
also labor and value-added [176]. In this tool, the results are presented using IO analysis when estimating indirect impacts. Ravetz [187]
graphically; however, there is no detailed supply chain-based data modeled performance metrics and benchmarks to analyze the con
analysis to capture which sectors and countries are responsible for the struction supply chain with the emphasis on its environmental impacts
largest share of the impact categories. using IO analysis.
Alternatively, the Eora database also provided a time series for the The literature review showed that a few studies investigated the
period between 1990 and 2015 for carbon footprints based on con carbon footprints of construction industries in the world. Most of the
sumption and production-based approaches using the global MRIO data papers came from China and Australia. IO analysis is found to be the
tables linking 15,909 sectors across 190 countries [177,178]. Although most widely used method. A Hybrid IOLCA, which combines both the
there is no carbon footprint analysis for specific sectors, Eora’s carbon process-based life cycle assessment and IO analysis, is used in three
footprint tool differentiates between regional and global carbon emis studies to estimate the carbon footprints of the construction industry at
sions for 190 countries. As of now, the Eora database is found to have the the regional scale. Among those studies, MRIO analysis is used for
4
analyzing the carbon footprints of some countries such as Australia and In addition, most of the reviewed articles focused mainly on China
China considering the role of complex trade relationships between the and there is dire need for carbon footprint analysis of other world’s
countries. On the other hand, using MRIO analysis, one study is found in largest construction industries in USA, UK, India, Japan, etc. To
the literature, which was published in the Renewable and Sustainable address this gap, this paper presented the first holistic and global
Energy Reviews entitled carbon emission of the global construction supply chain-linked carbon footprint analyses for construction in
sector. In this paper, Huang et al. [57] analyzed the carbon footprints of dustries such as global scope-based carbon footprint analysis, the
world construction industries using the 2009 World Input-Output global carbon footprint distribution analysis, the direct, indirect
Database as a global multiregional input-output database. The study (regional), and indirect (global) carbon footprint analysis and time-
mainly focused on two research questions such as what is the level of series carbon footprint analysis and the gap analysis. We per
CO2 emission produced by the global construction industry and what are formed a time-series carbon footprint analysis of the world’s largest
the hot spots and improvement opportunities of the global construction construction markets using multiple global MRIO databases such as
industry. In their research, only the WIOD database is used for 2009 as a Eora26, WIODr2013, Exiobase 2.3, Exiobase 3.4 and GTAP and
base year due to data availability and the supply chain carbon footprints making a comparison between results of these databases. Following
are presented for two categories such as direct and indirect. the time series analysis, this study conducted the gap analysis for the
first time to investigate and visualize the difference in carbon foot
2.3. Research gap print results obtained from different databases.
3) Finally, in order to provide an ability for other researchers to conduct
From the comprehensive review, it is concluded that most of the global analysis, current paper presented a fast, practical and easy to
studies are case studies of single countries using input-output analysis as use supply chain-linked carbon footprint accounting tool for the
a top-down approach. In addition, there are only a handful studies found construction industries, which is available in the journal’s website as
in the literature using MRIO analysis for global carbon footprint ac data in a brief file. Using this spreadsheet-based tool, users can
counting of construction industries. There is also no study found in the conduct supply-chain linked analysis of construction industry of
literature, which presented a detailed regional and global supply chain select country.
analysis of carbon footprint. After a single nation input-output analysis,
a process-based life cycle assessment is the second most preferred The following subsections present the details of system boundary
method by researchers for carbon footprint analysis of construction in selection, multi-region input-output analysis, steps of model use and
dustry at large. However, most of these techniques mainly used for a visualization of results.
regional carbon footprint analysis without focusing on consumption-
based carbon footprints of construction work considering the unwa 3.1. System boundary
vering role of global supply chains of construction products and pro
cesses. Lastly, there is no paper found presenting a practical and open- One of the main advantages of input-output analysis is its ability to
access tool that can help researchers to estimate the carbon footprint eliminate errors when defining the boundary of analysis [153]. Among
of construction industry for countries. the carbon footprint accounting methods, input-output based ap
To this end, the rest of the paper is organized as follows. A mathe proaches are superior for macro-level analysis and eliminate the errors
