Reduction of Global Warming Potential in the building stock through bio-based building material in the City of Zurich

Abstract

Global warming is more and more a big problem for mankind. To stop it, the Paris Agree- ment stipulates that the earth must not warm up more than 2 degrees. As a response to global warming, Switzerland has developed the 2000 Watt society, which aims to have 1 tCO2-eq. per inhabitant per year by 2100. The City of Zurich has set itself a higher stan- dard; it wants to reach its goal as early as 2050. As an idea to reduce emissions, this paper presents new alternative building materials for the building stock of the City of Zurich. In order to check the impact of new insulations on CO2 emissions, a current building stock for the City was first constructed, then in a second step the building development of the buildings until 2050 was modeled and in a third step the effects were checked with alterna- tive bio-based insulations. This will lead to the conclusion that the alternatives presented will save up to 0.8 MtCO2-eq. in emissions by 2050. This shows that with the use of bio-based building materials less CO2 is emitted. This gives new possibilities to reduce CO2 emissions in buildings. Thus, in the 2000 Watt society, one should also focus on the construction of buildings, not only on their use phase.