The relevance of cut-stone to strategies for low-carbon buildings

A systemic and configurable model for evaluating the global warming potential (GWP) of cut -stone building materials on the French market is developed and then used to benchmark performances against available low -carbon alternatives (cross -laminated timber (CLT) and slag concrete), for which ranges of GWP allocation models (regulatory and research -driven methods) are used to evaluate underlying uncertainties. Cut -stones stand out for their compliance to three key emission profile criteria in which industrial ecology roadmaps should anchor incentives for material selection: (1) a low margin of uncertainty on GWP values, (2) invariability of GWP magnitudes through time and (3) a high comparative performance with available alternatives. Assuming typically implemented load -bearing wall thicknesses (industry averages of 13, 20 and 24 cm for CLT, concretes and cut -stone, respectively) and high -probability scenarios for all materials, cut -stone assemblies are shown to be 1.43 and 2.73 times less impactful (GWP100) than CLT and slag concrete, respectively. Potential impacts of industrial applications at the parc scale are studied, showing that implementing cut -stone instead of concrete walls on 30% of new French collective housing projects over the 2025-50 period would result in a 2.77 Mt CO2e decrease in the embodied emissions of the parc, against 0.43 for slag concrete and 1.18 for CLT (high -probability).