A systematic literature review of carbon emissions in the Chinese construction industry

Abstract

In order to clarify the current situation of research on carbon emissions of China's construction industry and point out the research direction for the related research of carbon emissions in China and similar economies in the world, this study uses the systematic literature review method to screen the articles related to carbon emissions of China's construction industry from 2014 to 2021, and 134 papers were kept. These articles were analyzed from three aspects: carbon emission stages, research scope and research method. This study finds that: 1) in terms carbon emission stages, the amounts of articles on the whole life cycle of Chinese construction industry is the largest, accounting for 47.01%; The second is the articles on the materialization stage, accounting for 17.91%. 2) In terms of research scope, the research on individual projects and the research from the industry level accounted for 61.94% and 38.06% of the total amount of articles respectively. Among the articles on individual projects, the articles on buildings were the most, accounting for 67.47% of such articles. Among the articles on the industry level, the articles on carbon emissions of national construction industry were the most, accounting for 60.78% of such articles. 3) In terms of research method, the quantitative method used in micro-level research is mainly the carbon emission coefficient method, and the analysis method is mainly the life cycle assessment method; the quantitative method used in macro-level research is mainly the input-output method, and the analysis method is mainly decomposition analysis methods.