matical formulation of MRIO analysis is described in section 3.1. A step- associated with boundary definition. System boundaries are critical is
by-step user guide of developed tool and different types of supply chain- sues for the quality of life cycle inventory data and input-output based
based carbon footprint analysis are presented in section 3.2 and 3.3, approaches can be considered as methods for resolving the boundary
respectively. Next, the results are presented for scope-based carbon selection problem related to the so-called ‘truncation errors’ [188].
footprint analysis, global distribution analysis and direct, indirect Pomponi and Lenzen [189] conducted the comparative investigation
(regional) and indirect (global) analysis in section 4. Using other MRIO into truncation errors and proved that the truncation error due to
database such as Eora26, GTAPv8, Exiobase 2.3 and Exiobase 3.4 as an narrowly defined system boundaries are critical in sustainability
addition to the WIOD, a time series carbon footprint results are also assessment results. Ewing et al. [190] also discussed the importance of
analyzed and the findings are compared with each other. Finally, the input-output based approaches for environmental footprint analysis and
findings are summarized and the future work is pointed out. the researchers concluded that a global MRIO analysis could provide a
sufficiently reliable and comprehensive baseline for an industry to
3. Method formulate, measure, and monitor its efforts to reduce environmental
impacts from regional and global supply chain operations. To this end,
The proposed method will fill an important knowledge gap in the the system boundary of this paper includes the direct, indirect
literature in the following dimensions: (regional), and indirect (global) carbon footprints of construction in
dustries using a global MRIO analysis.
1) Considering the knowledge gap on global carbon footprint analysis
of construction industry, multiple MRIO databases are used for the
first time to present a comprehensive carbon footprint accounting by 3.2. Multi region input-output analysis
calculating the embodied emissions at the sectoral level for a specific
region as well as multiple countries for the world’s largest con Input-output (IO) modeling approaches have been used to quantify
struction markets. MRIO-based carbon footprint is preferred to single the environmental impacts of production and consumption of products
region IOA methods due to putting into consideration of not only as well as economic sectors. IO tables capture the relationships, in other
direct emissions, but also indirect ones embodied in the regional and words, inputs, and outputs, within an economy, using the Leontief
global supply chains of construction industries. This is because when equation [191];
compared to the direct emissions, the global indirect carbon emis x ¼ ðI AÞ 1 y (1)
sions demonstrate the major carbon hotspots of the construction
industry, and therefore this research envisages to improve the In Eqn. (1), output (x) is defined as a function of I, A, and y, where I
effectiveness of carbon-neutral construction processes. represent the identity matrix, and A is the technical coefficient matrix,
2) After our review, it is concluded that most of the articles applied a which shows the direct requirement matrix. The term ðI AÞ 1 is also
single region input-output modeling for a top-down analysis without known as the Leontief inverse, denoted as capital L showing the total
presenting indirect supply chain sourced carbon footprint hotspots. requirements matrix. In the direct requirement matrix, each element
5
shows the total inputs required for producing one unit of output of the enables users to select 2009 as a base year for analysis; since current
sector [191]. Using this relationship and sector-specific environmental database only presents symmetric industry-by-industry multiregional
satellite accounts, an IO model accounts for the impacts associated with trade data until 2009, which is also used as a base year in recently
a unit of output of a particular sector as well as indirect impacts stem published papers [57,164]. A step-by-step user guide is provided in the
ming from the upstream supply chains of the industry by using the total spreadsheet model to provide useful guidance to the researchers. The
requirement matrix. For example, a vector of carbon emissions gener user will apply the followings steps to use the model:
ated by each construction industry per unit of economic output is rep
resented by ce as follows: Step 1- As the model supports the 35 industrial sectors as per the
WIOD database; a user should specify the construction industry from
(2)
1
ce ¼ eb
x the list of sectors available in the spreadsheet. In this step, a user can
By multiplying both sides of eqn. (1) by ce , we can also obtain the also select the country from a list of 40 countries and the Rest-of-the-
eqn. (3) as follows: World (please see the Data in Brief File).
Step 2- After completing the previous step by selecting the country
ce x ¼ ce Ly (3) and construction sector, a user should select the amount of economic
Later, the total carbon footprints can be written as follows: activity related to the economic activity (output) of the construction
industry. In this step, the total carbon emissions are directly pro
r ¼ ce Ly (4) portional to the economic activity due to a linearity assumption of IO
analysis.
where r vector is calculated by multiplying L by ce , that is the carbon
Step 3- In the final step, a user can calculate the total emissions of
emissions per unit of output, and further multiplying by y; final output
