Construction Matters: Comparing Environmental Impacts of Building Modular and Conventional Homes in the United States
John Quale,
Matthew J. Eckelman,
Kyle W. Williams,
Greg Sloditskie and
Julie B. Zimmerman
Journal of Industrial Ecology, 2012, vol. 16, issue 2, 243-253
Abstract:
Modular construction practices are used in many countries as an alternative to conventional on‐site construction for residential homes. While modular home construction has certain advantages in terms of material and time efficiency, it requires a different infrastructure than conventional home construction, and the overall environmental trade‐offs between the two methods have been unclear. This study uses life cycle assessment to quantify the environmental impacts of constructing a typical residential home using the two methods, based on data from several modular construction companies and conventional homebuilders. The study includes impacts from material production and transport, off‐site and on‐site energy use, worker transport, and waste management. For all categories considered, the average impacts of building the home are less for modular construction than for conventional construction, although these averages obscure significant variation among the individual projects and companies.
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)
Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00424.x
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:inecol:v:16:y:2012:i:2:p:243-253
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1088-1980
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Industrial Ecology is currently edited by Reid Lifset
More articles in Journal of Industrial Ecology from Yale University
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().