Guillaume Habert

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Verified

Guillaume verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Professor at ETH Zurich

The climate crisis is urging us to act fast. Buildings are a key leverage point in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but the embodied emissions related to their construction often remain the hidden challenge of any ambitious policy. Therefore, in this paper, we explored material GHG neutralization where herbaceous biobased insulation materia...

Boosting building renovation is urgently needed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Building retrofit can be achieved by energy-efficient measures such as thermal insulation or replacement of a fossil heating system. Currently, conventional materials that are mostly used for envelope insulation raising the risk of a lock-in situation where measur...

Barriers preventing adaptation of alternative concrete include the absence of supply chains and lack of collaborations between waste producers and concrete manufacturers. We propose a methodological framework that combines geospatial analysis and life cycle assessment with linear optimization model to identify the most optimal supply chain networks...

Indoor humidity can significantly impact our comfort and well-being, often leading to the use of mechanical systems for its management. However, these systems can result in substantial carbon emissions and energy precarity. This study offers an alternative: using low-carbon materials that naturally buffer moisture to passively regulate the indoor h...

Revitalizing earth materials within the contemporary construction sector is advantageous in light of the imperative to decarbonize the industry in response to climate change. With the liquid processing characteristics, poured earth or self-compacting earth materials attract increasing interest due to their fast and easy production. Can poured earth...

Global objectives to mitigate climate change, minimise waste, and ensure the efficient use of resources require urgent actions in multiple sectors, including construction and buildings. Currently, rock wool and glass wool are widely used as insulation materials in the building stock across Europe, while in multiple countries are still landfilled at...

Building stock modeling can be used to identify trajectories that do not exceed the remaining carbon budget and support science-based pathways. A systematic approach is used from the field of prospective life-cycle assessment, which is based on systems thinking, to develop scenarios for the Austrian building stock that consider life-cycle greenhous...

The stakeholders in various industries focus on developing innovative preventions to increase environmental, economic, and social sustainability to tackle the negative impacts of climate change. Hence, the interest in transitioning from a linear to a circular model has gained momentum in the last decade. The circular economy (CE), therefore, has at...

Urgent needs to mitigate climate change and reduce waste generation require collaborations between sectors. We examine the impacts of the potential recycling of ashes from the incineration of urban waste streams such as municipal solid waste, sewage sludge, and biomass within the construction sector. We perform material flow analysis to estimate th...

Complex linear infrastructure projects have a unique characteristic that the construction site moves as the project progresses, necessitating that off-site manufacturing should be mobile. A mobile prefabrication factory is a promising distributed production facility that meets such requirements and offers benefits such as carbon emissions reduction...

The transition to renewable energy sources is pivotal in addressing global climate change challenges, with rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) systems playing a crucial role. For informed decision-making in energy policy, it is important to have a comprehensive understanding of both the economic and environmental performance of rooftop solar PV. This s...

Concrete, a widely used construction material, presents both opportunities and challenges for promoting environmentally responsible practices. This research focuses on the concept of concrete reuse as a sustainable strategy, examining the limitations of cutting dimensions. To investigate the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with preparing...

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One of the key challenges in conducting consequential life cycle assessment (LCA) is to identify and quantify what is likely to be affected by changes in market behavior—so‐called marginal effects. Although the critical importance of uncertainty and sensitivity assessments in attributional LCA is recognized, they are rarely conducted in consequenti...

Climate policies such as sectoral carbon budgets use national greenhouse gas emissions inventories to track the decarbonization of sectors. While they provide an important compass to guide climate action, the accounting framework in which they are embedded lacks flexibility for activities that are international and at the crossroads of different se...

The stakeholders in various industries focus on developing innovative preventions to increase environmental, economic, and social sustainability to tackle the negative impacts of climate change. Hence, the interest in transitioning from a linear to a circular model has gained momentum in the last decade. The circular economy (CE), therefore, has at...

This paper compares conventional earth construction with innovative additive techniques. The goal is to assess the sustainability of employing digital fabrication in earth construction, with a particular emphasis on analyzing the Global Warming Potential. The research also investigates how printing speed and resolution impact environmental outcomes...

Studies on vernacular architecture document the built heritage; discuss its preservation; and sometimes focus on its sustainability, expressing admiration for the wisdom it embodies. Traditional buildings are exemplary in terms of embodied environmental impact, but can hardly be transformed into ‘sustainable’ buildings in the contemporary sense, fo...

The global construction industry plays a pivotal role in resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, emphasizing the urgent need for sustainable development practices. Despite this urgency, a major challenge lies in the lack of effective resource utilization models that are consistent with the principles of a circular economy. This gap hampe...

The materials stored in existing urban buildings represent a significant share of globally accumulated resources, the composition and quantity of which should be tracked for management and reuse purposes. Due to the coarse-grained nature of building data at the city level, the description of building material stock (BMS) is usually limited to the m...

The construction industry plays a critical role in global resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, highlighting the urgent need for sustainable development practices. However, a key challenge in this area is the lack of effective models for resource use that align with circular economy principles. This gap hinders efforts to achieve susta...

