Weakness of the Embodied Energy Assessment on Construction: A Literature Review

Construction industry consumes a large amount of energy and resources in both developed and developing countries. The opportunities for improving energy efficiency of construction could be research considering energy assessment and thereby providing suggestions for practical action. The research on embodied energy (EE) is an important endeavor of this orientation. The aim of this review paper is to investigate and analyze research weakness of present embodied energy study on construction. To do so, a professional searching tool called Academic 2.0 was employed to collect relevant publications from multiple databases in this research field. After obtaining relevant studies, paper elimination and information collection are performed based on predefined criteria. Data analysis was then performed and showed that assessment method, data sources, and research boundary differed dramatically amongst present study. And, they are weaknesses of current study. These results could help researchers deeply understand present study weakness and then overcome it in further study.