each construction industry. After, a user can filter the data and apply
vector, which represents the total output of each country industry. By
several data visualization techniques to better present the carbon
using eqn. (4), r vector shows the direct plus indirect carbon footprints
footprint results obtained from the model, which are defined in the
of construction sectors can be calculated by manipulating the final
following section.
economic output associated with the construction industry. The eqn. (4)
lets us keep tracking the carbon emissions throughout the supply chains.
3.4. Data visualization
The emissions of each sector are simply calculated by capturing the
demand or requirement of the production of a particular product. In
The proposed model provides researchers the ability to investigate
other words, a certain economic output in a sector causes emissions
their results for direct and indirect impacts per country and sector. Using
throughout the supply chain of the associated sector via emission real
data visualization techniques, the results are presented using four
location throughout the supply chain in accordance with the require
different analyses: direct and indirect carbon footprint analysis, global
ment matrix.
carbon footprint distribution, global scope based carbon footprint
MRIO models are extended versions of single region IO models
analysis and time-series analysis. First, the model provides a simple
explained before. While both methods can be used to calculate the im
tabulated result of the output in the excel spreadsheet. After that, we
pacts of products, MRIO models can capture the impacts of traded
propose a further visualization of data using the tabulated results as
products. MRIO models comprise of trade flow matrices covering
follows:
different regions or countries in the world. Thus, global trade links
among trading countries and international supply chains of world
� Analysis 1- The direct, indirect (regional), and indirect (global) analysis:
economies can be tracked using these matrices [192–195]. Typical
showing the contributions of direct and indirect impacts for the
MRIO frameworks consist of sector-wise imports and exports that are
selected sector. This allows tracking emissions within and beyond the
presented as monetary flows for each country. By merging all flows of
territorial boundaries of the country of interest.
imports and exports, a reliable financial accounting framework can be
� Analysis 2- The global carbon footprint distribution analysis: depicting
developed [196]. MRIO analysis is capable of quantifying or tracking the
the carbon footprint contributions of the top 10 countries as per the
environmental impacts accords global supply chains [197].
input country and sector to display top affected sectors and associ
Once the MRIO model is formed, carbon footprints can be estimated
ated countries. A global distribution analysis presents country-
by multiplying the output of each sector by its carbon impact per million
specific visuals of the results.
dollars ($M) of economic output. In this research, the WIOD is used to
� Analysis 3- The global scope-based carbon footprint analysis: showing
obtain monetary transactions between 40 countries, covering more than
the emissions divided for each of three scopes, following the World
90% of the global trade. WIOD, funded by the European Commission 7th
Resource Institute’s carbon reporting standards [200]. Scope 1 GHG
Framework Program, includes a time series of symmetric multinational
emissions arise from on-site combustion of fossil fuels. Scope 2
IO tables encompassing all 27 EU member states and 13 other major
emissions arise from purchased electricity, heat and/or steam, while
countries, as well as capturing 35 industries and 59 products [164,198].
Scope 3 emissions account for all upstream GHG emissions in the
WIOD’s MRIO datasets are constructed using the Supply and Use
supply chain such as those related to the production of raw materials,
Tables at basic prices with a fixed product sales assumption. For further
energy, service inputs and transportation [137,201].
methodological details about MRIO modeling and developing symmet
� Analysis 4- Time-series analysis: Temporal analysis is a type of analysis
ric industry-by-industry MRIO models, please refer to Ref. [199].
that allows us to follow the carbon footprint changes over time and to
model the behavior of emissions. Time series plots are useful in
3.3. Using the model determining the underlying structure of data. Extracting the existing
structures in data enables us to control the data and proceed to fit
In this section, the main steps involved in using the model are forecasting models. Time series plots of each major country in the
explained in detail. Translation of MRlO analysis into a practical model construction sector will be discussed in detail in the results and
requires further steps, some of which are not involved in the theoretical discussion section.
phase. Hence, the steps below include all necessary steps to transform a
global MRIO formulation into a practical model and to obtain results. 4. Results
The request phase starts with the interaction of a user with the model
that can be accessed at Data in Brief File, which is available at the The comprehensive carbon footprint results of the construction in
journal’s website. Due to the availability of WIOD database, the model dustry of China, USA, India, Japan, and Canada are presented in this
6
section. Results are presented for the abovementioned supply chain

