Carbon Source/Sink Scenarios in Passive Buildings

Carbon neutrality has been implemented to counteract climate change. The building and construction sectors exhibit significant potential and opportunities for decarbonization. Passive design techniques show great benefits in energy conservation (namely, operational carbon [OC] reduction), while their relevance to embodied carbon (EC) and carbon sequestration has been mostly neglected. To support the adoption of passive design for built environment decarbonization, this chapter aims to identify the carbon source and sink in passive design. First, several relevant fundamental sciences, including life cycle assessment, building climate adaptation, urban climatology, and urban morphology, are introduced. Subsequently, principles of carbon neutrality and climate adaptation have been proposed in the context of climate change. Following this, OC, EC, and carbon sinks in passive design were analyzed at seven scales including site space and form, building types, envelope properties, ventilation performance, lighting, renewable energies, and others (e.g., shading structure, vertical/roof greening, coating materials). This chapter is expected to provide an understanding of building decarbonization measurements in a net zero carbon built environment.