Building renovation is urgently required to reduce the environmental impact associated with the building stock. Typically, building renovation is performed by envelope insulation and/or changing the fossil-based heating system. The goal of this paper is to provide strategies for robust renovation considering uncertainties on the future evolution of...

In this work, we investigate the use of pyrite-rich tailings from an operational mine as mineral admixture in different cement matrices (Portland cement, calcium aluminate cement (CAC), and calcium sulfoaluminate cement (CSA)). Hydration and microstructure changes were studied on cement pastes produced with a 30 wt.% replacement of cement with tail...

The Philippines faces a significant shortage of affordable housing, and with the growing urgency brought by climate change, there is a pressing need for more sustainable and affordable building solutions. One promising option is cement bamboo frame buildings, which blend traditional bamboo building methods with modern materials. This approach is al...

This document is supplementary material for to the Research article "Low-carbon indoor humidity regulation via 3D-printed superhygroscopic building components" It provides the detailed experimental test procedures used for the hygrothermal characterisation of the 3D-printed geopolymer composite, the simplification adopted for the modelling of the...

This paper explores the use of vinasse from the mezcal distillation process to improve the mechanical properties of raw earth blocks. Our main objective is to show that vinasse can enhance the strength of adobes, a traditional type of earth block used in rural areas. To test this hypothesis, we learned a traditional way of making adobes where vinas...

Low temperatures and high humidity often occur in the northern basins and mountainous regions of China. This research reveals a common winter indoor environment in this rural areas characterized by low-temperature and high-humidity indoor thermal conditions. Improving this environment directly with equipment would inevitably result in significant e...

A transformation towards a bioeconomy is needed to reduce the environmental impacts and resource requirements of different industries. However, considering the finiteness of land and biomass, such a transition requires strategizing resource and land allocation towards activities that yield maximum environmental benefit. This paper aims to develop a...

This paper compares conventional earth construction techniques (rammed earth and cob) with additive manufacturing techniques, specifically 3D printing (3DP) with earth. The goal is to analyze the degree to which using 3DP to build with earth is still considered "sustainable," based on the analysis of global warming potential (GWP), and how paramete...

This paper identifies buildings on pathway to meet carbon targets for embodied emissions aligned with global carbon budgets and mitigation pathways. A simplified bottom-up model is used, assessing multiple variations of a new construction archetype to identify the main strategies to achieve the targets. The model estimates the quantities of the mai...

The construction and buildings sector is facing an urgent need to reduce GHG emissions and ensure efficient resource utilization while minimizing waste in order to comply with climate change policies and circular economy initiatives. Alkali-activated materials, as an alternative binder to CO 2 -intensive conventional cement, show potential in utili...

Renovation of the existing building stock plays a central role in every decarbonisation scenario. Yet, its impact is rarely addressed in a life-cycle perspective, leading to potential over benefits and neglecting the cross-sectoral impacts that it generates. This article introduces the methodology developed as part of the building activities decarb...

Concrete is the substance used in largest quantity by mass after water, with an anticipated demand that will continue to increase in decades to come. The ultra-green concrete project aims at developing a new family of concretes to radically reduce the CO2 emissions related to this material, substantially beyond the CO2 savings of any of the technol...

Globally, interest in understanding the life cycle related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of buildings is increasing. Robust data is required for benchmarking and analysis of parameters driving resource use and whole life carbon (WLC) emissions. However, open datasets combining information on energy and material use as well as whole life carbon emi...

Mine tailings are the fine-grained mineral waste stream of mine processing plants. The management of such materials is a great challenge for the mining industry particularly given their massive annual production - estimated at 5–7 billion tonnes worldwide – and their potentially hazardous character. Parallel to that, tailings also constitute an abu...

This study probes the advancement of binder jetting technology (BJT) for construction, presenting an integrative approach that combines design methods, fabrication strategies, and properties of various materials. The primary focus is developing an adaptable BJT 3D printer capable of processing multiple material types, including alternative, mid-vis...

The paper proposes considerations stemming from the analysis of twenty-two buildings that show different approaches to ‘vegetarian architecture’—a theoretical stance based on principles learnt from agriculture and nutrition. The first phase consisted in a systematic investigation of the constructional characteristics of each building, and the catal...

The architecture, engineering, and construction industry is a major contributor to climate change due to its significant carbon emissions and solid waste generation. In the European Union, two thirds of this industry's waste is excavated earth, which has the potential to be a viable alternative to conventional construction materials. Raw earth, in...

This paper compares conventional earth construction techniques with additive manufacturing techniques, specifically 3D printing (3DP) with earth. The goal is to analyze the degree to which using 3DP to build with earth is still considered "sustainable," based on the analysis of global warming potential (GWP), and how parameters such as printing spe...

The goal to achieve carbon neutrality in the built environment by 2040 becomes more challenging every day. Moreover, the challenge goes beyond energy efficiency and embodied energy, and includes the quality of life of buildings’ occupants. Under this framework it becomes clear that a radical change is needed in the current construction practices. I...

