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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Robert J. Ries

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Guest Editor

M.E. Rinker Sr. School of Construction Management, University of Florida, 332 Rinker Hall, P.O. Box 115703, Gainesville, FL 32611-5703, USA
Interests: Life cycle assessment of the built environment; building performance

Dr. Yuan Chang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Management Science and Engineering, Central University of Finance and Economics, Bldg 4, Rm 338, Shahe Higher Education Park, Beijing 102206, China
Interests: Life-cycle assessment, sustainable building and infrastructure systems, sustainable engineering modeling, industrial ecology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The life cycle of the built environment is critical for heading towards a lower carbon emission future due to the substantial stocks and flows of buildings and infrastructure. The built environment is also the context for significant planning and investments in climate adaptation and resilience, and as such, occupies a special place in the human response to changing climate. Thus, reducing the energy and carbon footprint of the construction and operation of buildings and infrastructure are major pathways to achieving carbon emission goals. Simultaneously, the built environment must adapt to changing climate in terms of increasing ambient temperature, including effects on building energy use intensity, rising sea levels and impacts of coastal inundation, and shifting precipitation and effects on storm water management and potable water supply.

This special issue seeks to publish a collection of articles that address the issues of carbon mitigation and low carbon adaptation across the life cycle of the built environment. The special issue will be a compendium that identifies key contributions and sheds light on future directions for the planning, design, construction, and operation of a low carbon built environment in both climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Prof. Dr. Robert J. Ries
Dr. Yuan Chang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Climate change mitigation in the built environment
Climate change adaptation in the built environment
Built environment resilience

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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21 pages, 1738 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Green Performance Evaluation System for Energy-Efficiency-Based Planning for Construction Site Layout

by Cynthia Changxin Wang, Samad M.E. Sepasgozar, Mudan Wang, Jun Sun and Xin Ning

Energies 2019, 12(24), 4620; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en12244620 - 05 Dec 2019

Cited by 31 | Viewed by 5347

Abstract

The location of temporary facilities in a construction project and the entire site layout plan directly affect project objectives such as time, labor cost, and material transportation and handling. The layout of construction sites also affects entrainment factors such as energy consumption, carbon footprints, and overall construction operation productivity. While site layout planning has been intensively investigated from a project objectives perspective, there have been very few studies of energy-efficiency-based planning, or of the sustainability performance of site layouts. This study developed a green performance evaluation system aimed at improving the sustainability of construction site layouts. The identified factors include six sustainable evaluation categories covering energy conservation and environmental protection, people-oriented principles, construction efficiency, intensity of economic growth, intensity of space use, and the overall control of process. An analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was adopted to determine the weight of each attribute and a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method was established to carry out the evaluation. The 23 attributes adopted in this paper were identified in the literature; however, the major contribution of this paper is the development of a green performance evaluation system. This system integrates both qualitative and quantitative attributes and provides an overall evaluation of the environmental effectiveness of a construction site layout. The proposed evaluation system was validated with a commercial building project. The average utilization ratio of the case study site was calculated as 94%, and lessons learned are discussed in this paper. The case study analysis identified available site spaces around the building and examined how the arrangement of resources and facilities ensures effective connection between construction activities. The findings showed that the facility’s layout plays a crucial role in energy consumption and green performance. The proposed system will support construction project managers to create high-performance construction site layouts in more scientific and systematic ways. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Low Carbon and Resilient Planning, Design, and Construction of the Built Environment: Mitigation and Adaptation Achievements and Future Directions)

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Review

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35 pages, 2467 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperEditor’s ChoiceReview

Recent Advances in Transcritical CO₂ (R744) Heat Pump System: A Review

by Rajib Uddin Rony, Huojun Yang, Sumathy Krishnan and Jongchul Song

Energies 2019, 12(3), 457; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/en12030457 - 31 Jan 2019

Cited by 70 | Viewed by 11559

Abstract

Heat pump (HP) is one of the most energy efficient tools for address heating and possibly cooling needs in buildings. Growing environmental concerns over conventional HP refrigerants, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) have forced legislators and researchers to look for alternatives. As such, carbon dioxide (R744/CO₂) has come to light due to its low global warming potential (GWP) and zero ozone depleting characteristics. Even though CO₂ is environmentally benign, the performance of CO₂ HP has been of concern since its inception. To improve the performance of CO₂ HP, research has been playing a pivotal role in developing functional designs of heat exchangers, expansion devices, and compressors to suit the CO₂ transcritical cycle. Different CO₂ HP cycles coupled with auxiliary components, hybrid systems, and refrigerant mixtures along with advanced control strategies have been applied and tested. This paper presents a complete overview of the most recent developments of transcritical CO₂ HPs, their components, and applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Low Carbon and Resilient Planning, Design, and Construction of the Built Environment: Mitigation and Adaptation Achievements and Future Directions)

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