• Home
  • ETH Zurich
  • Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering
  • Guillaume Habert
Guillaume Habert

Guillaume Habert
ETH Zurich | ETH Zürich · Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering

PhD

About

288
Publications
167,760
Reads
How we measure 'reads'
A 'read' is counted each time someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. Learn more
10,135
Citations
Citations since 2017
174 Research Items
8684 Citations
201720182019202020212022202305001,0001,5002,0002,500
201720182019202020212022202305001,0001,5002,0002,500
201720182019202020212022202305001,0001,5002,0002,500
201720182019202020212022202305001,0001,5002,0002,500
Introduction
Since 2012, Guillaume Habert is associate professor for sustainable construction at ETH Zurich. He leads a group of scientists, engineers and architects that aim to ground sustainability in the disciplines of the built environment. The objective is to identify the relevant parameters that influence the environmental impacts of buildings at international, national and regional levels in order to implement sustainable practices throughout the development of innovative strategies adapted to each actor. This involves interdisciplinary works and draws on Life Cycle Assessment, urban metabolism and material science.
Additional affiliations
August 2012 - present
ETH Zurich
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
February 2007 - August 2012
University of Paris-Est
Position
  • Research Associate
September 2006 - February 2007
Universidade Federal da Paraíba
Position
  • Researcher
Education
September 1999 - September 2000
Paul Sabatier University - Toulouse III
Field of study
  • Earth and planetary Sciences
September 1997 - September 2000