analyses using the developed MRIO analysis. These analyses are dis
cussed in the following subsection in details.
4.1. Scope-based analysis
The scope-based analysis is the most common and accepted method

used in reports in the business world [202]. This analysis allows the
comparison of different scopes following standards. Fig. 3 shows the
detailed scope-based carbon footprints related to the construction in
dustry of five countries. The average carbon emissions for each of these
countries have been calculated for three main scope categories. Ac
cording to the analysis, the main emissions of the construction industry
are found in the supply chain (Scope 3) for all of the studied countries.
The carbon emissions produced by the industry itself (due to construc
tion activities within the site) is significant for Japan, Canada, and the
USA in comparison to China and India. On the other hand, indirect
emissions related to electricity consumption (Scope 2) are high for China
and India in comparison with other countries. This can be an indicator of
high dependence on fossil energy sources to produce electricity. Overall,
the findings revealed that scope 2 and 3 categories dominate the total
carbon footprints and direct carbon emissions from scope 1 category are Fig. 4. Direct, indirect (regional) and indirect (global) carbon emissions of top
found to be lower when compared to supply chain-related regional and construction markets.
global carbon emissions.
As a commonly used method, a structural decomposition analysis can lowest amount of carbon generated directly. The highest carbon emis
be used to understand the contribution of indirect supplier such as en sions produced indirectly within country belongs to China whereas
ergy, transportation, service sectors, which can help the decision-makers Canada has the lowest emission indirectly. This is while China has the
to fully capture the location of carbon footprints in the upstream supply lowest emissions released indirectly outside of China and Canada is
chains [90]. In a recent work conducted by Kucukvar and Tatari [3], responsible for the highest ones. Fig. 4 also indicates the portion of
first, second and third-order/tier suppliers have the largest contribution construction carbon footprints that each country can control over the
to total carbon emissions and therefore the supply chain tier analysis is carbon emissions within the sector itself and its domestic suppliers based
suggested as a method for detailed analysis of indirect emissions [3]. on regulations. It can be concluded that carbon emissions of both the
construction industry and the supply chain sectors inside each country
4.2. Direct, indirect regional and indirect global impacts might be better controlled by the national policies. For this reason,
China, India, and the USA should perform serious environmental carbon
Same as the Scope-based analysis, the production-consumption reduction policies to reduce the carbon emissions inside their regions,
based carbon footprint (see Fig. 4) shows how the average direct and respectively. Since the carbon emissions of the construction industry are
indirect carbon emissions of the construction industry of top construc also highly depended on the energy sector, investments of clean energy
tion regions have been changed. The direct emissions in this analysis technologies can be some of the policies to be applied for these sectors.
correspond to the Scope 1 emissions as discussed in the previous scope- On the other hand, countries such as Canada and Japan should also focus
based analysis. Indirect emissions are divided into two parts: within and on their global supply chains to minimize their carbon emissions. Fig. 4
outside the country (global). The findings showed that Japan is clearly shows that the indirect (global) supply chain-related carbon
responsible for the highest carbon emissions directly while China has the emissions are similar to indirect (regional) supply chain emissions and
therefore those countries should implement some strict policies on
selecting green suppliers for their construction sectors. On the other
hand, China and India should dominantly focus on their regional ma
terial, energy and service suppliers for performing carbon-neutral con
struction activities. Consequently, this analysis can greatly support the
scope-based carbon footprint analysis, which also depicts the location
of indirect emissions (represented by Scope 2 and 3 categories)
considering the unwavering role of the regional and global supply
chains.
4.3. Global supply-chain analysis
Global supply-chain distribution analysis presents the indirect

