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In recent years, people's income and living standards have improved to varying degrees, resulting in an increase of the requirements for home environments. The construction and design of low-carbon buildings facing urban settings has become a mainstream topic of real estate development (Wang et al., 2020). However, energy consumption and carbon emissions are two problems that cannot be avoided by low-carbon buildings in the urban environment. After all, low-carbon buildings usually have independent heating systems and lighting systems (Dong et al., 2021; Woon et al., 2023). In the context of global climate change, as one of the main energy consumption and carbon emission targets, the environmental protection standards of buildings are increasingly attracting people’s attention. According to the statistics of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, buildings consume about 40% of society's energy and generate about 36% of energy-related carbon emissions (Jupesta et al., 2023). According to Energy Information Administration estimates (Shanbhag & Dixit, 2024), the energy consumption of buildings also accounts for 30.8% of global energy consumption. In the European Union and the United States, the energy consumption of buildings even exceeds that of industrial production and transportation (Economidou et al., 2020). Therefore, the energy consumption reduction and carbon emission control of low-carbon buildings are of strategic significance for mitigating global climate change.
Low-carbon building is a building model that uses certain technologies to minimize the impact of energy consumption and carbon emissions on the environment without affecting normal life (Min et al., 2022). In recent years, experts and scholars around the world have made many efforts to quantify carbon emissions and energy consumption within the life cycle of low-carbon buildings. Japan tracks and calculates the carbon emissions and energy consumption generated during the construction, maintenance, operation, and disposal of wooden and concrete houses (Adebayo, 2021). The data showed that it is reasonable and scientific to use solar energy technology as the key technology to reduce carbon emissions in the operation stage of low-carbon buildings. Denmark has put forward a series of energy regulations to reduce energy consumption and corresponding carbon emissions during the operation of low-carbon buildings (Wang et al., 2021). However, the production process of these building materials will generate additional carbon emissions, which is not at all considered in the energy regulations.
Although great efforts have been made to develop low-carbon buildings, the current research lacks standardized models to measure energy consumption and carbon emissions. This study aims to fill this gap by introducing a comprehensive calculation model based on life cycle assessment (LCA) theory. The main contribution of this study is to optimize and provide technical support for the design scheme of low-carbon building energy systems facing urban environments through related research. By optimizing the structure of low-carbon buildings and developing new environmental protection building materials, the energy consumption and carbon emissions of low-carbon buildings can be effectively reduced. The innovation of this study lies in the introduction of LCA theory to build an energy consumption calculation model, and, at the same time, optimizing the low-carbon building structure and developing new environmental protection building materials to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. This study is expected to provide technical support for the selection and transformation of low-carbon building energy system design schemes.
This paper is divided into five parts. The first part is the introduction, which introduces the energy consumption and carbon emissions of low-carbon buildings in urban environments, as well as the goal and significance of this study. The second part is the literature review, which reviews the related research on energy consumption of low-carbon buildings around the world. The third part introduces the LCA theory, on which this study is based, and the calculation model adopted. The fourth part is the experimental results and related discussion. The fifth part is the conclusion of this study based on the experimental results.