Western Asian and Northern African residential building stocks: archetype analysis

Buildings are significant consumers of natural and manufactured resources, especially in rapidly urbanizing regions. This study presents the first comprehensive analysis of residential building stocks in 19 countries across these Western Asia and Northern Africa (WANA), utilizing an archetype-based, bottom-up, stock-modeling approach. By integrating life-cycle assessment (LCA) with building energy models via BuildME, the study estimates the material, energy, and annualized life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions (ALCGHGE) intensities associated with various residential building types. These findings provide critical insights into the resource use and environmental impact of residential buildings in WANA, considering the region’s diverse climatic, architectural, and economic contexts. Significant variations are found in both total residential emissions and the proportion attributed to material-related versus use-phase-related sources. The analysis reveals that 64% of total annualized life-cycle emissions from residential buildings stem from operational energy use, e.g. 90% in Qatar and 38% in Georgia. Oman has the highest per capita annualized material use at 3 t/capita/year, while Kuwait shows the highest total per capita emissions at 5 tCO₂eq/capita/year, significantly outpacing countries such as Morocco and Syria (0.7 and 0.5 tCO₂eq/capita/year, respectively). Although single-family houses are the least emission-intensive per m², they exhibit the highest emissions per dwelling unit.