contribution of each country to total carbon emissions of the selected
construction sector of a specific country. Table 1 shows top sectors with
the highest carbon emissions due to the construction industry in each of
the analyzed countries. Among these countries, those that are outside of
the 40 countries defined by WIOD are categorized as the rest-of-the-
world countries. Furthermore, countries, which are among WIOD list;
however outside of these 10 sectors and associated countries, are shown
with the name of “all others”. The findings showed that for the con
Fig. 3. The percentage share of Scope 1, 2 and 3 categories for countries. struction industry of Canada, countries including the USA, China, Rest of
7
Table 1 Table 1 (continued )

Supply-chain carbon footprint distribution of construction industries in Canada, Electricity, Gas and Water Supply CHN 11.5 3.1%
China, India, Japan, and the USA. Agriculture, Hunting, Forestry and USA 9.7 2.6%
Canada Value Percentage Fishing
(Mt) Wood and Products of Wood and Cork USA 5.6 1.5%
All other sectors World 119.8 31.9%
Canada (Direct) 58.6 12.4%
Canada (Indirect) 281.8 59.5% India Value Percentage
Rest of the world (indirect) 132.6 28.0% India (Direct) 43 2.6%
Supply Chain Decomposition Country Value Percentage India (Indirect) 1449 86.1%
Rest of the world (indirect) 191 11.3%
Construction CAN 58.6 12.4%
Mining and Quarrying CAN 47.2 10.0% Supply Chain Decomposition Country Value Percentage
Agriculture, Hunting, Forestry and CAN 35.4 7.5% Electricity, Gas and Water Supply IND 693.4 41.2%
Fishing Other Non-Metallic Mineral IND 272.5 16.2%
Basic Metals and Fabricated Metal CAN 26.1 5.5% Basic Metals and Fabricated Metal IND 152.9 9.1%
Other Non-Metallic Mineral CAN 22.8 4.8% Mining and Quarrying IND 114.1 6.8%
Electricity, Gas and Water Supply CAN 21.5 4.6% Agriculture, Hunting, Forestry and IND 80.7 4.8%
Electricity, Gas and Water Supply CHN 17.3 3.7% Fishing
Electricity, Gas and Water Supply USA 15.0 3.2% Construction IND 44.3 2.6%
Coke, Refined Petroleum and Nuclear CAN 13.1 2.8% Coke, Refined Petroleum and Nuclear IND 36.4 2.2%
Fuel Fuel
Other Non-Metallic Mineral USA 12.9 2.7% Inland Transport IND 18.9 1.1%
All other sectors World 203.0 42.9% Other Community, Social and Personal IND 18.6 1.1%
China Value Percentage Services
Wood and Products of Wood and Cork IND 18.5 1.1%
China (Direct) 51.0 2.5% All other sectors World 232.6 13.8%
China (Indirect) 1827.7 90.6%
Rest of the world (indirect) 139.3 6.9%
Supply Chain Decomposition Country Value Percentage the World, others, India, and Japan have the significant role in carbon
Electricity, Gas and Water Supply CHN 732.6 36.3%
emissions. Rest of the World, Others, Russia, South Korea, and Japan are
Other Non-Metallic Mineral CHN 397.1 19.7% main countries accounted for carbon emissions of the Chinese con
Mining and Quarrying CHN 260.4 12.9% struction industry. Rest of the World, China, others, Russia, and
Basic Metals and Fabricated Metal CHN 173.5 8.6% Australia are responsible countries for carbon emissions of the con
Agriculture, Hunting, Forestry and CHN 73.9 3.7%
struction sector of India. For Japan, Rest of the World, China, others,
Fishing
Construction CHN 51.5 2.6% Russia, Indonesia, and the USA play an important role in carbon emis
Chemicals and Chemical Products CHN 46.2 2.3% sions. In addition, Rest of the world, China, others, Canada, Russia, and
Other Community, Social and Personal CHN 25.5 1.3% Mexico are the countries with the highest carbon emissions in the supply
Services chain of the US. Construction industry. These results clearly showed that
Coke, Refined Petroleum and Nuclear CHN 23.6 1.2%
for some countries, global supply chains of construction sectors have
Fuel
Inland Transport CHN 22.7 1.1% played a significant role. For example, when closely looked at the Ca
All other sectors World 211.0 10.5% nadian construction industry, approximately 40% of total emissions are
Japan Value Percentage found in the global supply chain impacts originated from the USA,
China, and the rest-of-the-world. For the USA, nearly 25% of emissions
Japan (Direct) 41 12.0%
Japan (Indirect) 177 51.6%
are global whereas over 30% of total construction carbon emission is