Publications

Publications (288)
Article
The aim of this paper is to study the influence of the deflocculation/flocculation process on the cohesion of clay-based materials by investigating the changes in their internal structure. Indeed, as the cohesion of earth materials finds its origin in the capillary forces between clay particles, strongly linked to the porosity of the material, the...
Article
Full-text available
The renovation and construction of buildings presents an opportunity for climate change mitigation in urban environments. Bio-based construction is particularly promising since the plant’s sequestered carbon offsets the building’s carbon emissions. However, the required land to cultivate suitable biomass and the feasibility of environmentally susta...
Article
Full-text available
Buildings are responsible for a large share of CO2 emissions in the world. Building renovation is crucial to decrease the environmental impact and meet the United Nations climate action goals. However, due to buildings’ long service lives, there are many uncertainties that might cause a deviation in the results of a predicted retrofit outcome. In t...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
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...
Conference Paper
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...
Technical Report
Full-text available
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...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
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...
Preprint
Full-text available
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...
Article
Full-text available
The objective of this paper is to propose a simple and robust additive solution to improve the water-resistance of clay materials by revisiting a traditional recipe of vernacular construction. The influence of the combination of oak tannin with iron chloride on the properties of clay materials in terms of rheological behavior, compressive strength,...
Article
Full-text available
National policies are increasingly being introduced worldwide to establish a sustainable economy that includes principles of a circular economy (CE). The construction industry is particularly in focus with such policies, as it is responsible for almost 50% of the worldwide annual resource consumption and waste production. The Implementation of CE p...
Article
Full-text available
The accelerated development of cities involves important inflows and outflows of resources. The construction sector is one of the main consumers of raw materials and producers of waste. Due to its quantity and potential for recovery, waste from the construction sector constitutes significant deposits and requires major action by bringing together d...
Article
Full-text available
This research explores the carbon removal of a novel bio-insulation composite, here called MycoBamboo, based on the combination of bamboo particles and mycelium as binder. First, an attributional life cycle assessment (LCA) was performed to define the carbon footprint of a European bamboo plantation and a bio-insulation composite, as well as its ab...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Renovation of the building stock in Europe is urgent to decrease the environmental impact from the building sector and meet the United Nations climate action goals. However, it is often hard to define a robust scenario for a renovation due to numerous uncertainties, which occur during the production, operation and end-of-life stage. One can cite th...
Chapter
The global challenge of large-scale climate change mitigation requires action also in the building and construction sector. From a life cycle perspective, and considering the mitigation timeframe, the issue of reducing embodied GHG emissions is gaining attention. Effective ways to reduce embodied GHG emissions have been proposed by the use of fast-...
Book
The global challenge of large-scale climate change mitigation requires action also in the building and construction sector. From a life cycle perspective, and considering the mitigation timeframe, the issue of reducing embodied GHG emissions is gaining attention. Effective ways to reduce embodied GHG emissions have been proposed by the use of fast-...
Chapter
Full-text available
The book explores 33 projects in a span of 100 years that were exemplary prototypes of modular construction. The case studies in this book represent illustrations in terms of time for assembly and dismantling, modularity, prefabrication, and reuse. They all use design and engineering strategies able to boost the building’s overall environmental per...
Article
Full-text available
Building demolition is one of the main sources of waste generation in urban areas and is a growing problem for cities due to the generated environmental impacts. To promote high levels of circular economy, it is necessary to better understand the waste-flow composition; nevertheless, material flow studies typically focus on low levels of detail. Th...
Article
Full-text available
Medium and highly sulfidic tailings are high-volume wastes that can lead to severe environmental damage if not properly managed. Due to the high content of sulfide minerals, these tailings can undergo weathering if put in contact with oxygen and water, generating acid mine drainage (AMD). The moderate-to-high sulfide content is also an important te...
Article
Full-text available
In order to limit global warming, remaining carbon budgets have been defined by the IPCC in 2018. In this context translating global goals to local realities implicates a set of different challenges. Standardized methodologies of allocation can support a target-cascading process. On the other hand, local strategies and norms are not currently desig...
Article
Full-text available
There is an increasing effort of the cement and concrete industry to increase material efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions. Several strategies have been identified to achieve this goal, but the implementation of a circular economy (CE) strategy is being pursued most actively by governments and public organizations to increase material efficiency an...
Article
Full-text available
The construction industry is responsible for large quantities of construction and demolition waste and almost 50% of the worldwide annual resource consumption, putting the environment, its natural resources, and ecosystems under high pressure. Therefore, governments are implementing regional policies that support a circular economy (CE). But how do...
Article
Full-text available
Cement is used globally in construction materials for nearly all civil infrastructure systems supporting improved quality of life, and there is currently no substitute that can meet its functional capacity. The magnitude of cement production leads to more than 7% of annual anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, resulting from both energy use...
Conference Paper
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. The scientific and practical evidence clearly suggests that the use of bamboo in the provision of housing solutions not only brings environ...
Article
Full-text available
The construction industry faces many pressures including: to deliver both rapid urbanization and a steep decarbonization of the materials that it uses. Radical reductions in GHG emissions are needed by 2030, so the construction industry must drastically reduce its operational and embodied emissions within a short time frame. It is imperative to sta...
