Sustainability Assessment of Industrialized Bamboo Solutions for Social Housing Programs in the Philippines

Abstract

In the Philippines the housing demand is sure to surge further in the future given the age structure of its population. Satisfying this need with conventionally built residential houses made of concrete and brick will imply severe environmental consequences as greenhouse gas emissions related to this way of construction are high. Bamboo is a renewable and extremely fast-growing resource. Industrialized bamboo products are perfectly suitable to the requirements that are imposed on a construction material. Bamboo plantations can sequester high levels of CO2 from the atmosphere that is later stored in the construction material. Energy is produced with the waste that arises in the production of bamboo-based construction materials. At the end of the construction’s lifetime the material can be recycled which accounts for further energy gains. The aim of this master thesis was a sustainability assessment of the construction material “glue laminated bamboo“ for social housing programs in the Philippines. In order to characterize the environmental sustainability the greenhouse gas emissions were assessed using Life Cycle Assessment and converted to an equivalent to CO2. As indicator for the economic category the potential returns from carbon crediting programs were chosen. The social aspects are taken into consideration by estimating the job creation potential linked to building with industrialized bamboo solutions. The comparison to a wood-based construction material was also part of the research. The assessment covers a defined timespan as different impacts arise at different point of times, so the model is dynamic in terms of time. The results showed that building with industrialized bamboo solutions is sustainable in all three categories. Moreover it is more sustainable than wood-based materials, especially because the need of space for growing the basic raw material is about five times lower for bamboo. The most important factors that influence the results are the end-of-life scenario and the electricity mix.