Rest of the world (indirect) 125 36.4% found in global supply chains for Japan. On the other hand, for China,
over 90% of carbon emissions are emitted by the country’s construction
Supply Chain Decomposition Country Value Percentage
industry directly. Similarly, India has a high share of direct emissions,
Other Non-Metallic Mineral JPN 46.9 13.7%
which are over 80% of the total carbon emissions of construction.
Basic Metals and Fabricated Metal JPN 42.2 12.3%
Construction JPN 41.2 12.0%
According to the supply-chain decomposition analysis, “Mining and
Electricity, Gas and Water Supply JPN 35.0 10.2% Quarrying” sector in Canada is the highest contributor in the supply
Electricity, Gas and Water Supply CHN 11.7 3.4% chain of Canadian Construction Sector. Overall, Canadian Construction
Water Transport JPN 9.6 2.8% sector’s supply-chain impacts are distributed globally and the highest
Mining and Quarrying JPN 7.6 2.2%
indirect contribution is from the USA with relatively small impact,
Mining and Quarrying IDN 6.1 1.8%
Inland Transport JPN 5.5 1.6% slightly more than 5%. For China, the case is completely different as
Chemicals and Chemical Products JPN 5.2 1.5% great majorities of the impacts are within the national boundaries of
All other sectors World 132.1 38.5% China. The highest contributor in the supply-chain sectors is “Electricity,
USA Value Percentage Gas and Water Supply” with more than 35% of the total emissions. Being
an importer country, Japan’s impacts are also distributed globally.
USA (Direct) 37 9.8%
USA (Indirect) 236 62.8% “Electricity, Gas and Water Supply” from China and “Mining and
Rest of the world (indirect) 103 27.4% Quarrying” sector from India are the highest contributors globally. Ac
Supply Chain Decomposition Country Value Percentage cording to the supply-chain decomposition, Japanese sectors of “Other
Non-Metallic Mineral” and “Basic Metals and Fabricated Metal” are the
Electricity, Gas and Water Supply USA 62.6 16.7%
Other Non-Metallic Mineral USA 47.9 12.7%
top 2 sectors contributing to Japan’s construction sector’s emissions.
Construction USA 37.2 9.9% These two sectors show that construction material plays a significant
Mining and Quarrying USA 31.5 8.4% role in the construction sector’s total emissions. For the case of the USA,
Basic Metals and Fabricated Metal USA 18.4 4.9% the highest contributor is “Electricity, Gas and Water Supply” with more
Coke, Refined Petroleum and Nuclear USA 15.9 4.2%
than 15% of the total and “Other Non-Metallic Mineral” contribute
Fuel
Inland Transport USA 15.7 4.2% significantly to the total emissions.
When looking at the top 10 sectors, the share of “Electricity, Gas and
8
Water Supply” from China appears as the highest contributor in the for the total carbon footprint of the construction industry per person.
world for the USA’s construction industry. India has a similar supply Furthermore, the USA and India are found to have a similar amount of
chain structure in terms of impact contribution to China’s supply chain. carbon emissions coming from their construction industries.
India, by far, receives the highest emission from its “Electricity, Gas and Fig. 6b presents the net carbon emissions per GDP. Canada, Japan,
Water Supply” sector with more than 40% of the total. Overall, when the and India are found to have the highest emissions in this analysis. On the
supply-chains are investigated in more detail, “Electricity, Gas and other hand, China and the USA have lower emissions per $ of GDP and
Water Supply”, “Other Non-Metallic Mineral”, “Basic Metals and their total emissions per GDP are similar to each other. Overall, there is a
Fabricated Metal” and “Mining and Quarrying” are found to be highest decreasing trend in carbon footprints. This result showed that the
contributors in the construction sectors of countries. environmental performance of each construction industry of selected
countries has improved over the past 22-year period and their growth in
4.4. Time series analysis GDP dominated the net carbon footprints. USA and China have the
lowest emissions per $ of GDP and this can be also explained by the rapid