Article
In the next decades, a large share of residential buildings in EU-28 is expected to be renovated and a large amount of insulation materials will be produced. Bio-based materials are a valuable alternative to insulate the buildings and the biogenic carbon can be stored in the built environment for a relative long time. This article investigates the...
Article
Full-text available
Substituting the industrial additives in building materials with natural ones can reduce the embodied carbon in the construction sector. In this paper, the dispersing effect of oak tannin as natural dispersant on clay materials is studied in combination with sodium hydroxide. Through rheological measurements, adsorption tests, and zeta potential me...
Article
Full-text available
The informal settlements in the Global South, mostly comprising of inadequate building solutions, are growing rapidly, therefore calling for more sustainable construction interventions and upgrading strategies. Within this context, this study considers that appropriate construction strategies are capable of engaging with the local economy, affected...
Article
Full-text available
Buildings play a vital role in reaching the targets stated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Increasing the use of wood in construction is a proposed upcoming strategy to reduce the embodied greenhouse gas emissions of buildings. This study examines existing life cycle assessments of wooden bui...
Article
With the increasing globalization of waste-derived raw materials, region-oriented circular economy measures that stimulate resource recovery can cause far-reaching ripple effects in geographically dispersed markets, with unintended environmental effects. Identifying, quantifying, and characterizing these implications in a multiregional economic sys...
Article
Reducing the embodied carbon of reinforced concrete structures is crucial to mitigate climate change. Several stakeholders in the construction value chain can contribute to this effort. Therefore, this work quantifies the influence of various decisions made by different stakeholders on the global warming potential (GWP) of a reinforced concrete str...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The fast precipitation of ettringite in conventional Calcium Sulfo Aluminate (CSA) cement causes rapid stiffening of the cement paste and is directly associated with short setting times and self-desiccation. To extend the time during which those types of cement remain workable, retarding admixtures can be used. However, retarders may affect the amo...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Earthen construction is regaining popularity as an ecological and economical alternative to contemporary building materials. While building with earth offers several benefits, its performance due to water ingress is a concern for its widespread application. This limitation is often solved by adding chemical stabilisers such as Portland cement and h...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The climate crisis is urging us to act fast. Buildings are a key leverage point to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but the embodied emissions related with their construction remain often the hidden challenge of any ambitious policy. Considering that a complete material substitution is not possible, we explore in this paper a material GHG com...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The use of biomass for construction is a promising strategy to store carbon and decrease the construction sector's carbon footprint. This paper aims to determine how much biomass-namely timber for new structures and biogenic fibers for thermal insulation-and the relative land occupation would be needed to satisfy the material demand of the EU resid...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Locally available and with infinite recycling possibilities, the use of earth as building material leads to one of the lowest environmental impacts in the construction sector. Recent advances in the earth materials field have been made based on concrete and ceramics technologies to facilitate its uses in dense areas. It is possible to modify clay p...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Weak water resistance is a big obstacle for clay materials to overcome in modern construction industry. Compared to the hydraulic stabilized additives, bio-additives have a lower carbon footprint and have been used in many vernacular construction techniques to immobilize clay. In this work, the traditional recipes of tannin and iron have been revis...
Conference Paper
To decarbonize the portland cement sector worldwide, the Cement Sustainability Initiative recommends systematically reducing the clinker-to-cement ratio down to 60% by 2050. However, the sources of usable clinker substitutes-the supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs)-are unevenly distributed geographically and will become increasingly scarce i...
Article
Full-text available
The objective of this paper is to define a mix design strategy allowing the implementation of geopolymer in powder bed 3D printing. In a selective binder approach, an aluminosilicate powder bed is activated through the deposit of an alkaline silicate solution. We first show that, in comparison to casting, this technology requires mastering the spre...
Article
Full-text available
Today's cities are ever-growing, especially in the Global South, inducing massive construction activity. To satisfy these needs we need feasible and environmentally sustainable construction materials, the use of local solutions and, if possible, to enable synergies between sectors for maximum environmental benefit. In South Africa and beyond, invas...
Article
Full-text available
This article presents the descriptive statistics of service life data of building elements, gathered through an international, European and Swiss literature review of LCA, LCC and other sources called “Real-Estate Management sources” that include building owners, banks, insurances, associations of tenants and owners, etc. Furthermore, the propertie...
Article
Full-text available
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is increasingly used for decision-making in the design process of buildings and neighbourhoods. Therefore, visualisation of LCA results to support interpretation and decision-making becomes more important. The number of building LCA tools and the published literature has increased substantially in recent years. Most of t...
Article
Full-text available
Building thermal retrofit plays a key role to limit global warming. However, the spatial and temporal dynamics of urban-scale renovation are not well understood. We propose a new methodology that is based on a bottom-up building stock model and links dynamic Material Flow Analysis with dynamic Life Cycle Assessment to include the temporal dynamics...
Article
Full-text available
Action is needed to mitigate climate change. As the building sector is one of the main contributors to energy consumption, renovation of existing buildings is a key strategy. However, for a drastic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) reduction, sensible material solutions are required. Bio-based products seem to be a promising alternative thanks to carb...