“Bamboo has a lot of additional embodied energy as it has to be transported far”
Bamboo vs Local Concrete – embodied energy chart
All things considered, locally sourced is generally better.
Manufacturing & transport contribute to the embodied energy of a product. In the above study comparing locally sourced concrete to bamboo flooring, we can see that the bamboo flooring contains 31% more embodied energy than locally sourced concrete. The major contributor of the embodied energy being the transport.
However, the study does not take into consideration the positive effects bamboo in general has on reversing negative environmental impacts and the commensurate negation of this embodied energy, nor the longer term negative affects that quarries have on the environment. This would need to be considered in the context of a Cradle to Cradle evaluation.
The study does not include the embodied energy & CO2e taken to rehabilitate the quarries, or the environmental impact between commencement of mining to total rehabilitation (if any actually takes place). This is obviously something that is significantly difficult to measure. But should be included in the evaluation.
In contrast, consider the contributions of bamboo:
- Bamboo is a natural water control barrier. With its widespread root system and large canopy, bamboo greatly reduces rain run off, prevents massive soil erosion, and keeps twice as much water in a watershed.
- Bamboo has a very high water use efficiency, double that of any tree species.
- No strip harvesting either, as trees of various maturity are located right next to each other.
- There is no need for CO2e spewing harvesting machinery – the trees are harvested using machetes.
- There is no need for irrigation.
- Bamboo root systems can protect steep banks from erosion.
On the other hand, quarries exacerbate or are often the cause of the many of these ecologically negative issues that bamboo helps prevent or improves.
We have to ask this question: what effect does rehabilitation have on decreasing the gap between the embodied energy of locally sourced concrete vs bamboo flooring? And how much does it increase the gap between the CO2 emissions?
A case in point; there was a big “Save Chapman’s Peak” campaign in Cape Town a number of years back. A company wanted to mine the back of Chapman’s Peak for Kaolin, after a big too’ing & fro’ing the mining was eventually allowed. However, the company had to close operations after mining the site for a few years due to a drop in the demand for it’s Kaolin. So will Chapman’s Peak ever be rehabilitated? Someone has to pay to rehabilitate the mine, and what will the carbon footprint and other environmental impacts be if and when it is rehabilitated?
When one considers the contributions of bamboo in the full Cradle to Cradle scenario, and the additional embodied energy impact of rehabilitating the quarries, we expect that the embodied energy advantage of locally sourced concrete over bamboo, as per this study, will be reduced to significantly less than the calculated 31%. Possibly even completely negating the advantage locally sourced concrete currently has over bamboo flooring.
So what about locally sourced alternatives? Read on ...
