Emissions from the construction sector in the United Kingdom
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Published version
Author(s)
Desouza, Carl
Marsh, Daniel
Beevers, Sean
Molden, Nick
Green, David
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The UK national atmospheric emissions inventory estimates of construction industry emissions use a top-down approach, based on fuel consumption and employment. It estimates that the sector is the 2nd largest emitter of PM2.5 (14%) and 4th largest emitter of NOX (7%). In this study, we have adopted a bottom-up approach to assess emissions of NOX from the sector and show that emissions are 39% higher than the existing estimates. By developing a novel fleet turnover model to predict the population and emission standard of construction machinery up to 2025, we demonstrate a significant shift in the quantity and types of machines used. The overall uncertainty of the model was calculated to be 55%. Applying the estimated uncertainties to the model, in 2018, the non-road mobile machinery fleet in the UK emitted 36.6 ± 10.0 kilo-tonnes of NOX, whilst the NAEI estimated 33.2 kilo-tonnes for the same sector. For the subsequent years 2019 and 2020, the NAEI estimate was within the model’s uncertainty prediction—28.0 kilo-tonnes compared with 32.7 ± 8.9 kilo-tonnes for 2019 and 23.2 kilo-tonnes compared with 29.5 ± 8.1 kilo-tonnes for 2020. Overall, the size of the non-road mobile machinery fleet in the UK is predicted to reduce by 4% in 2025 compared to 2018. Furthermore, the introduction of Stages IV and V emission regulations for new machines will lead to a 58% reduction in fleet NOX emissions over the same period. These emission regulations are targeted at the larger, more polluting machines, with smaller machines not required to meet tighter emissions standards under Stage V. As a result, mini-excavators are the most common machines and consequently become the dominant source of NOX emissions from the fleet, contributing 55% in 2025. Therefore, tighter emissions regulations, or the uptake of battery power in the form of electrification, for these small machines would yield significant emissions reductions.
Date Issued
2024-06-01
Date Acceptance
2023-12-11
Citation
Emission Control Science and Technology, 2024, 10, pp.70-80
ISSN
2199-3637
Publisher
Springer
Start Page
70
End Page
80
Journal / Book Title
Emission Control Science and Technology
Volume
10
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2024. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40825-023-00237-w
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2024-01-04