Carbon Footprint Evaluation and Reduction Strategies for a Residential Building in Romania: A Case Study

Single-family residential buildings represent the highest share of building sector in Romania. Their operation emits the most CO2 into Earth’s atmosphere, as most of them are not energy efficient. A life cycle assessment is performed for a case study building, built in 2019 in Romania, establishing its carbon footprint. The study compares the results and extrapolate them to all single-family residential buildings in Romania, regarding CO2 emissions with an emphasis on the operational stage. The results illustrate a considerable reduction in CO2 emissions from old, high energy consumption buildings to new, low energy consumption buildings. Moreover, using a heat pump in the detriment of firewood or gas boilers decreases the CO2 emissions for the operational stage up to 34% and 26% respectively. Due to the higher cost of electrical energy compared to natural gas in Romania, gas boilers are more cost-effective than heat pumps. Because of this, and the higher implementation costs, the tendency is towards natural gas. This in turn will result in an increase of CO2 emission for the entire life cycle of the building by approximate 32% for new buildings and 86% for old, high energy consumption buildings.