Carbon Accounting in Construction Engineering: Methodology and Applications

In the context of global carbon peak and carbon neutrality, this work proposes a carbon accounting method for construction engineering based on life-cycle assessment (LCA) and construction cost quota. By incorporating China’s national standards, relevant databases and publications, three major global carbon accounting databases—ICE, EU-EFDB, and IPCC-EFDB—were expanded to enable each database to independently perform full life-cycle carbon accounting for specific construction projects in China. The method is capable of flexibly selecting different databases and quantifying the carbon emissions of construction projects, by directly importing bill of quantities. Finally, a web-based carbon accounting tool was developed, and three databases were used to conduct full life-cycle carbon accounting on three real-world construction projects, to verify the feasibility of the proposed method and compare the carbon accounting results across different databases. Our study showed that, although there were discrepancies in carbon emission results across different stages and processes for the construction projects, the proportions of carbon emissions at each stage and process were relatively consistent.