The use of excavated earth is a circular and carbon neutral solution gaining growing interest. However, its high variability in properties makes it difficult to master as raw materials for construction. The objective of this paper is to highlight the key parameters allowing overcoming the influence of the variability of soil composition on the eart...

Global objectives to mitigate climate change in the construction industry have led to increasing geopolymer development as an alternative to carbon-intensive cement. Geopolymers can have similar mechanical properties and a lower carbon footprint. However, geopolymer production is not as homogeneous as cement because it is produced by synthesizing a...

Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been widely applied to improve the environmental performance of the building sector. However, due to the complexity of LCA results including the multitude of impact categories, decision makers of the building materials manufacturing industry are grappling with allocating their limited resources to the most influentia...

Building renovation is urgently required to reduce the environmental impact associated with the building stock. Typically, building renovation is performed by envelope insulation and/or changing the fossil-based heating system. Life cycle assessment and life cycle cost analysis are seen as suitable methods to evaluate the performance of a building...

This study compares the environmental impacts of blast furnace slag-, fly ash-, and metakaolin-based alkali-activated concretes with Portland cement (PC) concretes using life cycle assessment methodology. The variability in production processes of mix constituents across Europe and uncertainty associated with transportation distances are evaluated...

The low environmental impact of earth – or soil – materials makes them interesting alternatives to lower CO2 emissions from the construction sector. Nevertheless, since they are often stabilized with Portland cement, the improvements in technical performance come at an environmental cost. In this paper, we revisit a vernacular stabilization techniq...

Explicitly accounting for uncertainties is paramount to the safety of engineering structures. Optimization which is often carried out at the early stage of the structural design offers an ideal framework for this task. When the uncertainties are mainly affecting the objective function, robust design optimization is traditionally considered. This wo...

Combining the low environmental impact of vernacular earthen construction and the cost efficiency of the modern concrete pouring technique, poured earth is becoming more attractive for the construction sector nowadays. However, the development of poured earth is still in its infancy and few design options have been reported. In this study, we prese...

Limiting global warming to 1.5°C requires immediate and drastic reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A significant contributor to anthropogenic global GHG emissions is the production of building materials. Biobased materials offer the potential to reduce such emissions and could be deployed in the short term. Timber construction has receiv...

Challenging climate goals demand immediate greenhouse gas emissions reductions for long-term temperature stabilization. Given the nearly linear relationship between warming and cumulative net emissions, the carbon budget approach is a useful tool to quantify remaining carbon allowances for countries, sectors, and even buildings. The built environme...

Buildings’ construction and operation are major contributors to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and the substantial reduction of GHG emissions across their full life cycle is required to enable meeting international climate targets. For effective climate change mitigation - as recent studies have shown - a special focus has to be put on lowe...

Stringent limits and reduction strategies paths on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are being defined at different levels for long-term temperature stabilization. Given the nearly linear relationship between warming and cumulative net emissions, a carbon budget approach is required to limit global warming, as stated by the IPCC. In this setting, the...

The construction industry is responsible for one-quarter of the solid waste generated globally, much of which is excavated soil. Repurposing this soil for the use of earthen architecture (EA) will reduce a considerable amount of this waste. However, little research has been conducted on how to assess the use of EA within the architectural, engineer...

Reducing the embodied emissions of materials for new construction and renovation of buildings is a key challenge for climate change mitigation around the world. However, as simply reducing emissions is not sufficient to meet the climate targets, using bio-based materials seems the only feasible choice as it permits carbon storage in buildings. Vari...

In order to deliver on the Paris agreement, the decarbonisation of the building sector is critical. An accurate assessment of its life cycle GHG emissions is essential to identify emissions hotspots and decarbonisation potentials in order to prepare future policies such as sectoral carbon budgets. However, today a lack of common GHG emissions accou...

The humanitarian sector is committing towards a green transition of their operations, in order to contribute to the global fight to climate change. To implement such change a scale within construction operations, a sustainable construction and design-assistance tool has been developed to support humanitarian staff and local actors in adopting appro...

Binder jet 3D printing of geopolymers is a newly developed manufacturing technique that combines a material with a low carbon footprint with a material-saving processing. In this work, the embodied energy of the printed building parts is further decreased by replacing the virgin silica sand with waste materials from local stone quarries. The use of...

The project aims to develop BIM-based method for design integrated life cycle assessment during the planning phase, starting in the crucial early design phases. The research provides a critical review and understanding of the current BIM, LCA and code of practice for architects and engineers. In doing so it presents possible workflows (some develop...

The construction industry's high contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is well documented. This has driven many countries to develop strategies aiming to achieve net-zero emissions in their built environments. Currently, the development of near-zero construction materials is still a niche, especially for insulation materials. In this pape...

The provision of sustainable housing solutions is one of the main challenges in emerging economy countries. Furthermore, it is clear that a sustainable solution should be based on renewable bio-based materials. Scientific and practical evidence clearly suggests that the use of bamboo in the provision of housing solutions provides communities with b...