Fig. 5 shows how the construction industries’ carbon emissions have economic growth of these countries.
been changed between 1995 and 2012. While conventional carbon
footprint studies accounts for the first two or three layers of the supply 4.6. The gap analysis
chain, all the layers of the supply chain are considered into account, by
using a global MRIO analysis for American, Japanese, Indian, Chinese The gap analysis is performed to observe the difference between
and Canadian construction industries. Each time series plot shows the MRIO databases for construction industries’ carbon footprints (see
total carbon emissions of the construction industry based on MRIO da Fig. 7). Only Eora, WIOD and EXIOBASE 4.3 are compared because only
tabases such as WIOD, Eora, GTAP and EXIOBASE (see Fig. 5). these global MRIO databases provide a time series of data for industries.
For the GTAP database, only three estimates are provided for 2004, The results are presented for 2009 since the WIOD database has the
2007 and 2011 due to data availability. Moreover, EXIOBASE 2.3 only latest data for 2009 for environmental footprint accounts including
showed the total carbon footprints of each construction industry for greenhouse gas emissions. In general, there is a high convergence be
2007. This is because EXIOBASE 2.3 does not provide any time-series tween those databases. The Eora and WIOD results are usually
data for countries. Overall, the time series analysis is conducted using converged more. However, the carbon footprint results are found to be
five different MRIO databases such as Eora 26, WIOD r2013, EXIOBASE similar for WIOD, EXIOBASE, and Eora for the USA, Canada, and Japan.
3.41, GTAP 9 and EXIOBASE 2.3. This analysis covers the period be The largest differences between WIOD and other MRIO databases are
tween 1990 and 2012. Only Eora and EXIOBASE provided time series observed in India and China. However, the majority of the database gave
data until 2012 and the rest is used for time series data until 2009. similar results for Eþ10 data scale.
The results clearly showed that the carbon footprint results are stable
over the years. Based on WIOD results for the period between 1995 and 5. Discussion, conclusions and future work
2009, it can be concluded that there is no large variation in the total
carbon footprint emissions in each country. Except for China and India, The comprehensive literature review showed that there were not
the total carbon footprint results are found to be quite similar between much emphasis in macro level estimations for construction sector to
databases and there is a decreasing trade only for Japan when looking at capture the total potential carbon reduction potential of the sector
the WIOD database results. For China, WIOD database results are found including its global supply chains. This study conducted a comprehen
to be stable. On the other hand, Eora and EXIOBASE showed an sive global literature review focusing on carbon footprint analysis of
increasing trend (see Fig. 5). These results proved that the net carbon construction sector and highlighted the main gaps in the literature. In
footprint of each country did not show a dramatic increase or decrease accordance with the gaps in the literature, this study applied a global
and most of the MRIO databases presented a stable time-series data for MRIO analysis to calculate the national and global carbon footprint of
each country. On the other hand, we only observed an increasing trend the top construction markets in the world. China, USA, India, Japan, and
in Chinese emissions for the period between 1995 and 2012. Canada are predicted to have the largest global share in the construction
market in 2020. Scope-based, direct and indirect supply chain analysis,
4.5. Total carbon emissions per population and gross domestic product global impact distribution analysis and time-series analysis show how
(GDP) construction’s average carbon emissions have been changing over time,
directly and indirectly. The findings proved the importance of full sup
In this section, two types of analysis are conducted to gain further ply chain impact coverage when analyzing the carbon footprints of
