Material and Energy Use in Norway’s Residential Building Archetypes

As buildings become more energy efficient due to construction and technological improvements and stricter regulations, the impact of construction and maintenance materials is gaining prominence in the life cycle emissions of buildings. In high-income countries like Norway, renovation of the existing building stock is crucial for reducing overall environmental impacts. However, there is a lack of comprehensive data on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of Norwegian buildings, especially concerning material use and embodied emissions. Building archetypes offer a solution by providing structured background data to enhance LCA studies. This paper addresses this gap by examining the space heating demand and material use of residential building archetypes in Norway, categorized by type and construction cohort. Dynamic energy simulations were conducted using EnergyPlus, combined with the BuildME Python package for material aggregation and calculation. Our results show that structural components dominate the material intensity (MI) of most archetypes, particularly in buildings with basements. Multi-family houses (MFHs) built after 1991 outperform single-family houses (SFHs) and apartment blocks (ABs) in both MI and material per person (MpP). Renovating SFHs to accommodate more occupants could reduce their MpP while maintaining a comfortable living environment. The higher MI in ABs, driven by concrete floor decks, suggests that using wood in future constructions could significantly lower both MI and MpP, reducing resource use and embodied emissions. This work links energy performance with material efficiency, offering valuable data for improving policy and practices in the Norwegian building sector.