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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sustain. Cities
Sec. Sustainable Infrastructure
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frsc.2024.1488269

Life Cycle Assessment of the Tiny House Initiative built in the United Arab Emirates

Provisionally accepted

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    There has been a significant increase in global energy usage due to urbanization and population growth. The built environment is responsible for over one third of global energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and over a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. The United Arab Emirates building, and construction sector consumes 70% of the entire country's electricity demand and uses large amounts of raw materials, accelerating resource scarcity. The tiny house offers several environmental and sustainability benefits that have contributed to its growing popularity. In this study, the environmental impacts of a tiny house, built on the American University of Sharjah campus will be evaluated using life cycle impact assessment. A cradle-to-grave evaluation was conducted for the life cycle assessment of the tiny house, with a functional unit of 1m 2 , using the ReCiPe 2016 V1.03 midpoint method. The environmental impact associated with the production and operational phases was most severe, aligning with similar studies on residential buildings. In the material production phase, concrete and steel had the most significant environmental impacts, particularly in the climate change category. These results highlight the importance of focusing on sustainable innovations in material production and recycling to mitigate environmental impacts. The operational phase contributed to approximately 77% of the total carbon dioxide emissions over the 50-year lifespan of the tiny house, primarily due to energy consumption for heating and cooling. While the findings align with previous studies on residential buildings, it is important to consider the context of a tiny house; its small size results in a significantly lower overall environmental impact compared to larger homes.

    Keywords: Tiny house, materials, Life Cycle Assessment, Environmental impact, Energy

    Received: 30 Aug 2024; Accepted: 02 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Sabobeh, Al Hassani, Alomar, ATABAY, Mortula, Ali and Taher. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: SERTER ATABAY, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.