insight from time series carbon footprint results. The first analysis aimed selected countries. Carbon emissions related to Scope 2 and 3 corre
to quantify the total carbon footprint of construction industries per spond to the great portion of total emissions of the industry.
person in each country. Second analysis is conducted to measure the net Since the carbon emissions in the construction industry are domi
carbon emissions per GDP. The analysis is performed using the Eora nantly located in the supply chain, the carbon reduction policies
database because it is the only database in the Environmental Footprint focusing on the supply chain can be highly influential in minimizing the
Explorer tool that covers the largest time-series data for the period be sector’s emissions for all these countries. Therefore, to be able to have a
tween 1990 and 2012 [174,175]. The World Bank’s population and GDP carbon-neutral construction industry, the countries should focus more
growth statistics are used to gather national accounts for population and on their indirect emissions and a detailed supply chain analysis is pre
GDP [83]. After that, the total carbon footprint is divided into popula sented to further investigate and pinpoint carbon emissions. For
tion and GDP for each construction industry of associated countries to example, decarbonizing the electricity production sector of China and
calculate per capita and person carbon emissions of construction India through investments in renewable energy technologies can help to
industries. reduce the net carbon footprint of construction related to the Scope 2
Fig. 6a presents the total carbon footprints of construction industries emission category.
in each country per person. The results showed that Canada and Japan From the analysis, it can be seen that for some countries, global
are found to have the largest total carbon footprint per person. On the supply chains have a negligible impact; however, for others such as
other hand, China and the USA have the lowest carbon footprints for the Japan, Canada, and the USA, the role of supply chains is significant and
period between 1990 and 2012. Overall, there are no significant fluc must be taken into account when developing carbon reduction policies.
tuations observed in time-series carbon footprints of construction in This analysis is critical to understand the role of global impacts of total
dustries in each country. Only, China showed a slightly increasing trend carbon footprints and globally identify the location of carbon footprints.
9
Fig. 5. Time-series carbon footprint analysis (kg CO2-eqv) a) USA b) Japan c) India d) China e) Canada.
10
Fig. 6. a) Total carbon emissions per person (kg CO2-eqv/person) b) total carbon emissions per GDP (kg CO2-eqv/$).
Fig. 7. The gap analysis for carbon footprint results.
Because the COP 21 Climate Change Conference and Paris Agreement investments. The results clearly showed that some countries’ carbon
highlight the importance of international carbon reduction policies, footprints are found in the territorial boundary of other nations, and
such analysis can provide a vital guide for policymakers to discover therefore the global coverage of emissions would provide important
carbon importers and exporters associated with construction insights to fully capture the total emissions as well as discover the most
11
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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 124 (2020) 109783

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

Carbon footprint of construction industry: A global review and supply

1. Introduction reducing environmental pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and

Fig. 2. Number of papers using a specific method.

section. Results are presented for the abovementioned supply chain

4.1. Scope-based analysis

The scope-based analysis is the most common and accepted method

4.3. Global supply-chain analysis

Global supply-chain distribution analysis presents the indirect

Table 1 Table 1 (continued )

Fig. 7. The gap analysis for carbon footprint results.

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